The Alex Club
Chicago
November 1963
Magic Sam (guitar), Eddie Shaw (vocal, tenor sax), Mac Thompson (bass), Rob Richey (drums)
Recorded by Pete Kroehler
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The ’63 Alex Club version of “Lookin’ Good” first appeared on record in 1981, on Side B of Magic Sam’s Live double LP (DL-645/646). It was dropped from the album when the tapes were remastered for CD in 1990, but it resurfaced in 2002 on Rockin’ Wild in Chicago, a compilation of live performances recorded at the Alex Club, the Copacabana, and Mother Blues.
The Alex Club tapes are the earliest document of Magic Sam playing in the clubs; this was about six years after his Cobra single “All Your Love" — seven after Vee-Jay released Billy Boy Arnold’s "Kissing at Midnight.”
If the West Side Soul version of “Lookin’ Good” stands as the polished masterpiece, then the Alex Club rendition is an early discarded draft. It’s possible Sam had been messing around with the “Kissing at Midnight” riff as early as 1956, but what we hear at the Alex Club is more of an off-the-cuff jam than a structured song. (And who knows — maybe the whole point of playing it back then was to provide Eddie Shaw a groove with which he could take over the mic for part of the set.)
In the original “Kissing at Midnight,” Billy Boy Arnold’s lyrics and harp breaks help to punctuate the song, giving it a beginning, a middle, and an end — all of which are lost once you distill the song down to just the guitar riff. To get some of that structure back, Sam had to find new embellishments. Eddie Shaw was one, and the fade-ins/outs are another. (You can hear both in the Alex Club version.)
But there’s still plenty missing from this version: the cadenza breaks, the drony guitar improvisations around the A7, and the brief chord change to the IV.
By February of 1966, when Sam recorded the first studio version of “Lookin’ Good,” a lot had changed: the tune was no longer Eddie Shaw’s voice accompanied by guitar — it was a full-blown guitar instrumental. It was still missing the IV-chord “Boogie Chillen” reference, but the thing now had a structure and a serious groove.
A common refrain you hear about “West Side” guitarists like Magic Sam and Buddy Guy is that their style developed out of the need to make a three-piece band (which was often all they could afford to bring to a gig) sound like five or six pieces. Maybe having to play “Lookin’ Good” in a trio format eventually forced Magic Sam to rethink and adapt it. Or, maybe it was done by committee; Mac Thompson, Freddie King, Mighty Joe Young, Shakey Jake — any of those guys could have suggested a change here or a tweak there.
I’m left with a lot of maybes involving dead musicians...the usual story.
