U.S.A. For Africa, Live Aid, Farm Aid and similar fund-raising efforts
illustrate a recent return and growth of social consciousness in rock music. The
Sun City project is a blatant politicization of this consciousness, an open and
above-board call to arms against South Africa’s abhorrent official policy of
racial segregation and oppression known as apartheid. In support of this
project, founder Little Steven Van Zandt, ex-guitarist for Springsteen’s E
Street Band, collected the combined efforts of over 50 artists in the creation
of the Sun City album.
Artists United Against Apartheid
is the name taken by these artists, and it includes some big league talent:
among others, Sun City features the contributions of Afrika Bambaata, Pat
Benatar, Bono of U2, Bob Dylan, George Clinton, Miles Davis, Peter Gabriel, Joey
Ramone, Lou Reed, Herbie Hancock, Gil Scott-Heron, Peter Townshend, and the
‘Boss’ himself, Bruce Springsteen. The result is no feeble entertainment
all-star sing-a-long … Sun City is not only an important social statement
(perhaps the most important of the decades to date), it is an inspired use of
talents and abilities. Both Van Zandt and co-produced Arthur Baker are old pros
in the studio, and they use the collected entourage to its fullest.
The
six songs on Sun City (including two versions of the title cut) are intelligent
and exciting, stylistically ranging from the rocking title track to the Afrikan
instrumentation of “The Struggle Continues” to the rap/spoken word “Let Me See
Your I.D.” The most chilling moment of Sun City, though, is a song that no
lyricist could write the words for: “Revolutionary Situation” is a collection of
scraps from speeches from both sides of the issue set to a musical backing.
Listening to the point/counterpoint from Bishop Tutu, Ronnie Reagan, South
African Prime Minster Botha, and unnamed protesters underlines the relevance and
controversy of this struggle.
All artist royalties from
Sun City go to the Africa Fund, a non-profit organization working towards
freedom and equality for South Africa’s 20 million blacks. (Manhattan Records,
1985)
Review originally published by The Metro, November 1985
(Editor’s note, 2022: The Sun City album and single
raised more than a million U.S. dollars for anti-apartheid projects, and
inspired other musicians (notably Johnny Clegg) to create their own local
organizations. Apartheid would come to an end in 1994 when former state
prisoner Nelson Mandela was elected president of South African and his African
National Congress (ANC) party won 60% of the seats in the legislature.)
By 1989, blues legend John Lee Hooker was entering the final chapter of
an impressive career that had endured for over 50 years. Hooker scored his first
chart-topping R&B hit in 1948 with “Boogie Chillen”, and he visited the
charts sporadically over the years with songs like “Crawlin’ King Snake”, “I’m
In the Mood” (a Top 30 pop hit!), and “Boom Boom”. He’d recorded better than 100
albums over the course of his career, including collaborations with young blues
bands like the Groundhogs and Canned Heat and guest appearances on albums by
artists as diverse as Peter Townshend, Jim Morrison, John P. Hammond, and Miles
Davis. Clearly, John Lee had little left to prove…
Enter Mike Kappus,
a legendary artist manager and agent. Kappus became a licensed booking agent in
1970 at the age of 19, promoting shows while attending the University of
Wisconsin. Moving to San Francisco in 1976, he founded the Rosebud Agency,
signing guitarist Michael Bloomfield and singer/songwriter John Hiatt the first
day he opened the doors. Over the ensuing years, Kappus was instrumental in
launching the careers of artists like George Thorogood & the Destroyers,
Robert Cray, and Los Lobos and he also worked with veteran music-makers like
Muddy Waters, Albert Collins, Captain Beefheart and … you guessed it … John Lee
Hooker. Kappus dabbled in record production as well, receiving ‘Executive
Producer’ credits on albums by Hooker, Robert Cray, J.J. Cale, Duke Robillard,
and Loudon Wainwright III, among others.
John Lee Hooker’s The Healer
Kappus helped launch the HART (Handy Artists Relief Trust) Fund for The
Blues Foundation in 2000, providing financial assistance to blues musicians in
need, and he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2014. As Hooker’s
manager and agent, he envisioned a late-career “comeback” album by the 73 year
old bluesman, assisted by some of the talents whose contact info stuffed his
Rolodex. He found a like-minded ally in Stephen Powers, the founder and
president of Chameleon Records, who he knew from his early days in Wisconsin.
Chameleon had recently purchased the long-dormant Vee-Jay Records label and
had reissued several of Hooker’s earlier Vee-Jay albums with some success so,
after a little coaxing, Powers agreed to release The Healer.
Recruiting blues guitarist Roy Rogers from Hooker’s Coast To Coast
Band to produce the album, Kappus enlisted eager volunteers like guitarists
Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, George Thorogood, and Robert Cray to join Hooker
in San Francisco’s Russian Hill Recording Studios in September 1989. Hooker’s
basic backing band in the studio was comprised of Rogers on guitar and drummer
Scott Matthews, with members of Canned Heat and Los Lobos sitting in on some
tunes. The album’s tracklist featured material from Hooker’s deep and wide
song catalog, with the new title track co-written by the blues legend along
with Santana, Rogers, and keyboardist Chester D. Thompson.
With
Carlos’s guitar weaving a Latin-flavored tapestry of sound and the rhythm
section establishing a strong rhythm with timbales, conga, and drums, the
title track kicks off The Healer with a jazzy, exotic vibe that’s only
enhanced by Hooker’s smoky, almost-muted vocals and Thompson’s nuanced
keyboards. Santana’s mid-song solo soars out of the mix, the guitarist clearly
enjoying himself (he’d enjoy a late-career revival of his own a decade later,
with 1999’s Supernatural album). Hooker’s duet with Bonnie Raitt on
“I’m In the Mood” earned the bluesman his first Grammy™ Award (for “Best
Traditional Blues Recording”). The combination of the two old friends, a
darkened studio, and an erotic vibe sizzles like steak on the grill, with
sultry vocals and the red-hot coals of Raitt’s slide-guitarwork. Hooker
originally released the song in 1951, enjoying a #1 R&B chart hit, but the
‘89 version is superior in sound and performance.
Hooker ‘n’ Heat
“Baby Lee” was the B-side of Hooker’s 1956 R&B hit “Dimples” and, revisited
for The Healer with Robert Cray on guitar, the performance is so
laid-back that you can’t tell if it’s coming or going. The song’s strong rhythm
overwhelms Hooker’s slight vocals, but Cray’s subtle fretwork rides along
Richard Cousins’ fluid bass line to create a cool, bluesy ambiance. By contrast,
Hooker and his old friends from Canned Heat (their 1971 collaboration
Hooker ‘n’ Heat is a blues-rock treasure) raise a bit of dust with
“Cuttin’ Out”. Henry Vestine’s guitar licks rip ‘n’ roar alongside Hooker’s
spoken-sung vocals while the rhythm section of bassist Larry Taylor and drummer
Fito de la Parra establish a swinging booger-rock groove. As icing on the cake,
blues harp legend Charlie Musselwhite rages on the harmonica in counterpoint to
the rhythm, making for an invigorating performance.
Hooker is backed
by Los Lobos for “Think Twice Before You Go”, the entire band pitching in and
creating a low-slung sound above which Hooker croons his vocals. With David
Hildago’s accordion in the background, it really sounds like a Los Lobos cover
of a vintage Hooker song, with the bluesman guest-starring on vocals … and
that’s not a bad thing! Probably the oldest song on The Healer, “Sally
Mae” was the flipside of Hooker’s first hit, “Boogie Chillen’”. He’s accompanied
here by George Thorogood, who’s forged a decades-long career from his Hooker
influences, but the guitarist plays it straight here, reverent to the material,
garnishing Hooker’s smooth-knit vox rather than stomping on them.
“That’s Alright” defines the difference between the Detroit school
of blues (i.e. Hooker) and the better-known Chicago style … the song establishes
a strong, stuttering rhythm endemic to the Detroit style, courtesy of drummer
Matthews and bassist Steve Ehrmann, and then layers on Rogers’ ringing guitar
tones and Musselwhite’s mournful harp notes beneath Hooker’s moaning, droning
vocals. Whereas Chicago blues often relies on an up-tempo swing with both rhythm
and guitar, Detroit blues is heavier and more atmospheric, often as
thickly-constructed as night in a Louisiana swamp. Hooker breaks out his
National Steel guitar for the haunting “Rockin’ Chair”, the solo performance
echoing the ghosts of the Mississippi Delta while displaying his fractured,
jagged guitar style. “No Substitute” is in a similar country-blues vein, Hooker
wielding a twelve-string like Big Joe Williams, while the previous “My Dream”,
with Canned Heat’s rhythm section, is a soulful ballad that displays a more
constrained side of John Lee’s
talents.
The Healer
eventually sold better than a half-million copies, an unheard of number in the
blues world, and it helped launch a roots-music revival that continues to this
day. Quoted in British music critic Charles Shaar Murray’s John Lee biography,
Boogie Man, Kappus states that “The Healer had a major impact on
the entire genre of roots music. The door had been cracking open for years for
roots music with George Thorogood and Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Cray, but
here was an older artist, one of the originators, actually having success on the
level of a contemporary rock star.” Recently reissued on CD and vinyl by Craft
Recordings after being out-of-print for over a decade, The Healer was
pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Records Pressing with lacquers cut by
award-winning engineer Bernie Grundman. Although the new reissue doesn’t include
any bonus tracks (according to Murray, several tracks were recorded at the time
and used on subsequent albums like Mr. Lucky), it’s just good to have
this groundbreaking album available once more.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
If The Healer represented the final chapter of John Lee Hooker’s
lengthy career, it was really just the opening paragraph. Using the album’s
guest-heavy format as a blueprint, Hooker went on to write a hell of a closing
for his story with subsequent albums like 1991’s Mr. Lucky (which
included Santana, Keith Richards, and Albert Collins); 1992’s
Boom Boom (with Jimmie Vaughan and Robert Cray); and 1995’s
Chill Out (with Santana and Van Morrison), all of them produced by
Rogers and overseen by Kappus. The Morrison-produced
Don’t Look Back (1997) was Hooker’s final studio album, earning him his
third and fourth Grammy™ Awards.
Hooker was inducted into the Blues
Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. He also
received the Grammy™ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. Passing away in June
2001, John Lee Hooker went out on top, enjoying more than a decade of critical
and commercial success (and long-overdue monetary reward) as well as numerous
accolades and the respect and adoration of his peers. His career was often
overshadowed by the successes of his contemporaries, but after better than
half a century in the blues business, John Lee became a bona fide “overnight
success”… and it all began with The Healer. (Craft Recordings, reissued
October 28th, 2022)
Forget all about Wanted Dead Or Alive, Warren Zevon’s uncharacteristic 1969
debut LP. The album shows none of the wit or caustic wordplay that Zevon would
become known for, and is clearly an attempt by a young artist to make a play
for success long before he’s ready to do so. The album deserves neither your
time nor a place in your collection. Opt instead for Zevon’s self-titled 1976
follow-up, his true debut and, perhaps, one of the finest sophomore efforts in
rock music. Warren Zevon, the album, also represents the beginning of an
amazing rock ‘n’ roll success story.
By 1975, Zevon had spent
nearly a decade in Los Angeles, doing session work, writing advertising
jingles, performing behind the Everly Brothers, and occasionally writing songs
for folks like the Turtles. What Zevon didn’t have was a record deal, or even
the promise of one. Fearing that his career would never take off, he fled to
Spain with his wife, taking up musical residency in a local bar owned by an
American soldier of fortune. A postcard from his friend, singer/songwriter
Jackson Browne, hinting of the possibility of a record deal lured the ex-pat
musician back to the United States and California.
Warren Zevon’s
Warren Zevon
The eventual result would be the brilliant Warren
Zevon album. With an additional six-plus years spent honing both his
songwriting craft and performing chops, Zevon entered the studio with seasoned
veterans like multi-instrumentalist David Lindley, guitarist Waddy Wachtel,
and saxophonist Bobby Keys. Friends like Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Phil Everly,
and Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac provided vocal
harmonies behind Zevon’s incredibly designed songs.
Displaying
the same sort of gonzo sensibilities as author Hunter S. Thompson’s best work,
Zevon’s songs are filled with brightly-colored and finely-crafted characters
from the seedier fringes of society. “Frank And Jesse James” is a
finely-detailed tale of the Civil War vets turned outlaw gunfighters, Zevon’s
fully mature vocals matched by spry, vaguely Western piano (think San Fran
goldrush) and shotgun drumbeats.
The beautiful “Hasten Down the
Wind” was covered wonderfully by Linda Ronstadt, but Zevon’s original version
is equally considerate, with Phil Everly’s harmony vocals adding depth to
Zevon’s deep purr as David Lindley’s slide guitar weeps openly. The boisterous
“Poor Poor Pitiful Me” was also later covered by Ronstadt, but not like this.
On Zevon’s version, Wachtel’s guitar rips-and-snorts and tears at the reins
while honky-tonk piano blasts out beneath the singer’s half-mocking,
self-effacing vocals.
The Dylanesque “Mohammed’s Radio” sounds a
little like Jackson Browne, too, but the song’s contorted, colorful
personalities and gospel fervor belie its anthemic nature. In many ways “I’ll
Sleep When I’m Dead” presages Zevon’s notorious hard-partying lifestyle, while
“Desperados Under the Eaves,” perhaps the best song ever written about Los
Angeles, is haunted by the reckless spirits of Charles Bukowski and Hubert
Selby, Jr. (yes, both were alive and well when the song was written, thank
you, but they still had their otherworldly stank all over the song).
A
bonus disc provided this reissue of Warren Zevon is chockfull o’ demos and
other goodies for the fanatical completist. A solo piano arrangement of “Frank
And Jesse James” is fine, but lacks the powerful drumwork of the final
version, but the sparse arrangement given the alternative take of the junkie’s
tale “Carmelita” enhances the song’s inherent loneliness and hopelessness. The
second take of “Join Me In L.A.” evinces a looser, funkier vision of the song
while a live radio performance of “Mama Couldn’t Be Persuaded” is a
rollicking, joyful reading of the song that places the spotlight firmly on
Zevon’s lyrics. Taken altogether, the second disc’s rarities provide some
insight into Zevon’s early creative process.
Zevon would follow-up
his self-titled sophomore effort a couple of years later, 1978’s Excitable Boy
yielding the hit “Werewolves of London” and making the singer/songwriter a
rock star. Over the following 25 years and a dozen albums, until his tragic
death in 2003, Zevon would cement a legacy fueled by his unique talent and
personality … and it all started with Warren Zevon. (Rhino Records, 2008)
In the 40+ years since the event, the 1972 Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival has become known as one of the premiere live concerts in blues history. Although the event was only attended by roughly 16,000 intrepid souls, it has since been blown up and exaggerated much like the original Woodstock Festival so that two or three times the actual number of attendees feel like they experienced the magic that occurred over that three-day weekend in September 1972, a familiarity bolstered, perhaps, by Atlantic Records’ release of a two-album set of performances from the festival in early 1973.
The festival was the brainchild of a group of University of Michigan students, with organizer Cary Gordon (no relation) at the helm. Receiving backing from both the school and Canterbury House, an Episcopal Church, the first Ann Arbor Blues Festival was held in September 1969. To find artists for the event, however, first Gordon, John Fishel, and other students travelled to Chicago, where they met with Bob Koester of Delmark Records and checked out artists at some of the city’s Southside clubs. To give their fellow students a taste of the blues, they booked a successful performance by the Luther Allison Trio at the school in the spring of 1969, and held the full-fledged festival in September.
Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1972
Although the 1969 and 1970 Ann Arbor Blues Festivals were artistic successes, bringing a wealth of talent to perform, neither event was financially successful. After a year’s absence, during which time both Gordon and Fishel had left school, new U of M Events Director Peter Andrews was asked by the university to promote another festival. Working with former MC5 manager and White Panther Party founding member John Sinclair, they expanded the musical focus of the event and renamed it the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival. The pair held shows in 1972 and 1973, but after a disastrous attempt at promoting a 1974 festival in Windsor, Ontario, the event went on hiatus until the early 1990s.
As mentioned above, the 1972 festival was released on vinyl months after the event, but the album has been largely out-of-print until its 2014 rescue and reissue by Wounded Bird Records, a U.S. based archival label. Although Wounded Bird is primarily known for 1970s-era rock and jazz releases, they’ve done the blues world a large favor by releasing Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1972 as a two-CD set. The briefest of glances at the track list will convince even the most traditional of blues fans to add this budget-priced set to their library. Boasting of performances by legends like Hound Dog Taylor, Koko Taylor, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Freddie King, Luther Allison, Otis Rush, Bonnie Raitt, and others, how much more value could you expect for your dollar?
Hound Dog Taylor’s Kitchen Sink Boogie
After a brief introduction, disc one of Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1972 kicks off with the raucous “Kitchen Sink Boogie,” courtesy of Hound Dog Taylor & the Houserockers. Hot on the heels of his inaugural Alligator Records album release, Taylor and his red-hot band rip through the nearly-four-minute instrumental like a hot knife through soft butter, Taylor’s guitar screaming and screeching like a rabid beast while the rhythm section holds down a swinging boogie beat. Koko Taylor follows with her equally audacious performance of “Wang Dang Doodle.” Accompanied by the song’s writer, Willie Dixon, and backed by a band that includes guitarist Mighty Joe Young, pianist Rick Wright, and a full horn section, the duet raises the rafters with an energetic and rowdy showing.
The great Bobby “Blue” Bland brings a bit of smooth R&B vibe to his reading of “Ain’t That Loving You,” the singer silkily crooning the romantic lyrics while Dr. John (a/k/a Mac Rebennack) adds some elegant guitar licks. Speaking of Mr. Rebennack, his original “I Walk On Guilded Splinters” brings some New Orleans-styled swamp-blues to the stage, the original voodoo “Night Tripper” growling his vocals above a smothering, claustrophobic arrangement while backing singers add sweet backing harmonies. Howlin’ Wolf simply dominates the stage with his high-octane reading of “Highway 49.” Backed by a talented band that included guitarist Hubert Sumlin, pianist Detroit Junior, and sax legend Eddie Shaw, the Wolf roars through the song like a hurricane staggering through southwest Michigan.
Dedicated to Otis Spann
Not to be outdone by his Windy City rival, the great Muddy Waters delivers an equally powerful rendition of his classic “Honey Bee.” With his wiry slide-guitar dancing in the background and harp player George “Mojo” Buford blowing a mournful riff, the performance captures the essence of the Chicago blues. Waters joins promoter John Sinclair and Lucille Spann, widow of former Waters band pianist Otis Spann, in dedicating the festival to the late bluesman. Mrs. Spann, joined by guitarist Mighty Joe Young, acquits herself well on “Dedicated To Otis,” a slow-burning, Chicago-style three-alarm fire fueled by Wright’s jaunty piano and Spann’s gritty, emotional vocals. Guitarist Freddie King keeps the party going with his lively take of Don Nix’s “Goin’ Down.” With David Maxwell banging away at the piano keys and Deacon Jones chiming away on the organ, King tears through the song with reckless abandon, his high-flying solos bringing down the house.
The great Luther Allison returned to Ann Arbor to brilliantly cover the classic Percy Mayfield ballad “Please Send Me Someone To Love.” While Allison’s stellar fretwork dominates any performance, the guitarist’s brassy horn section adds some punch to the song with its blustery blasts. Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1972 offers just two bona fide jazz performances, the first of which – CJQ’s “Form Kinetic” – providing a little too much shrill instrumentation for my taste. By contrast, Sun Ra & His Solar-Myth Arkestra tickles your ears with their dissonant, improvisational take on “Life Is Splendid.” Both jazz numbers may sound a little harsh to the average blues fan, but they both provide a valuable snapshot of musical undercurrents in the early 1970s.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
As good as all the above performances may be, I’ve barely scratched the surface of the eighteen artists represented on Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1972. Junior Walker & the All Stars, Johnny Shines, Otis Rush, and the Boogie Brothers all deliver exemplary performances. Bonnie Raitt offers a fine tribute to her mentor Mississippi Fred McDowell with a three-song medley, and later joins Sippie Wallace on the stage for a lively recreation of the singer’s 1929 song “Women Be Wise.”
Taken altogether, there’s barely a wrong note on Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1972, and if the artists and performances included on the set don’t prompt you to put down some hard coin for a copy, you’re probably not much of a blues fan in the first place. I hear that Taylor Swift has a new album out that might be more your taste. For those of us whose blood runs blue, listening to Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1972 proves why the event has exceeded its humble roots to live on in memory. As good as this stuff is, however, I have to ask – is there any more tape from the festival in the vaults? I’m surely not alone in wanting to hear more music from this weekend in Ann Arbor… (Wounded Bird Records, released July 15, 2014)
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