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Home , Alligator Records, Big Walter Horton, Carey Bell, Dust My Broom, Hound Dog Taylor

----- and the Houserockers. With and Ted Harvey. 12 selections, vocal and instrumental, stereo. Alligator 4701. Alligator *~ecords.,~bx 11714, , Illinois 60611,: 19'73. $6 .oo. Big Valter Horton ---and Carey ell. 'with , , Joe Harper,-. and- Swan. 11 selections, vocal and instrumental, stereo. Alligator 4702. , Box 11714, Chicago, Illinois 60611, 19'73.*

. ----The Band. With Johnny ItBig Moosew Walker, John Riley, and Charles ~aldwell- 10 selections, vocal and instrumental, stereo.

Alligator b703. Alligator Records, Box 11714, Chicago, 11linois fl 60611, 1973 l $6 .oo.

Reviewed by Philip Nusbaum.

Alligator Records is a new company operating out of Chicago, which, according to the notes accompanying the Son Seals disc, is dedicated to Itrecording Real, black blues ." The first three' issues by the new concern are all representative of what is loosely called "Chicago bluec;.~~Fwd - - Dog Taylor, and Son Seals are the front men for their blues bands on Alligator 4701, 4702 and h703, respectively.

Considering that this is a comkrcial concern, Alligator has done a better than average job of documenting the performers and performances. Xhe liner : A notes give a broad impression of the blues club atmosphere, the life history of the artist, or some of his musical contacts. ' However, there is nothing ' in the way of scholarly \documentation. While personnel is listed, and some of the performersr musical contacts are given, there is no attempt at ' complete discography, or a complete, systematic ,descrip?tion of, say, performer-audience interaction. We are given snatches of informatton, for example, 'Hound Dog Taylor's se'cond guitarist Brewer Phillip* s wandering into the audience, singing and Bancing as he plays gutar. Even as the Alligator packages scarcely resemble scholar1y work, the recording efforts and liner note insights of those connected with the company cauld provide the impetus for future ts$udy of the- total bzues context so important to the understanding ofv€hes blues. , < .. . j+ f ;-);+;+t;;-;::jt . Singer-guctarist Hound Dog Taylor heads up a three piece band including Brewer Phillips on guitar and drummer Ted Harvey. (The latter two are part time musicians, each holding a day job.) The trio offers fairly standard blues fare centering around the talents of Mr. Taylor. That is, the band is geared toward providing a stable backdrop for the vocalist or soloist. In this respect I feel that the recording could have been improved upon in a number of tracks by increasing the volume on Taylor s guitar so that it could be heard over the rhythm section. At any rate, Taylor plays in the bottleneck style derived from the early twentieth century Mississ;.ppi players and pioneered on electric guitar by Hound Dog's chief influence, , 2nong others. On Wild About You Baby,It Mr. Taylor opens up with a guitar p2tkern strongly reminiscent of . James's widely imitated ''." 1.Ie gzt a glimpse of the influence in the guitar introductioii of "It Hults Me TOO,^^ after which he mixes in his more usual Elrnorc Js.aes dzrived stylc.. It is unfortunate that on this stylistically signifj-cant trzcl:, tha rhythm section.overpowsrs the lead guitar :qoor.!c: ltShefsGonnev is an unusual piece for a Chicaso band, as it uses the archaic l.?ississigpi device of elimina-tion of d1 c.hor6 chr,nps-.-t!i~ piece4is played dl1 on on3 chord, Composer credit is, unfortucately, - not providzd for the non-original songs. -\lA! --- \/,I --- \I \t-\/ \I \/ it 8, A I\ I\ ,$ ,\-Kii %igwaiter Hortou h2.s lonz hen !cnoTdn as o;ic of Chicago's rmst talsnted, if erratic bluesxen. IIowcver, this aet is a fine on:: and yay bj_3 the best recordin; of Hoy.ton to dr;tc. Yhs 'd-uec harp ducts bct1,:ee:i Horkn and Carey Bell 2re featured, zr,d thzy &re a joy to hear, :illigntoT is to be cofilmended ibrnotin~that Wolt2r plays th:ou$ thz left ch2.1:-..31 end C1.1-ey through the right. It is intcrccti-n,n to hceY h~athr: trs3 h-n?l.e the ha-;? dust situation, as t3-e blucs has usually 52nn n solo-inpra'~.isatoryic'icnl. It ~TJXITSthat the solgists have xcrlted-.out arra.~.;c-,m.ts ~d--~i.chd.lor.; ths s d-oist to ex?ound his ideas--ti.? czll z::d r2cpo;::e and ::olo-Lacl:i.3fi forr-cfr pr~dominate over wokkc! out d-ats. Pc?.rJ~iculzrl_gintrigvir,~ C-L-3 t'l~-d5~cfs--" four instrurnort3nl-;--J~L~~-in1:y D;by, :' "Under tkc $1:~; t1 "%zvc i-icrc~"2cd T'emp t ztio'n Blv-c:3 .

The arrangzm-nts ars dasi SEC? to al!.ow thn sobis t to :lo-<.! freely, but the . . band g?i?3l?at?s excitencnt of its oix. 3r112:;:r,12r F:-n.k S:r:ln, rrL:lLq v:..inteining the-strong bzat cheractzrls tic of Chicago styl~Zrur:;?i:lg, nz-x;:s to break - the strong bcots inio a!lil'-Ling r:iy';::inj.c p;ltt~r::s. BE~L~?IG Joe IIarper share bass guitar, letsran guit2.r Ran Eddie Teylor is prercit in ihc rhythm section, zsd' togn-ther thsy pi*oui.23 ccn:,iste,nt ~y~~?a.Lilz-ticl3zcking. ~lligatorhas rnl~z-~dto gyt the recordin,rr .l12-v.elsrig;lt thi-s tima, ar.d the record ccnes of2 as a 7:sll put togetker e;:p3tula'iicn of "cz lialtcr Hortonfs

music .$ >I2,-\C>,-\L2 I-\,>,-\< #\ ', ,, I, ,\ I\ ,\ I, >\ The S?n Sods Band represents a third aspect of tho Chicago bluos scene. The playing of this band, the whole beiy i:~dis tj nctly blues stylz, leans somewhat on ccrateil: soul or rock de~icas. B~cs.I:lax; ti20 arms Alligator Records, regards Sealsrs r.usic as l'futu-e blues1' in his rhythmic o;id lyrical efforts. 'As wit11 -the other discs, the su;i?orting muclci.ac: (~ohnny"7ig Moose" Wzlker-organ, John Riley-bass and 'Cha~les~aldx~ell-6ru.a~) ar3 relied on to providc a sol-id founhtion for '5s soloist. Ho~:c~~er,perhaps o~iing to the ralative youth of Son Seds, the band scmtirx-c, pla.ys to a tiodified llsoultrbeat. That is, the third, ratk3T than the ssccnd an2 fourth beat in each mcasurz is acckn-Led. mhe ''~o~l~~ influczcc can be hznrd to ~oodadvantage on llyov.r Lo~eis Liks a Car,c?rl! znd. !':!ow Cou-ld She Le-w ,.,It In addition, the organtst s playing i's ch~lrnct~riz~d'ty the hoLdj-n_~01 tones, rather than the rnorc usual riffin: in'the ~~c!:z~oI~J-I~.The efzect of the organ is of a filler for the grcup Is sound. This is mu~hthe scxo rrcy tie orp:n was -;sed by. som? of the rock bands of the 1960's and can be heard throughout the disc.

~l-\,-\~~~\l-\~~l-\l-\~ I\ /\ n A t\ ,\ I\ I\ /\ What we have here, then, is a partial ethnography of the blues . All t,hree e::amples display the bluzst roots in tradition, albeit in technique and form of the music. There is an overwhelming use of the I-IV-V pattern in the hamonic structure and AAB form in the texts. Vocal and instrumental solos, important in much non-church affiliated Afro-American music is clearly in evidence by the organization of the bands. There is a clear dichotomy between the role of the soloist 2nd backing musicians. Even in the case of the harp duets, Carey and Horton do not always solo together, rather, they usually trade off phrases or lonzer linzs. In addition, there is a tendency for the leader to use material he has written. Nine of the twelve Hound Dog selections, eight of the ten by Walter Horton and seven out of the ten by Son Seals are originals. It i~ irnportaqt to the individuality of the blu3sman "clnat he use his o:$rn material,

It is becoming obvious, as I have tried to point out by the admittedly random ~a~lesabo-:e , that although traditional blues texts end musical lines do exist, what is traditional about Chic2go blues has rrore to do hith the attitudes and techniques that the nusician briczs to the formal, traditional, overall pattern of this nusic style, ----,, \, \,-\,------\, \I \, \, \* \I \I->,- ,\ 1, ,\ 11 ,, ,\ /\ ,\ /\ ,\ ,\ /\ T; reitsrate, Alligcltor is in the busiEess of n:-rkstin;: recorded music developed in an Afro-American milieu. l!!n attempt is ~3d.eto present on record n- sic closely resembling the blues plz-ycd in tllz mostly blackqChicago bars trhj-ch szrTre as home basz for many of the bands.

Sinlilarity of music sound, however, ends the liken2ss between recorded and live performqnce, In the bars, the Rusic can servz to facilitate dancing, listeniy, or as a backdrop for 2rinking, ccnvzrsation, etc. The bar, then, offers up a constant range of possibilities oi" beh3'.-ior which can be taken s~p?rz~el;~07 in sortie combination. In4.thisrnqect, the record is an enormous advance over the live performance, as the listcner is in a position to define performarLce context and media and bchavior cor"23ination--he can play the disc in his living roox, at the beach, 2t a party, while watchin5 television with the sour,c! turnsd down, etc.

Here, then, we havs a case of zn item--blues music--in which chz-nges in use occur Prom folk to popular culture. In the case of the bars, we have.a contextually defined set of behavioral possibilities, while records' give us a theoretically limitless range of combinational choices which Ray or Kay not be consciouslg. or unconsciously derivativz of t,he bar setting. In practice, though: there arc probably culturally dcfined patterns of combinations of blucs records other elements, Thus, groups may form around certain ways of u-sing records, underlined of course by certain fundamental, unself- conscious rttit.udes about the appropriate setting for various music styles. Unselfconsciousness is generally regarded as an zttribute of folk behavior (in the traditional sense). In Am-rice, ho~:el:er, this may not be the case. The blvns bar patron may conduct the better part of his life inside of what is rcgard~das the American norm, an? vlsit the bluas bar as a sort of conscious cultural refurbishment. On the other hand, th.e, mainstream - - individual uses mainstream artifacts (records) in the group.'situation in line with group task in a more casual way. In this case, blues records is what happens to be popular in some circles at a certain time, It is likely that in America, what is called popular culture is where we find the unreflective behavior generally conceded to the folk. In addition, the use of blues records by the mainstream is probably dependent on popular notions for usage of records. The structure of the listening situation probably does not change greatly with the advent of a new style introduced to a group. Rather, given the influx of a new style, some surface elements may change in the more freewheeling use of contextual ingredients in popular culture, but maintaining the more consistent structural attributes. Here, tradition is analytically defined, as conscious maintenance of traditional items is usually not highly ~aluedin the American mainstream.

Since mass media, of which records are a part, are rddressed "To whom it may concern, isolated individuals as well as groups of people may form patterns of listening and combinations. These groupings, whether face to face or isolates, may form the kind of groups (or non-groups) folklorists are interested in. On the surface we are presented with a seemingly jumbled picture of compnnents formerly regarded as dissonant: Single items are not tied to a regionally or ethnically defined group as in the classic notions about folk culture. However, each item has a distinct range of acceptable uses and combinations, and the overall strucii:;ral picture--who uses what kind of recorded music in what context--may show a pattern or patterns of a usage, combinations,' beliefs and attitudes even among seemingly diverse individuals-.

To sum up, then, in eclectic American society, as anywhere, men arrange cultural items in ways which are meaningful to them which may be totally removed from an original, sub-culturally defined meqning. However, if patterns of taste and usage do emerge from popular culture, perhaps we ought to consider folk and popular culture on opposite ends of a continuum. Modern folklore may necessitate ananaytic conceptualization of tradition, and, perhaps, 'Ipopular culturet1 is the result of transformatiorsfrom Itfolk cultureH which may be related at some level.

Obviously, this is not an empirical study. My purpose, though, is to suggest some way of treating a popular artifact as a viable object of study of folklorists in addition to its existence as a carrier of ethnically or regionally defined behavior. The implication is that if we do a little digging, we may find forms of traditional behavior on all levels of society.