The gospel "call and response" song "John the Revelator" was first committed to 78rpm shellac by Blind Willie Johnson and his wife Willie B Harris in 1930, although it's likely to be much older than that in both melody and basic concept. It references the writing f the Book of seven Seals (i.e. Revelations) by John of Patmos, known in the King James Version as St John the Divine. It has been re...
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The new CD from this guitar great has this and a few other fine covers for you to enjoy.
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I've gotta say, this is one of my favorite "All-Star Tribute Band" albums. Not a bad cut in the bunch. A favorite of the harem as well. Amazon.comBack in 1969, Muddy Waters and Otis Spann teamed with young guns Paul Butterfield and Michael Bloomfield to create Fathers & Sons. The idea was to match the sagacity of the "old timers" with the flash and commercial muscle of the upstarts. Nearly thre...
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Mighty (1995)Experimentalist E# Plays The Blues"Guitarist Elliott Sharp is most known for experimental outings that are characteristic of the late-20th century "downtown" New York scene, but he has also expressed a deep love for the blues. Even so, Hoosegow - which features Sharp on guitars and Queen Esther on vocals - will surprise much of his audience. Queen Esther and Sharp wrote all but one...
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Miississippi John Hurt unquestionably did not write this - it was rearranged by A.P. Carter with new lyrics from an original hymn by Ada Habershon, published in 1907. This track is from his Library of Congress recordings in 1963. The song has been recorded many hundreds of times in countless styles, mainly country, gospel and blues, and even in a reggae vein by the Dynamic Ken Parker (which I h...
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John Littlejohn was bluesman in the Chicago style. He was a fixture in the windy city for decades, but recorded only sparsely. He made his first records in 1968...NOT a good year for the blues. He recorded a full length album for Arhoolie records & a reported four songs for Chess. The Chess sides were never released in Littlejohn's lifetime....only seeing the light of day on this Chess c...
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Vile Foamy Ectoplasm (1967-81)Vault Tapes From Ex-Mother of Invention A rare solo release from former Mothers of Invention keyboardist, Don Preston. Released in 1993, but featuring recordings from 1967-81, Vile Foamy Ectoplasm boasts plenty of Mothers alumni; Jimmy Carl Black, 3 Fowler Brothers, Roy Estrada, Arthur Barrow and Bunk Gardner (Motorhead Sherwood, Howard Kaylan and Miss Lucy even sh...
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Been listening to John Lee Hooker a lot lately. Always seemed to me to be a summer blues type. I had the pleasure of seeing him a couple of times in the late seventies in Detroit at the Soup Kitchen. This is the first record I got on Vee-Jay records. It is a little later than the original Detroit sides of the late 40's and early 50's, probably mid 50's. His voice and playing was a little fuller...
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Mississippi John Hurt (c. 1892-1966) was one of a fairly small number of musicians born in the nineteenth century still active in the 1960s. This, as far as I can discern, is one of his later recordings when he was aged close to sixty. The song itself is perhaps even older - if the contest between man of immense strength and steam drill did take place, it was during the era of railroad expansio...
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Been getting into playing Blues records on saturday morning. Hound Dog Taylor has always been one of my favorites. Bruce Iglauer started a record company....Alligator Records just to record him. I am so glad he did. I have always been fond of the Elmore James style of playing. Its a shame nothing from the period before Alligator has ever surfacedMore >
Moving on from the Top Eleven that I posted at the weekend , here are my ten least popular posts ever. This list is, I accept, not wholly fair, as most of these posts are either by performers whose names do not register on the MOG Artist Search database, or weere written in the weekend in May 2008 when MOG ate all the posts. Although they came back to life, they do NOT appear when you check out...
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That's me on the bass guitar...one of the best bands I was in...did one CD with them...this was a fun cover to play at bars!
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The Mog Father put up a video today that's prompted me to write a post that's been floating around in my head for some time. David's post is about the death of music criticism, which I hope isn't the case, but there is something to be said about the difference between good music criticism and bad music criticism.A while back, I took issue with AP's Ron Harris' review of Already Free, the new al...
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A couple of weeks ago I posted a tune by Bobby Bland from his early fifties period on the Duke label. Back then, he went on tour with Duke's other star, Little Junior Parker, the singer and harmonica player who wrote "Mystery Train" (although he did borrow a lyric from the Carter Family). His guitarist was the notorious Auburn "Pat" Hare, who wrote and recorded "I'm Gonna Murder My Baby" in 195...
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Not particularly enamored with their new release though I do like this track.Washington State quintet Alligators'Kristian Arper: drums, vocalsDaniel Lewis: synthesizersTyler Lewis: bass, vocalsBradley Pooler: guitarJoshua Trembley: vocals, guitar
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