#phil walden

[vinylspinning]

Blue Jug: Blue Jug (1975)

Every record collector knows that a record bearing the Capricorn label, which was famously founded by legendary manager and promoter Phil Walden (*), almost certainly contains one thing: Southern rock. (**)

But not all Southern rock bands are created equal: they come in all kinds of stylistic varieties and tiers of creative talent, so I was still taking a chance when I scooped up this 50-year-old self-titled LP from Nashville, Tennessee's Blue Jug.

Well, turns out the six humble hillbillies pictured on the sleeve -- Ed Raetzloff (vocals/guitar), Clint Delong (vocals/guitar), Bill Little (keys/vocals), Bill Burnett (bass), Paul Walkley (drums), and Buddy Spicher (fiddle) -- accurately reflect the connotations implied by the word "jug" in their name.

Meaning, that Blue Jug's songs rely heavily on the rootsy, folksy, country, ingredients of Southern rock, aligning them, not with the Skynyrds, Hatchets, or Blackfoots of the genre, The Marshall Tucker and Charlie Daniels bands, Stillwater, and Grinderswitch.

But you know who these guys REALLY remind me of? The Band.

Just listen to the leisurely pace, subdued instrumentation, minimal production, and especially the three-part harmonies dominating cuts like "Education," "A Miner's Song," and "Come On to Town Ned" will take you straight back to Woodstock and Big Pink.

Exceptions to this undeniably derivative formula include "Hard Luck Jimmy" and "Sugar Man," which substitute some crunchy power chords, "It's a Fact," which adds an Appalachian swing behind Spicher's fiddle, and "Take a Little Time," which puts its weight behind a singalong chorus, complete with handclaps.

And, maybe it's just me, but I'm really not a fan of Raetzloff's strained higher registers, which waver and quaver to the point of distraction when pushed front and center on "Poor Virginia," "When the Moon Rises," and other tracks here.

Or maybe it wasn't just me, because the album didn't sell and Capricorn dropped the band, which wasn't heard from again until three years later, when a second album emerged through Ariola called Blue Jug Band.

But I'm afraid you'll have to listen to that one yourself, cos I've had my fill from this Blue Jug.

* I actually met Mr. Walden (R.I.P.) in the mid '90s, when he briefly revived Capricorn and visited the Polygram office in Chicago, but I was far too green to know about his incredible achievements with the label and as manager for Otis Redding and The Allman Brothers Band.

** Noteworthy outliers include occult rockers White Witch and heavy psych cult favorites Captain Beyond.

More Southern Rock: The Allman Brothers Band’s Idlewild South, Beaverteeth’s Beaverteeth, Black Oak Arkansas’ High On the Hog, Blackfoot’s Strikes, Blackhorse’s Blackhorse, Bloontz’s Bloontz, Creed’s Creed, Doc Holliday’s Doc Holliday, Epitaph’s Outside the Law, Grinderswitch’s Pullin’ Together, Hydra’s Hydra, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Second Helping, Molly Hatchet’s Flirtin’ with Disaster, Navasota’s Rootin’, Nitzinger’s Nitzinger, Point Blank’s Point Blank, Potliquor’s Levee Blues, Thunderhead's Thunderhead, Two Guns’ Balls Out, Winterhawk’s Electric Warriors, ZZ Top’s Rio Grande Mud.

[rolloroberson]

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS WITH PHIL WALDEN AT MUSCLE SHOALS STUDIO MARCH 1969 by BARON WOLMAN:

"In March 1969, talented music writer Stanley Booth and I visited Macon, Georgia and Muscle Shoals, Alabama, on assignment for Rolling Stone. Among other southern music royalty, we hung out with Phil Walden of Redwal Music, the Macon music company Phil started with Otis Redding. At Redwal we were taken into the recording studio where we were introduced to the Allman Brothers; the band was in the studio rehearsing. This was very, very early in the career of the Allman Brothers; the band had only recently been shaped into its new form by Walden. Obviously I made some photographs. At the time I didn't have a wide-angle lens which could capture the entire band in the studio in a single 35mm frame. So I did the next best thing: I shot one side of the studio then carefully turned the camera horizontally to shoot the other side of the studio. In this manner I was able to include Phil and all the musicians in the two consecutive frames. Cut to the present. Through the magic of digitization I was able to meld the two frames into the single panoramic image you see here. From left to right: Berry Oakley, Duane Allman, Dickey Betts, Butch Trucks, Jaimoe Johanson, Gregg Allman and Phil Walden." -Baron Wolman

[vinylspinning]

Elmore James: Greatest Hits (1987)

For someone who partook of the golden age of Chicago electric blues in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, after escaping -- like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and countless others -- from a miserable upbringing in the Mississippi Delta, Elmore James all too often goes unmentioned.

Born in Richland, Mississippi, in 1918, James’ influences included Tampa Red, Kokomo Arnold and Robert Johnson, with whom he shares his signature song, “Dust My Broom” (and there’s the rub -- see also “Standing at the Crossroads”), first recorded by Johnson but later claimed by James as his own composition.

Honestly, it likely predated them both, in one form or another.

But I’d argue that, while Robert was by far the more historically significant of the two bluesmen, Elmore’s 1951 recording of “Dust My Broom” (Johnson’s dates to 1937) simply can’t be beat -- with its relentless swing, ringing slide guitar, amplifier turned up loud, and James’ ragged, desperate, vibrato-laden tenor.

Problem is, it’s debatably one of just two or three, certified Elmore blues standards, along with 1960’s fantastic “The Sky is Crying” (which, if you ask me, has an even better variant in the “The Sun is Shining”), and 1957’s  oft-covered “It Hurts Me Too.”

Explore beyond this point -- say, via this imperfect Greatest Hits set compiled in 1987 by Dutch budget label Cleo -- and repetitions of these very same frameworks like “Coming Home,” “I Believe,” and others perfectly illustrate the shallow blues pond James was fishing in.

Although, to be fair, he didn’t confine himself to the blues as much as most peers, but dabbled in other styles to deliver curiosities like the surf music-inspired “Hawaiian Boogie” and the Mexican-flavored rock & roll of “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” (reminiscent of The Champs’ “Tequila”).

Elmore’s brief and erratic association with several different indie labels (Trumpet, Modern, Kent and, yes, Chess) probably didn’t help build and maintain career momentum, and it didn’t help that he’d been living with a serious heart condition ever since being diagnosed after his service in WWII.

Sure enough, James died of a heart attack in 1963, just as he was preparing to embark for Europe to take part in the 1963 American Folk Blues Festival, missing out on a golden opportunity to expose his talents to the same welcoming audiences that lionized Muddy, the Wolf, and many other giants of the blues.

Elmore James is buried in Ebenezer, Mississippi, where his devoted fan, Capricorn Records founder Phil Walden raised funds for a granite headstone decorated with a bronze relief, proclaiming that there lies the “King of the Slide Guitar.”

More Blues: Big Bill Broonzy, Albert Collins, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, Son House, Howlin’ Wolf, Bullmoose Jackson, Etta James, Skip James, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Tommy Johnson, Albert King, B.B. King, Mance Lipscomb, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Muddy Waters, Charley Patton, Nina Simone, Bessie Smith, Taj Mahal, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Fats Waller, Ethel Waters, Peetie Wheatstraw, Johnny Winter.

[vinylspinning]

Molly Hatchet: Double Trouble Live (1985)

Me and my classic rock geek friends have been trading Molly Hatchet emails for days now, debating the merits and demerits of these Jacksonville, Florida-spawned heirs apparent to Lynyrd Skynyrd.

It’s complicated …

We’ve argued over the band’s sell-out to ‘80s AOR and glossy production, singer Danny Joe Brown vs. singer Jimmy Farrar, and even the misleading “advertising” of their fantasy album covers, which definitely convinced this uninformed young metal-head to buy 1984’s The Deed is Done.

So what of the band’s 1985 in-concert collection, Double Trouble Live?

Well, aside from harking back to the 1970s’ glorious tradition of double live LPs, there’s no better Molly Hatchet “greatest hits” set, if you ask me – even though it covers the group’s disastrous flirtation (see what I did there?) with ‘80s demons on the likes of “Stone in Your Heart,” “Satisfied Man” and the intolerable “Walk On the Side of the Angels” (is that a fucking saxophone?).

That’s because it compensates for those sins with numerous no-fuss rockers (“Whiskey Man,” “Bounty Hunter”), extended boogie jams (“Gator Country,” “Fall of the Peacemakers”), and stone-cold classics (“Flirtin’ With Disaster,” “Beatin’ the Odds”), even as the band owns up to their forefathers’ inescapable influence with reverent interpretations of “Freebird” and the Allmans’ “Dreams I’ll Never See.”

To be sure, Double Trouble Live paints a complicated picture, but that’s about the sum of Molly Hatchet’s career and, to be fair, many other second and third generation southern rock bands.

* One trivia item I just learned while writing this is that Molly’s bassist for these recordings, the perfectly named Riff West, had been a member of Capricorn Records-signed, early ‘70s southern rock/glam/occult weirdos White Witch!

More Molly Hatchet: Molly Hatchet, Flirtin’ With Disaster.