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Joined: Sat January 05, 2013 1:57 pm Posts: 32523 Location: Where everybody knows your name
liebzz wrote:
John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers - Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton
With the addition of Eric Clapton, this band takes a massive leap from what seemed like a harmless Chicago blues cover band to another stratosphere. It’s almost hard to remember there was a time when Eric Clapton was awesome, but here it is. Slaying over top Flint’s drums and McVie’s bass, this instantly is a must hear album, each track playing off elements of the blues with rawness but also near perfect execution. This is one of those albums I wish I knew much sooner.
Not only that, but it’s a good selection of TYPES of blues tunes. That goes away in FM with Jeremy Spencer.
_________________ Let me tell you, Homer Simpson is cock of nothing! - C. Montgomery Burns
On this one, we subtract Eric Clapton, and substitute in Peter Green. Green more than handles the task, and while he may not be Eric Clapton, he actually inspires a bit more creativity where the prior album was a thrilling but straight take on blues. Songs here, like the run from It’s Over through Another Kinda Love don’t feature the same speed sparks, but go in all sorts of interesting directions. Another Kinda Love in particular is pretty spectacular. Having just departed from a long deep dive into the Allman Brothers Band, the Bluesbreakers version of You Don’t Love Me is pretty respectable. The Stumble and The Super-Natural are both engaging instrumentals. Dust My Blues is also a solid take. It ultimately does not reach the heights of the prior album but certainly holds it own here.
This final John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers album that we cover here once again sees the band banging out blues covers and originals, and once again for the fourth straight (fifth if you count The Blues Alone where Mayall basically does it all by himself) album, Mayall enlists a different guitarist - this time future Rolling Stone Mick Taylor. Taylor does sound pretty great, and the songs are pretty strong. My Time After a While, Snowy Wood, and especially Driving Sideways are great additions. Their version of I Can’t Quit You Baby is much smoother than the more famous cover a few years later. Pretty solid all on all though admittedly I was a little cooked after 4 Mayall blues albums in one day. It’s time, however, to move forward to the next chapter, and all this was a bit better than I expected.
Eddie Boyd with Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac - 7936 South Rhodes
Blues great Eddie Boyd backed by Fleetwood Mac. These guys mostly power through Chicago blues mostly highlighted by Peter Green and Eddie Boyd, who has a great blues voice. Solid start to finish if you are into that kind of thing. I enjoyed it.
I just learned Christine McVie passed. She was a songwriting force of nature. Her work on Tango In The Night is so good. She was a important counter point to Nicks. She was one of the single most important women in pop/rock history. RIP
Well, it’s high time we got to some actually Fleetwood Mac on this journey. Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, Mick Fleetwood, and John McVie start us off with some great 12 bar blues - My Heart Beats Like a Hammer, Merry Go Round, Shake Your Moneymaker, Cold Black Night, and Got to Move are all outstanding, though the winner here for me was I Loved Another Woman which is just a killer blues track. There’s some weird stuff like sudden fade outs and false starts that lend a sort of raw feel to this album and make it feel imperfect and not totally smooth, and that may be to the album’s benefit since the songs don’t blend together as much as was happening with the Bluesbreakers leading into this. Very good album.
Joined: Sat January 05, 2013 1:57 pm Posts: 32523 Location: Where everybody knows your name
liebzz wrote:
Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac
Well, it’s high time we got to some actually Fleetwood Mac on this journey. Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, Mick Fleetwood, and John McVie start us off with some great 12 bar blues - My Heart Beats Like a Hammer, Merry Go Round, Shake Your Moneymaker, Cold Black Night, and Got to Move are all outstanding, though the winner here for me was I Loved Another Woman which is just a killer blues track. There’s some weird stuff like sudden fade outs and false starts that lend a sort of raw feel to this album and make it feel imperfect and not totally smooth, and that may be to the album’s benefit since the songs don’t blend together as much as was happening with the Bluesbreakers leading into this. Very good album.
I enjoyed it as well. A really good intro to a good blues band. Apparently, Green played on the Spencer cuts but Spencer had no desire to play on the Green tracks. Which could be a reason why the tunes don’t “blend together” very well. I don’t think I’d care for that very much if I was Green.
Both men have incredible blues voices. If I didn’t already know better, I’d swear Spencer was a 50-year-old black man from the Mississippi delta.
_________________ Let me tell you, Homer Simpson is cock of nothing! - C. Montgomery Burns
Yes. Another British blues band fully emulating American blues - but our first exposure to Christine Perfect (McVie). Contributing keys and lead vocals on a few of the tracks, though the highlight here is Stan Webb’s guitar playing. When the Train Comes Back and You Ain’t No Good are both really strong tracks from McVie, and most of the rest of this is solid translation of the blues sound. The vocals from Webb can be a little too much at points, but this is an enjoyable album.
Whereas the first album was a messy if not rough attempt at capturing the raw energy of blues, Mr. Wonderful sees them getting a pretty strong handle on it, but it instead of elevating their game, it seems a bit too slavishly devoted to its predecessors. It begs the question: if I am in the mood for Elmore James, or Muddy Waters, why would I just listen to them? Peter Green is a great guitarists, but is he bringing anything to the table here I can’t get from the traditional bluesmen’s bands? Interesting, where this album probably benefits the most is their integration of keys with Christine Perfect (McVie) in a supporting role. It’s fine I guess but didn’t walk away from this one with the same sense of excitement.
Joined: Sat January 05, 2013 1:57 pm Posts: 32523 Location: Where everybody knows your name
This is the one that turned me off Jeremy Spencer. Every one of his contributions was either an Elmore James cover or featured the exact same slide riff. It made it a VERY hard album to make it thru. There was no variety in his tracks at all. Green’s tracks at least weren’t the same riff over and over and over. Perfect’s contributions were ok but merely consisted of backing rhythm. If this was the path they continued on, they would’ve become a very boring band.
_________________ Let me tell you, Homer Simpson is cock of nothing! - C. Montgomery Burns
This is the one that turned me off Jeremy Spencer. Every one of his contributions was either an Elmore James cover or featured the exact same slide riff. It made it a VERY hard album to make it thru. There was no variety in his tracks at all. Green’s tracks at least weren’t the same riff over and over and over. Perfect’s contributions were ok but merely consisted of backing rhythm. If this was the path they continued on, they would’ve become a very boring band.
Recorded in January 1969 with this Green/Spencer lineup. Really one of the things that draws me to blues music, and this particular format, is that in a live setting there are many opportunities to take this chord progression and do something with it that takes it to a whole new level. I am not sure that is really accomplished here. For most of the first half of this show, the band seems largely asleep outside of the lead guitar, and when they wake up for two strong versions of Rollin’ Man and Lemon Squeezer, it may be a bit too late. The closer, a cover of Great Balls of Fire, is great though frustrating to know this band was capable of so much more all show and didn’t bother. So there are good nuggets in here, but largely straight forward playing slightly more animated from mechanical.
The second and last Chicken Shack album to feature Christine Perfect, who would certainly move on to bigger and better things shortly. What little there is to enjoy about this band, Christine Perfect’s vocals, Stan Webb’s guitar playing only come through in spots. As with a few of the albums we’ve journeyed through so far, there’s no real reason to listen to this. Pretty generic take on the blues with no bite, and excruciatingly bad comedy bits in between songs that only the people in the studio could possibly laugh at. Rather than add any sense of charm, these bits make the songs sound like a parody of the blues. I am clearly not in on the joke.
Jeremy Spencer seems to be fading out of the picture, with Danny Kirwan stepping in with Peter Green, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. The result is a much more varied album touching much of the contemporary sounds of that day mixed in with a base of blues. This is an extreme upgrade from the last album. Even the more straight forward blues songs feel fresher juxtaposed with the psychedelic rock, and folk touches this album includes. Case in point is Rattlesnake Shake, but there’s a good amount of nuggets here to enjoy. One Sunny Day, Show Biz Blues, and especially the instrumental tracks are all high quality. Before the Beginning though might be a personal favorite - that’s one helluva album closer.
Joined: Sat January 05, 2013 1:57 pm Posts: 32523 Location: Where everybody knows your name
Agreed. A definite upgrade. Green’s moving out of the straight blues box and into coming up with his own riffs. Including one of the out-and-out best riffs in all of rock ‘n’ roll: Oh, Well. A top 5 Mac song. Part 1 anyway. Never really gave much attention to Part 2 and I never will again. But at least it’s something different. As mentioned above, Rattlesnake Shake is a great track. Hell, most of them are quite enjoyable. Perfect even gets a piano solo or two in there and she’s quite the competent blues piano player. Still appearing in a studio session capacity, tho. This is a finally a band with some legs and you get the sense they’re going somewhere with this somewhat new direction. But alas, it’s not meant to be…
_________________ Let me tell you, Homer Simpson is cock of nothing! - C. Montgomery Burns
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