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Home , All the Way from Memphis, Bad Company, Guy Stevens, Jam band, Luther Grosvenor, Mick Ralphs

Mark’s Notes for November…

It is difficult to believe that Umphrey’s McGee, the unique jam formed at the University of Notre Dame, has been around for 14 years. Their new Death By Stereo is their most song oriented and consistent effort yet, and solidifies them as a great recording band in addition to their status as a legendary live band. Howlin’ Wolf was one of the most popular and influential artists of all time. The Hip-O-Select label has recently issued a limited edition (to 5000) four CD set of Howlin’ Wolf’s Chess material covering the years 1951-1960, and it is a must-buy for Howlin’ Wolf fans. Young Memphis band The Dirty Streets puts their own spin on classic style rock with a shot of Memphis soul. They have just released their excellent second album entitled Movements. Mott was a 70’s band that is best known for their hit , but there was a lot more to the band than that one song. At least two of their are essential listening for fans.

Umphrey’s McGee – Death By Stereo

Chicago band Umphrey’s McGee (the name is a play on the name of a distant relative of one of the band’s members) is lumped into the same jam band category as , and The Greatful Dead. While Umphrey’s McGee does possess the improvisational skills, utilize the constantly changing set lists and approve open live taping policies that these other bands are known for, their music is considerably different. Umphrey’s McGee draws from a wider base of influences, incorporating a large amount of Yes and style into their sound. There is the blues element that prevails in the other jam bands’ sound, but Umphrey’s McGee gets into some harder rocking territories as well as a healthy dose of and even a little bit of .

Umphrey’s McGee has a well-earned, great live reputation, and their studio albums have all been good as well. It is difficult to translate the long improvisational jams that they are known for playing live to recording in a studio setting, however. Death By Stereo is more focused on the songs than the jamming aspects of the band’s live shows. This concentration and focus results in what may be the bands’ best studio album. It definitely includes their best recorded vocals to date. The only down side to the more focused songs is that there are perhaps too few solos to satisfy some fans. The album is good enough, however, that even as a bonafide guitar fanatic, it took several listens before l picked up on the fewer guitar solo trend of this album.

Death By Stereo will especially appeal to progressive rock fans, jam band fans, and classic rock fans, and it is Umphrey’s McGee’s most accessible album so far, making it a great place to start listening to the band if one hasn’t already. It is available on CD, download (which includes two bonus tracks) and vinyl LP (which includes the same two bonus tracks from the download version, along with a third bonus track).

Howlin’ Wolf – Howling Wolf Sings The Blues & Smokestack Lightning: The Complete Chess Masters 1951-1960

Chester Burnett, better known as Howlin’ Wolf (6/10/10-1/10/76), was born in White Station, MS, near West Point, where his Mississippi Blues Trail Marker is located. He learned to play guitar from Delta bluesman and toured the south as a solo blues singer during the 1930’s. His family moved to West Memphis, AR in 1941, and Howlin’ Wolf moved there as well, working on his father’s farm while still maintaining his blues career. Sam Phillips, owner of Memphis Recording Service (later re- named Sun), discovered the Wolf playing on KWEM radio station in West Memphis, and began recording him in 1951. The recordings were leased to both RPM and , resulting in a battle between the two labels to sign Howlin’ Wolf. Chess eventually won out, and Howlin’ Wolf moved to Chicago in 1953 and became, along with , one of two the most popular Chicago bluesmen of all time.

Howlin’ Wolf was a huge man at six and a half feet fall and three hundred pounds of joy, as he so eloquently put it. His signature growling voice was truly unique, and his band was always top notch, incorporating some of the earliest distorted to ever be recorded. Matt “Guitar” Murphy, later of the Blues Brothers Band, was one of Howlin’ Wolf’s early guitarists, and he taught Wolf proper timing, which was the weakness in his playing. Murphy left to become a member of Little Junior Parker’s Blue Flames. One of Howlin’ Wolf’s first excellent recording guitarists, Willie Johnson, did not make the move with him to Chicago, and he was replaced by the great , who, at 79 years old, still records and tours today.

UK label Ace Records remastered the RPM album Howling Wolf Sings The Blues and re-released it in 2004 with 11 bonus tracks, encompassing all of the material recorded for RPM. This CD made a great companion to the Howlin’ Wolf Chess Box and the two excellent Memphis Days CDs from the German Bear Family label, all released in the 1990’s. The album cover for Sings The Blues is hilarious, looking more like a 50’s teenybopper cover than anything. There is no way that one would be able to know from looking at the cover that inside is some of the rawest blues ever recorded! It has dirty and a downright sinister sound that arguably had never made it to record before this was recorded. It is one of the best blues albums ever, and it was recorded right here in Memphis. played on it and assisted Sam Phillips with the production. It is a must have for any serious blues collection, even if that collection includes every Howlin’ Wolf song that came out on Chess Records.

Chess Records is where Howlin’ Wolf’s hits came from. While the Chess Box is an excellent set that will satisfy casual fans, there is so much more good material on the Chess label, that the new Smokestack Lightning four CD collection, covering all of the Chess music from Howlin’ Wolf from 1951-1960, is a welcome release to blues fans. There are 97 tracks on this box, and they are all great! This box was going to be included in the December Music Notes, but due to the set being limited to 5000 copies and the fact that the Hip-O-Select Muddy Waters and Little Walter limited sets that preceded it have both sold out, I decided to bump it up to the November issue. The sound quality on the box is outstanding, and the set comes in a nice 7” x 7” hardcover bound book reminiscent of the albums that 78 rpm records used to come in (this is where the term album that is commonly applied to recordings comes from). It has well written, but not overwhelmingly long, liner notes and period photos inside the album. It is interesting to note that of all of the artists that Sam Phillips recorded, Howlin’ Wolf was his favorite. This is especially impressive given that Phillips recorded Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and an entire bevy of additional and blues musicians that are lesser known, but were in the same league as the bigger stars when it came to quality musicianship. Howlin’ Wolf was a huge influence on countless rock and blues artists. , , Cream, and are just some of the artists that recorded his songs. Howlin’ Wolf was a great manager of his money and was never down and out as most of the bluesmen of his era were at one time or another (or in some cases). With the increased success that came his way when rock bands brought him an entirely new audience in the 1960’s, Howlin’ Wolf offered his band benefits such as health insurance, an extreme rarity for blues musicians in the 1960’s. In 1970, Howlin’ Wolf was in a car wreck and his kidneys were severely damaged. He died in 1976 due to the resulting kidney disease. reportedly paid for the headstone on his grave. I can’t help but wonder how Howlin’ Wolf would feel about his song Smokestack Lighting being used in the current Viagra TV commercial. I think that he would be seriously amused by that.

The Dirty Streets – Movements

The Dirty Streets are a down and dirty rock band from Memphis. They play no holds barred gritty reminiscent of 1970’s bands such as and Foghat. The members are all early to mid- twenty year old guys, which makes them truly unique to be playing this style of music in this day and age. Guitarist/singer Justin Toland and Thomas Storz decided to form a classic rock style band that had the blues and soul backbone lacking in most . Initially, they had difficulty in finding the right drummer. Few people their age knew of or had heard many of the bands that they were into. Fate stepped in when Andrew Denham moved in next door to Toland. Toland and Storz heard Denham practicing drums, and went to introduce themselves, discovering that Denham was a classic rock fan himself, and he became the band’s drummer. The Dirty Streets was intended to be the band’s temporary name, but it stuck, and it fits the band’s music well.

Movements is The Dirty Streets’ second and best full-length album. The band’s earlier ep and first full length album are both good as well, but the band’s playing is tighter and more confident on Movements. The album was recorded at Easley McCain Studios without the use of Pro-Tools, AutoTune, or any other studio trickery. There are no slick, polished production values, either. What you hear is exactly what the band played and is a good representation of their live sound. Fans of Led Zeppelin, and Thin Lizzy will enjoy The Dirty Streets, but there is a bit of a proto-punk element similar to the MC5 that creeps into their sound along with lesser known bands such as Blue Cheer and Cactus. Movements is available as a download on iTunes, and the CD can be found at Shangri-La Records in Memphis, or at the band’s live shows.

Mott The Hoople – All The Young Dudes & Mott

Mott The Hoople was a 70’s British band whose first four albums were good, though inconsistent, and they didn’t sell well at all. The band was originally known as The Silence, but producer talked them into changing their name to Mott The Hoople, which was a book that he had read about a circus freak. Mott The Hoople had a large following of fans due to their legendary live shows, but they were just about to give up and go their separate ways in 1972 when bassist Overend Watts called to see if he could join his band. Bowie was a huge Mott The Hoople fan and talked the band into staying together, offering them his song All The Young Dudes as well as his services as . The resulting album finally captured the band at their best, and the song All The Young Dudes became a hit that is still a classic rock radio warhorse today. It will also be familiar to players of the Guitar Hero video game.

Mott The Hoople had recorded hard rock alongside ballads and -influenced before All The Young Dudes, but there was really only one album’s worth of good rocking songs between those first four albums. compiled those songs into an album called Queen in order to capitalize on the success of All The Young Dudes. With All The Young Dudes, however, the production was much better and the band’s playing was much more confident than before. Aside from the title track and , a penned Underground Velvet cover, the band wrote all of the material. There really isn’t a weak song on All The Young Dudes, and it’s surprising that none of the other songs found their way onto FM rock stations at the time. The song One Of The Boys was later re-worked with different lyrics into the huge hit Can’t Get Enough, and the song Ready For Love was re-recorded by Bad Company and became an album rock hit as well. The original version from All The Young Dudes is guitar based instead of piano based, and is sung by guitarist/writer . He wisely let sing the Bad Company version, which is still heard on FM rock stations today. The All The Young Dudes album was a huge influence on many other bands, especially Queen and T. Rex. Queen mentions Mott The Hoople in their song Now I’m Here, and they were the opening band for Mott The Hoople on their first couple of tours. Soon, however, Mott The Hoople would be opening for Queen.

David Bowie offered another song for the follow up album to All The Young Dudes, but Mott The Hoople either turned him down or asked him for a different song and he refused, depending on whether lead singer Ian Hunter or Bowie is telling the story. At any rate, the band decided to produce the follow up album themselves, using what they had learned from Bowie, and the resulting album entitled Mott, is much different, but just as good as All The Young Dudes (some feel that it is even better). The song is the perfect lead off for the album, and is reflective on both the role that Memphis played in the origin of rock and roll, and the band’s milestone performance in Memphis at the North Hall. The detailed story of the band’s experience in Memphis is recanted in Ian Hunter’s excellent book, Diary Of A Rock ‘n’ Roll Star. There is some hard rock on Mott, but it never gets quite as heavy as some of the material on All The Young Dudes. Mick Ralphs once again sang lead vocals on one song, his excellent I’m A Cadillac. My older brother thought that this, along with the following instrumental El Camino Dolo Roso, was the best song on the album, and my wife has asked me who this song is by almost every time that she has heard it, so it must be pretty good! Ralphs, however, was ready to move on to start Bad Company with former Free members and tour mates Paul Rodgers and . Ian has said that Mick outdid himself on Mott, especially considering that he was leaving the band as soon as the recording was finished. Towards the end of the song Violence, there is a short outburst of guys yelling at each other, about to escalate into a fight. It is rumored that this was an actual argument between Ian Hunter and Mick Ralphs, and was not staged at all, and they decided to insert it into the song later. Mick also plays some excellent mandolin on the great, but lyrically odd I Wish I Was Your Mother. Amazingly, he had never played a mandolin before, and acquired the instrument just to do play on this song. Once again, the band had another solid album in Mott, which actually outsold All The Young Dudes, though it had no hit songs.

Mick Ralphs was replaced by ex- guitarist , who changed his name to Ariel Bender due to contractual obligations, for the follow up album to Mott, entitled The Hoople. It is a good album, but not in the same league as the two predecessors were in. The Hoople was followed up with the excellent Mott The Hoople Live album, but leader Ian Hunter left shortly after it was released in order to start a solo career with ex-David Bowie guitarist . The remaining members added a new singer and guitarist and forged on for two unsuccessful albums as Mott. The original members of Mott The Hoople reunited for a two night stand in in 2009, and the response was so great, it was expanded to five sold out nights. Drummer Dale “Buffin” Griffin, who became a producer for the BBC after the band Mott folded, was only able to play on the encores due to ill health. Pretenders drummer filled in for him on the rest of the songs.

There are remastered and expanded CDs of All The Young Dudes and Mott that are a major sonic improvement over the original CDs, and they include additional material in the way of demos, live recordings, and bonus non-album songs as well. Both of these albums are included in the Mott The Hoople Original Album Classics box, which can be purchased for just over $20 on amazon.com, which is an absolute steal. They are the remastered and expanded versions of the albums, but come housed in thin cardboard LP sleeve replicas, without the extensive liner notes that music geeks like myself enjoy reading. The remastered and expanded version of The Hoople is included as well as the two Mott albums that followed it. It would have made more sense to have included the double CD expanded Live album rather than the Mott albums, but it is still a great box set. The Mott albums aren’t bad, they just don’t sound like Mott The Hoople. The song By Tonight from the Drive On album should have had some airplay, but the band was completely ignored by commercial radio at the time. This album is out of print of the box and sells alone to collectors for twice what the box sells for at full retail, making the Original Album Classics box even more attractive.