Tad Richards' odyssey through the catalog of Prestige Records:an unofficial and idiosyncratic history of jazz in the 50s and 60s. With occasional digressions.
K. C. Douglas has the kind of easygoing command of both his voice and his guitar that can go all night, and on this recording session, produced in Oakland by Kenneth L/ Goldstein and Chris Strachwitz,and engineered by he did exactly that, or pretty darn close to it, recording 23 songs that would go onto two separate albums (double albums weren't really a thing in those days).
The rediscovery of the blues was starting to heat up by 1961. Strachwitz, a German-born blues enthusiast living in northern California, had founded Arhoolie Records, one of the most important blues labels of the era. He had gone to Texas with the idea of
recording Lightnin' Hopkins live in a local beer joint, only to find that Hopkins had given up the beer joints and was in the process of decamping for the coast. Frustrated, he cast about for another local bluesman in another beer joint, and discovered Mance Lipscomb, a 65-year-old tenant farmer and son of an emancipated slave, who had never recorded before. Lipscomb was a major find, and became a fixture on the folk and blues circuit. He recorded Douglas a number of times over the years, licensing this session to Prestige, and hanging on to other cuts, eventually releasing them on Arhoolie in 1998.
Douglas had performed on one recording before, by his friend and West Coast compatriot, the harmonica player Sidney Maiden. It was recorded in Berkeley, quite likely by Strachwitz, although I haven't been able to find that information. Although Maiden frequently backed him up in performance, and on earlier recordings, Douglas goes solo here. The session notes indicate that it was done in two sessions, both on the same day. The first session, which made up the album K. C.'s Blues, is all original songs. The second, which became Big Road Blues, is largely songs by others. Douglas is a good enough writer in the blues vein to carry an entire 12-song album, and he doesn't even include his best-known song, "Mercury Blues," which was a minor hit for Douglas in 1948, and a major hit for country singer Alan Jackson in 1993. It has also been recorded by Steve Miller, Jackson Browne, Dwight Yoakam, and several others, including Finnish rocker Pave Maijanen as "Pakko Saada BMW" (where it becomes a foreign import--the title translates as "Gotta Get a BMW").
It does include songs about good women who leave and bad women who don't ("Ain't no tellin' what she might do / She might cut you, and she might shoot you too"). He can go after women like a rootin' ground hog or a watchdog trying to find a bone, which is not likely, because he's been replaced by a younger watchdog. Hey, this is the blues.
The second session begins with Tommy Johnson's "Big Road Blues," which has been widely recorded, and was the subject of a fascinating book by blues scholar David Evans. He gives a little Howling Wolf, and a little Big Bill Broonzy, and Jim Jackson's classic take on "Kansas City." "Bottle Up and Go" has been done by a plethora of bluesmen under a plethora of titles: "Borrow Love and Go," "Step it Up and Go." I know it best by Lead Belly, but it's originally by Mississippi bluesman Tommy McLennnan. When a guy can play and sing all night, it's good that he knows a whole buncha songs.
Listening to Prestige Vol 4, 1959-60, now available from Amazon! Also on Kindle! Volumes 1-3 are also available from Amazon.
The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT.
Sidney Maiden was very lightly recorded in his lifetime, so we can thank Prestige Bluesville for this, his only LP recording. Maiden was a West Coast transplant from Louisiana who hooked up with Mississippian K. C. Douglas in Oakland, and they worked together frequently, making a few records under Douglas's name and a few under Maiden's. Their style probably reflects their adopted West Coast home more than their southern upbringing: they don't really sing or play Delta blues. With Maiden's harmonica and Douglas's guitar, their style, if anything, is more reminiscent of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, New Yorkers by way of the Piedmont country.
Douglas was reunited with Maiden for the Bluesville session, and their eclectic set includes a couple of numbers associated with Terry and McGhee, "Fox Chase" (here called "Sidney's Fox Chase") and "Sweet Little Woman."
Maiden’s song selections in general are interesting, and the credits for them are interesting too. We live in a world where any combination of notes is likely to be litigated, and any hit song will bring lawsuits out of the woodwork. This probably got started with the plagiarism suit against George Harrison for allegedly pirating the tune of the Chiffons' "He's So Fine" for his "My Sweet Lord," and it really kicked into high gear recently when the estate of Marvin Gaye won a $5.3 million lawsuit against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams. Gaye's estate claimed, and a judge upheld, that Thicke/Williams's "Blurred Lines" had plagiarized Gaye's "Got to Give It Up."
There's a certain magic in the words "5.3 million dollars" that one would not find in discussions of music of a different era. Miles Davis took composer credit for a tune written by Jackie McLean, "Dig." McLean considered suing Miles, and consulted a lawyer, but the lawyer told him that even if he one, the royalties for a jazz composition would not cover the cost of the lawsuit.
So it was with the blues. Composer credit for "Sidney's Fox Chase" on the Bluesville album goes to Sidney Maiden. It's probably a tune that predates the 20th century, but it's certainly best known by Sonny Terry, and its first prominent exposure was Terry's performance of it in John Hammond's 1938 "Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall. A 1944 recording gives "Arranged by Sonny Terry" in lieu of any composer credit at all. The flip side of that record is "Sweet Woman," composer credit to Sonny Terry, although it was probably composed by Terry's mentor Blind Boy Fuller, and its antecedents are likely earlier than that. Here, co-composer credit is given to Maiden and fellow Oakland resident Jesse "Lone Cat" Fuller.
In those days, songs, especially in the blues and rhythm and blues worlds, were somewhat protean, coalescing, separating and re-coalescing, with no one paying too much attention, unless by chance one flew beyond its niche audience and became a hit in the pop (white) world. Such was the case with "Earth Angel," probably written by Jesse Belvin, with parts of it lifted from other sources. "Earth Angel" became a huge national hit, enough of a moneymaker for Belvin to sue for credit, and eventually receive partial credit.
Maiden's name is on all of the songs on this album, and he likely as not did write most of them, but a few co-writing credits are interesting. "My Black Name" is credited to Sonny Boy Williamson/Sidney Maiden, but Williamson first recorded it in 1941. B. B. King would later record it, in 1964, as "I Can Hear My Name," composer B. B. King. "Sidney's Worried Life Blues," credited to Sidney and Big Maceo Merriweather, was recorded by Big Maceo in 1941, with Sidney's name nowhere near Maceo's composer credit, and the same song, as "Someday Baby Blues," written by Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon, was recorded in 1936. "Me and My Chauffeur Blues" (Sidney Maiden/Memphis Minnie) was recorded by Memphis Minnie, again in 1941, which was coincidentally around the time that Maiden arrived in Oakland and began to be exposed to a wide range of recorded blues.
All of this is interesting rather than shocking. There was no $5.3 million at stake, nothing to make it worth suing anyone for. "Worried Life Blues" and "Me and My Chauffeur Blues" did, later on, make some money for someone. "Worried Life Blues" has become one of the most recorded blues songs of all time, with versions by nearly every big name blues artists, by rhythm and blues stars like Chuck Berry and Ray Charles, even as a jazz tune by Oscar Pettiford. And then into bigger money territory when recorded by rock stars the Animals, the Blues Magoos, and Eric Clapton. Very little of which benefitted Merriweather, who died in 1953, or Maiden, whose name was only attached to his version. "Me and My Chauffeur" was recorded by Nina Simone, Big Mama Thornton, and Geoff and Maria Muldaur, among others, but its closest brush with big bucks came in a recording by an early (pre-Grace Slick) version of the Jefferson Airplane. Memphis Minnie lived to 1973, but the last 13 years of her life were confined to a nursing home after a stroke, barely getting by on social security, so it doesn't seem that she saw much from "Me and My Chauffeur."
Any blues becomes personal in the hands of a good bluesman or woman, and that's the case with all of the songs on this collection. Sidney Maiden is worth a listen.
