DENNIS, DEAD IN WAR
THE RIGHTEOUS NATIVE
First Verse
I ain't no Oakie from Muskogee,
I'm iust a down-home hippie
from Mystic Mississippi.
I aet high on sorcrum, chitlins, beans.
Coca Cola and nudi-zines.
Thomas Baker
ffiQtDSa®
By Dan Fisher
"/ went down to the crossroads. And I tried to flag a ride ... But nobody seemed to know me; Everybody passed me by ... "
""Crossroads BIues"/Robert Johnson
Robert Johnson, "The King of the Delta Guitar," composer of a couple of dozen of the classic blues, and inspiration for an entire school of blues guitarists, took an allegorical journey down to the crossroads, asked for a ride, and was "passed by."
Three decades later, a whole bunch of handsome White British and American boys tramped down to the same crossroads, dragging along with them their P.R. men, hair dressers, and several million dollars worth of electrical equipment. Once assembled there, they stuck out their respective right thumbs and, before you could say, "I smell a hype," were picked up by that Grand Old Patron of Put-On, The American Freak. And guess who's taking whom for a ride.
The esoteric world of the blues and its people has come to represent a sort of El Dorado to young White musicians, and the past few years have seen The Road jammed with Questers. Some, like John Hammond do near-perfect impersonations of the Old Masters in misguided hopes of "finding it" (cute at first, but boring in the long run, and often thoroughly tasteless). Others attempt to create their own blues form and idiom (John Mayall, a prime example of this, gets sillier with each successive album. His latest, "The Turning Point" is simply West Coast jazz with Sonny Boy Williamson II harp grafted into it. He calls it, "... a new direction in blues music."), not realizing that the essence of the blues is its traditional form and idiom. And then we have the Eric Claptons who try for a while, but eventually give up, buy themselves a fuzz box and a wah-wah pedal, and resign themselves to being White money makers (and blessed are these, for they shall be called "Honest"" to a degree. Comparatively speaking.). We have been deluged in recent years with recordings by these people and their imitators, and most of the recordings have been, not surprisingly, pretty lame stuff indeed.
Good news, then, is the recent release by the venerable Chess label of a double album entitled "Fathers and Sons" (You saw it in the record shop a month ago, and figured it was another new Psych group). The album features Muddy Waters backed up by such illustrious sidemen as Sam Lay, Buddy Miles, Otis Spann and Donald Dunn ('The Fathers") and Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloom field ("The Sons"), This is not another of Chess's "New Cover-New Name-They won't Know Till They Get Home With It" re-issues of old sides, but rather a high quality, well-engineered take of sessions played last April
Until the newspaper printed my past with yours, I had forgotten you completely.
Solo trumpet in a high school band you led before the rest could read the notes. Majorettes learned rhythm from your horn.
They never charmed you. They twirled the football team. You flew one summer beyond all thoughts.
I wonder what you read
in the jungle webbed beneath you. What
did you see at last
abandoning us all, plunging in fantastic arpeggios toward the damp steam, screwing your silvery self into the darkened earth?
Tom Lewis
Fathers and Sons
Obviously inspired by the success of the recent rash of "Super Session"-type albums (Gather several well-known musical personalities in a studio, have them jam on some standard numbers, edit out any resultant crap, and sell the rest to the Big Name-Buying Public). "Fathers and Sons" succeeds aesthetically where so many albums of this type do not, because its musicians are (forgive me) "Together." And their together-ness is due chiefly to the display of those Long-Forgotten-By-Musicians-Of-Our-Time Qualities known as self-discipline and humility. Bloomfield and Butterfield, Freak idols that they are, step in when they're allowed in They play their respective solos (short ones, for a welcome change), and step back out to the Main Man's way. It's Muddy's trip, and they've been invited along, and nobody's about to try any back-seat driving. How nice.
The first record of the set is a fine example of very tight studio work. The number's are mostly Muddy Water's old hits done as he has always done them, with the notable exception of the backing guitar and harp (Bloomfield and Butterfield) being generally superior to that done on earlier recordings of these selections. Otis Spann, Muddy's long-time sideman, comes on with some of the finest blues piano ever recorded"his bass figures flittering deftly around the King's gravelly, down, down way-down voice-reminding one of Memphis Slim's more controlled playing.
Technically, the first record is nearly perfect, but this very quality makes it seem a little tame. The listerner finds himself waiting for these guys to loosen up a little, to get natural. The waiting is gratified upon hearing the second album (recorded live at Chicago's "Super Cosmic Joy Scout Jamboree"). All of the qualities that characterize really good live recordings"spontaneity, intensity, and mutual excitement and pleasure on the part of the audience and the performers "are here in abundance. The songs, again are Muddy's old songs, but done with more gusto ("SHOUTING THE BLUES," you understand) than any of the previous recordings of them has revealed.
Donald Dunn and Sam Lay do what a rhythm section is supposed to do; they lay down a solid background for the lead men to build on (An old musician's trick, it was frequently practiced in the Pre-"Cream" era.) And on this background, three secondary leads" Butterfield's harp, Bloomfield's guitar, and Spann's piano-build and grow in perfect coordination to surround and ornament Muddy's gut-singing (If God sings the blues, you know he sounds just like Muddy Waters) and slide /lead guitar.
From the bitterly humorous "Long Distance Call" with its jive rap finale-more elaborate than previous versions (" ... and there stands my wife; she was jump in' up and down; she was pattin' her hands, and she was bat tin' her eyes, and
she was sayin', 'Muddy Waters, there's another mule kickin' in your stall...' ") through such oldies as "Honey Bee," "Baby Please Don't Go," and that Crotch Classic, "The Same Thing" to the super-charged, no-holds-barred "Got My Mojo Workin' " (They do it harder and faster than one would have thought possible, and as they finish it, Buddy Miles walks on and takes Sam Lay's place at the drums, and, by God, they do it all over again to a crowd gone wild), The Fathers and Sons are as absolutely together as good bluesmen can be, digging their music and each other and old Muddy entirely too much to allow their egos to interfere. And they obviously have one hell of a good time doing so .The proverbial hat is off to all of them, but especially to those apprentice Sons who accepted that easy ride at the crossroads a few years ago, but humbly went back to wait again, this time in the company of some good men who've been down there a long time.
there is a green arrow
there is 'an old hag'
who doesn't understand
traffic signals
she happens to be driving
the car directly
in front of me
she happens to stay
motionless
when our line
of traffic
could peacefully
be moving
each to his
destination
I interrupt this false peace this suspended animation with the meagre horn of my foreign car
until finally she moves & we stop
next to each other
at the light
I roll down
my window
S signal her
to do the same
she does
I explain
her stupidity
to her
before quickly closing the window, her reply:
I've lived here all my life
[from Glossary of the Everyday]
Jonathan Greene
The people speak as to the beauty and purity of the store: \
"says student activist and revolution monger "Che" KillapigforChrist: "Although the whole concept of the capitalist economy is rotten to the core, the store somehow captures the essence and spirit of the worker's struggle."
"says Glenna Gotmeth, speed freak:
"Like it'stoomuchlmeanthepostersandthe
pipesarejust.andthere'sthisblacklightroom
andalittlero o m where youcangohi t upand
thecoconut incenseisand t hesix-f oo tlong post erof a jo in tandt he roachclips
"says Don"commie" Rat, known draft dodger and pusher of cheap pornography on innocent children, "It's very nice. I bought a button there once."
"says Mary Jane Lookship, local teenage cretin, "Well personally I like the other place better. They got these posters with psychodelic colors that say popular stuff like 'sock it to me'."
"says Al Craptree, Vanilla Fudge jammer, bridge to-the-sky-builder, and all around beautiful person, "It's almost as far out as I am."
"says  Harold   Lowrider, construction worker: "It's a big pile of pinko shit."
"says James C. Page, reknown kitten: "Well,it keeps me in cat litter and yum-mies. It's a little weird but I don't complain."
Our pipes are exceedingly well constructed, are on sale at prices far below their true worth, and are known by. some to cure dandruff and ringworm.
Come to the store. Each item is without a ?' doubt more beautiful than the next. 1-6 i daily 157 S. Limestone || free: "smoke grass" matches, cases off* gonorhea
blue-tail fly
IS
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