Archive Review: Long John Baldry's Everything Stops For Tea (1972)

Following up on the modest success of 1971’s It Ain’t Easy album, which spawned a chart-scraping minor AOR radio hit in “Don’t Try To Lay No Boogie Woogie On the King of Rock & Roll,” British blues-rock icon Long John Baldry went back to the same well for his 1972 album Everything Stops For Tea. While the previous year’s effort represented a return to the blues for Baldry, who had enjoyed a string of pop ballads in the U.K. during the late 1960s, Everything Stops For Tea reached further back into the singer’s history, incorporating elements of British folk and R&B alongside Baldry’s usual mix of blues and rock music.

Baldry again enlisted the help of long-time friends and former bandmates Rod Stewart and Elton John to produce the new album. The first time around, Stewart’s productions were featured on side one of the original vinyl LP release, while John’s work was featured on side two. With Everything Stops For Tea, however, John’s production shines clearly on the first side, while Stewart’s seemingly rushed efforts hold down side two. Whereas on the first album, the best performances spanned the entire disc, here the highlights mostly come from John’s side, which offers up an inspired mix of material. Like with the previous album, an all-star cast of musicians was used, John utilizing his road-tested touring band, including guitarist Davey Johnstone, while Stewart used friends and former bandmates like the underrated guitarist Sam Mitchell, and Jeff Beck Group drummer Mickey Waller.  

Long John Baldry’s Everything Stops For Tea

Opening with the folksy “Come Back Again,” Baldry’s twangy vocals sound uncannily like a cross between the Band’s Levon Helm and singer Leon Redbone. Johnstone’s guitar playing is superb here, capturing a Nashville country vibe without discarding Australian songwriter Ross Wilson’s original folk-blues roots. Baldry cranks it up for a raucous, R&B styled cover of Willie Dixon’s blues classic “Seventh Son.” Johnstone adds gospel-tinged piano and slinky guitar here while John Lennon cohort Klaus Voorman unwinds a deep, funky bass line for drummer Nigel Olssen to punctuate with his subtle percussion. Baldry is joined by John on backing vocals for the traditional folk standard “Wild Mountain Thyme,” the singer really nailing the song’s winsome lyrics with a fine vocal performance which is assisted by Johnstone’s spry mandolin picking.  

One of John’s most inspired song choices for the album can be found in the New Orleans classic “Iko Iko,” which Baldry delivers with reckless aplomb. The performance starts out low and slow, just Ray Cooper’s syncopated percussion and Baldry’s quiet vocals, before the volume and the temperature rises and the singer starts jumping ‘n’ jiving above a soundtrack that features Johnstone’s banjo and Olssen’s lively drumbeats. Altogether, they capture the sound and spirit of New Orleans R&B in a little recording studio in London. “Jubilee Cloud” is the last of the five John-produced tracks, the song a rollicking bit of blues-rock with folkish undertones driven by Ian Armit’s honky-tonk piano and a solid Voorman/Olssen rhythmic backbone. Baldry delivers a strong, Southern soul styled vocal performance while Cooper throws in a bit of chaotic percussion.  

You Can’t Judge A Book By The Cover

The Stewart side opens with the comedic title track, itself introduced by an odd, entirely British spoken word bit before rolling into Baldry’s old-school crooning. It sounds a little strange to American ears, but I’m sure the U.K. audience adored it at the time. Not to be outdone by his colleague John, Stewart throws in his own Willie Dixon song, the boogie-woogie favorite “You Can’t Judge A Book (By the Cover),” originally a hit for the great Bo Diddley. Baldry does the song right, knocking out an energetic performance with improvised lyrical asides, backed by Armit’s manic piano-pounding and part-time Fleetwood Mac guitarist Bob Weston’s serpentine fretwork. The other highlight of side two is Baldry’s take on the traditional British folk tune “Mother Ain’t Dead,” which features a sublime performance by the singer on guitar, accompanied only by Stewart on banjo and backing vocals.

This CD reissue includes a number of bonus tracks, including two radio spots produced by Warner Brothers to originally advertise the album. More interesting is a live performance of Baldry’s original “Bring My Baby Back To Me” from the 1972 Mar-Y-Sol Festival in Puerto Rico. An unabashed electric blues song with a suspiciously hypnotic circular guitar riff (think Hill Country and R.L. Burnside), Baldry channels his best Howlin’ Wolf Delta blues growl above the scorching fretwork and swaggering drumbeats. A haunting cover of Neil Young’s melancholy “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” (mistakenly credited to Leadbelly?) features singer Joyce Everson, as does the folk-blues rave-up “I’m Just A Rake & Ramblin’ Boy,” which features a beautiful duet between the two singers above Baldry’s nuanced acoustic guitar.  

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Less bluesy and spontaneous, perhaps, than It Ain’t Easy, the following year’s Everything Stops For Tea nevertheless has its moments. Baldry’s voice is in fine form, the backing musicians are definitely inspired, and Elton John’s production, in particular, is subtle yet confident. These two early 1970s albums, originally released by Warner Brothers Records, represent the cornerstone of Baldry’s immense musical legacy in England, and provided the singer with a modicum of commercial success and popularity in both the United States and Canada. Both albums are highly recommended for the curious who want a taste of this talented and admittedly eclectic artist. (Stony Plain Records, released April 24, 2012)

Also on That Devil Music: Long John Baldry's It Ain't Easy album review

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Archive Review: Long John Baldry’s It Ain’t Easy (1971)

An influential veteran of the early 1960s British blues-rock scene, Long John Baldry performed with and/or inspired nearly every musician of note on the island. The popular singer and songwriter had been a large part of two essential and seminal bands of the era, Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated and Cyril Davies’ R&B All Stars, and had led Long John Baldry and His Hoochie Coochie Men with lead singer Rod Stewart, and Bluesology, which featured future pop star Elton John.

During the late 1960s, however, Baldry strayed from the blues and blues-rock music with which he’d made his reputation in favor of pop ballads that provided minor chart hits. By 1971, the singer’s career had stalled, and with the help of old friends Stewart and John, Baldry made a successful return to the blues with It Ain’t Easy. With one side of the original album produced by Rod Stewart and the other side produced by Elton John, It Ain’t Easy featured Baldry performing alongside some of the best and brightest musicians that England had to offer, including guitarist Ron Wood, Stewart’s bandmate in the Faces and a future Rolling Stones member; guitarist Caleb Quaye, from Elton John’s band; and Jeff Beck Group drummer Mickey Waller, among others.

Long John Baldry’s It Ain’t Easy

It Ain’t Easy starts off with an odd little spoken-word intro titled “Conditional Discharge.” Part reminiscence, part stream-of-consciousness rant, Baldry’s low-key voice is accompanied by Ian Armit’s spirited boogie-woogie piano-pounding. The piece serves as the perfect opening for the raucous “Don’t Try To Lay No Boogie Woogie On the King Of Rock & Roll.” With Ron Wood laying down a smoking guitar riff, Baldry’s howling, growling vocals strut and swagger atop the instrumentation, Waller’s powerful drumbeats driving the song alongside blasts from Alan Skidmore’s saxophone and Sam Mitchell’s guitar, Baldry’s vocals doubled-and-tripled by a female vocal chorus. It’s a heady way to launch the album, resulting in a minor AOR radio hit that pushed the album into the Billboard Top 100.

There’s more to It Ain’t Easy than the aforementioned house-rocker, though, Baldry performing a duet, of sorts, with fellow British blues singer Maggie Bell (Stone the Crows) on Leadbelly’s classic “Black Girl.” The performance is rife with slinky, Delta-inspired stringwork, Baldry playing a 12-string guitar alongside Mitchell’s weeping Dobro steel guitar and Ray Jackson’s spry mandolin. Baldry and Bell’s vocals are dirty, drawling, and often overwhelmed by the chaotic instrumentation – a delightful mess, really, contemporizing the antique song while paying proper reverence to its origins. The album’s title track is delivered in a similar Mississippi blues vein, with a bit of gospel fever thrown in for good measure, Baldry’s soulful, shouted vocals bolstered by Bell’s harmonies, accompanied by Mitchell’s Dobro and Wood’s hot git licks.

Rock Me When He’s Gone

Baldry’s cover of the folkish “Morning, Morning,” written by Tuli Kupferberg of the Fugs, may seem an obscure and unlikely choice, but Baldry’s wistful, mourning vocals and Woods’ 12-string plucking bring a bittersweet measure to the song, which mixes folk, rock, and blues to its maximum emotional impact. Blues legend Willie Dixon’s classic “I’m Ready” is spruced up and jacked up by this British blues-rock crew, the song’s original Chicago blues strut amplified by a rowdy instrumental arrangement built around Baldry’s gruff vocals and Mitchell’s Delta-dirty slide-guitarwork. Armitt throws in some Otis Spann-inspired juke-joint piano, and as they say in Merry Ole England, “Bob’s yer uncle!”  
    
Elton John’s “Rock me When He’s Gone” is a blues-tinged rocker with John’s typical pop overtones. Baldry does a good job with the vocals, backed by his female vocal choir, John’s lively piano and Caleb Quaye’s chiming organ. The original ten-track release of It Ain’t Easy closed out with the Rod Stewart/Ron Wood/Ronnie Lane tune “Flying,” a mid-tempo, folkish affair with slight vocals, minor guitarplay from Quaye, and John’s background piano. It was a rather weak way to end an otherwise strong album, but this reissue CD tacks on seven red-hot bonus tracks to pacify the punters. An acoustic version of the Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee gem “Blues (Cornbread, Meat And Molasses)” is Piedmont blues by way of London, with lively guitar and harmonica, with Baldry’s perfect drawl bringing the lyrics to life. Delta great Robert Johnson’s “Love In Vein” is delivered as a guitar-heavy dirge with a juke-joint heart, while Leroy Carr’s “Midnight Hour Blues” is a joyous celebration of the Delta spirit with lonesome harp and sparse but effective guitar picking laid beneath Baldry’s wailing vocals.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

While Baldry would go on to record several albums that were bluesier than It Ain’t Easy – including Remembering Leadbelly, his 2001 tribute to the legendary Huddie Ledbetter – a large part of this British blues-rock institution’s legacy is built upon this early album. Representing somewhat of a U.S. commercial breakthrough to go along with his longstanding popularity in the U.K., this is the album that introduced us to Long John Baldry and made many of us look at British blues in a different light. Best of all, It Ain’t Easy still rocks hard and sounds great even after 40+ years, and if you ain’t heard it, maybe it’s high time you did! (Stony Plain Records, reissued April 24, 2012)

Also on That Devil Music: Long John Baldry's Everything Stops For Tea review

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Stony Plain Records celebrates 40 years!

Our friends at Alligator Records aren’t the only label to achieve a significant milestone in 2016 – Canada’s Stony Plain Records, as fine a roots ‘n’ blues imprint as you’ll find on this spinning green globe – is celebrating four decades in the biz this year with the release of a special three-CD set. On June 3rd, 2016 the label will release 40 Years of Stony Plain, the ambitious compilation offering 35 deep cuts from Stony Plain’s storied history of album releases on two CDs as well as a third, twelve-track disc of rarities and previously-unreleased tracks from the archives.

The three CDs of 40 Years of Stony Plain are broken down by theme, the first disc offering material from singer/songwriters like Colin Linden, Ian Tyson, Doug Sahm, Emmylou Harris, Corb Lund, Steve Earle, and Rodney Crowell, among others. Disc two is comprised of “blues, R&B, gospel, swing, jazz, and even more” with songs by talents like Jeff Healey, Jim Byrnes, Amos Garrett, Ruthie Foster, Joe Louis Walker, Rory Block, and Long John Baldry, to name but a few. The third rarities disc is really juicy, offering rare and/or unreleased performances by the great Duke Robillard, Maria Muldaur, Eric Bibb, and David Wilcox. The set also includes a rare track by legendary blues harpist Walter ‘Shakey’ Horton, performing with Hot Cottage on “Shakey’s Edmonton Blues.”  

“Celebrating Stony Plain’s 40th Anniversary by putting together this specially priced three CD set has been a joy,” label founder and president Holger Petersen states in a press release for 40 Years of Stony Plain. “Not only going back over those years and selecting some of our favorite tracks, but to also dig deeper to find rare and previously unreleased material by old friends Eric Bibb, Duke Robillard, Maria Muldaur, David Wilcox, the late Bob Carpenter, Walter ‘Shakey’ Horton and the legendary Sam Chatmon and His Barbeque Boys from 1979. With extensive notes and packaging, this stunning collection of 47 songs will be a joyful surprise for true music fans everywhere.”

Formed by Petersen in 1976, Stony Plain Records has released over 400 albums to date, earning the Canadian label a handful of Grammy® nominations and a slew of accolades in their home country, including eleven Juno Awards and 20 Maple Blues Awards. The Blues Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee named Stony Plain as the 2014 label of the year, and Holger Petersen as the broadcaster of the year in 2008 for his work over 30 years as the host of the Saturday Night Blues program, broadcast weekly across Canada by CBS Radio. Petersen has also served as the host of the weekly Natch’l Blues program on CKUA radio for 47 years. A true inspiration to roots ‘n’ blues fans worldwide, Holger Petersen’s love of music has benefited us all. Congrats to Stony Plain Records for 40 great years!

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: 40 Years of Stony Plain