Wilson Lindsey

In the last few months blues has become very popular with the white coffee house crowds. This blues is a kind of washed out version of what was popular during the forties and early fifties when now familiar names like Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Sunnyland Slim, Little Walter and Jimmy Reed were popular to a different type of audience. Most of the artists mentioned are still turning out albums in the blues city, Chicago, but the music has changed, maybe for the better, maybe not. The old gut-bucket style of delivery, the slurred speech, and the startlingly honest lyrics have been toned down slightly.

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Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tick—Greatest Hits (Fontana)...this freaky looking and even more strange sounding group has made its first album a landmark. The sounds on this LP were all written by some character called H. Blaikley with the exception of HERE’S A HEART written by Tubbs Segal. Instrumental and vocally it’s a good effort, and the LP is well produced.

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This band formerly known as the Hawks has the distinction of being Bob Dylan’s backing group. They are polished musicians and this album boasts a lot in the way of imagination in regards to lyrics and clever rhythm changes. The standout cut on the L.P. is a composition entitled ‘Tears of Rage’, penned by Dylan and band pianist Richard Manual: Good.

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Wes Montgomery—“March 6, 1968” (Riverside)

Wes Montgomery is simply one of the two greatest jazz guitarists of all time, the other being Charley Christian. A writer may go on and on and on about the innovations, contributions, and prestige this man gave to jazz but it may suffice to say that he undoubtedly was the best. This album was previously released on the old Riverside label and definitely doesn’t possess the clarity and forcefulness of his later Verve performances. (Due only to dated recording techniques.) But newly converted Wes Montgomery fans may find his old recordings a source of knowledge and a chronicled account of a great artist’s transition and maturation.

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There may come a time when musicians may agree with critics about certain recorded performances, when and if this time comes it will be an absolutely mind shattering synthesis of opinion.

I am not talking about the Leonard Feathers and the Richard Goldsteins who have more than a workingman’s knowledge of music. Technically I am talking about the long haired chick on the staff of a well-to-do teen rag who writes in sexually graphic terms about Jimi Hendrix eating his guitar from the inside out, or the smooth talking cat who works in a record shop who answers your pleas for a good blues record by handing you Fleetwood Mac, a cellophane version of the real thing, when you wanted Billy Hawks or Bobby Bland.

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“A Long Time Comin’”

The Electric Flag (Columbia)

The Electric Flag’s long-awaited LP is in every respect a fine recording and well indicative of this group’s abundant talent and ability to communicate and excite.

It is due to Michael Bloomfield who has reigned in the U.S. as white bluesdom’s most charismatic guitarist and personality. He was perhaps the main attraction of The Butterfield Blues Band for more than two years.

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This column is primarily concerned with contemporary jazz, relevant jazz, music with not only social significance, but sounds derived from environment, relating directly from experience. The very word jazz to many listeners conjures up stereotyped images. Most common is the movie image, the usual pseudo biographical tale of a musician tormented by the everyday series of musician’s “furies” dope, women and/or booze—not necessarily in that order. There is usually a social hangup or two with the hefty bleached blonde that quickly fades into oblivion leaving tons of grief in her wake. The musician, of course, is portrayed by Sammy Davis.

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Capitol Records thought so highly of this West Coast group that they saw fit to shell out a reputed $50,000 in advance to record them. On record Steve Miller’s band is deceivingly extraordinary. Listening to this L.P. for the first time was painfully boring. They are not obviously exciting the first time around. The album is so smooth and uncluttered it may give the illusion of childish simplicity.

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This band’s blues roots were first formed years ago during the British blues invasion started by The Rolling Stones. During this embryonic stage, many teenagers had suspicions that the Stones were copying...yes, copying, but from whom?

Some started research, combing through old Negro blues LP’s until they happened on a song title they recognized, and discovered that the Stones were drawing from many blues sources.

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