Listening to Prestige 599: Jimmy Witherspoon

LISTEN TO ONE: Don't Let Go

Jimmy Witherspoon's first Prestige album was recorded partly in Englewood Cliffs with Ozzie Cadena producing, partly on the West Coast, which was his home base. This session, though released by Prestige. was entirely recorded on the West Coast. with an interesting collection of musicians.

Heading that list would have to be T-Bone Walker, the Texas-born, California-based musician who is credited, along with Charlie Christian, with being one of the first musicians to perform on the electric guitar. 

It's digressing a bit from music, but here's one of my favorite T-Bone Walker stories, as told by him to his biographer Helen Oakley Dance. Walker grew up in Texas, and as young boy, living in the slums of West Dallas, his best friend was a little white boy, also a slum kid. They were inseparable, according to Walker. like brothers, in and out of each other's houses. Walker eventually took his guitar, moved to California, and became famous as a blues singer, pioneer of the electric guitar, and composer of the blues classic "Stormy Monday." His friend stayed in the southwest, became proficient on another instrument, and is known for a phrase almost as famous as "They call it stormy Monday" -- "we rob banks."  

His friend was Clyde Barrow.

More to the point, Walker is one of the most influential guitarists ever, with virtually every important electric blues guitarist crediting him as their chief influence.

Clifford Scott is another Texan, who worked with a number of jazz and R&B bandleaders, including Lionel Hampton, Roy Milton and Ray Charles, but is best known for his many years with Bill Doggett. He played the saxophone solo on "Honky Tonk."

The others are less well known, although bassist Clarence Jones recorded with Hampton Hawes, but all of them combine to give Witherspoon one of his bluesiest settings.

The result is a highly satisfying outing through a bunch of Witherspoon originals and some blues and R&B standards. Among the former, although it ought to be among the latter, is "How Long Blues," credited here to Witherspoon, but it's the classic Leroy Carr song, itself a reworking of Ida Cox's "How Long, Daddy, How Long." It's a song Witherspoon had first recorded in 1949. This version of it features a powerful solo by Walker.

One of the liveliest songs from the session is Jesse Stone's "Don't Let Go." Originally recorded by Roy Hamilton, it's become a standard, with versions from the Western swing of Asleep at the Wheel to the soul of Isaac Hayes. At the other end of the emotional pendulum is the title track, written by Witherspoon.

Witherspoon, whose next Prestige albums would be recorded in the east at Rudy Van Gelder's studio with Ozzie Cadena producing, is here in the hands of David Axelrod, a man of varied accomplishments. He was the longtime producer of Cannonball Adderley and Lou Rawls for Capitol, but he also produced the soundtrack for Beach Blanket Bingo and several albums for actor David McCallum. As a composer/conductor, he produced two albums of songs based on William Blake's poetry, and a rock version of Handel's Messiah.

"Evenin'" and "Money's Getting Cheaper" were released as a 45 RPM single, and Evenin' Blues became the title of the album. Since the session was recorded out on the West Coast, there were more alternate takes kept, and four of them -- "Don't Let Go," "I've Been Treated Wrong," "Evenin'" and "Cane River" were added as bonus tracks on the Original Blues Classics CD reissue. "Money's Gettin' Cheaper" and "Evenin'" were the 45 RPM single release.