Sunday Morning Blues - Lowell Fulson, The Four Blazes, Buddy Guy, Arthur Gunter, Slim Gaillard

Our continued adventures with the 52-Disc "The ABC Of The Blues" boxset...
Volume 12 again breaks the 10-tracks each from 2 artists, giving us only 4 tracks for Buddy, 9 for Arthur, and 7 for Slim.

Volumes 11 and 12

Lowell Fulson
An important musician in the west coast blues furing the 40s and 50s. His guitar playing is very close to early rock and roll, so much so that later on ZZ Top would cover his now blues standard Tramp. Originally from Oklohoma, but moved to California in the early 1940s. He recorded on the Checker label until 1962, though his most prolific period was the late 40s. He passed away in Long Beach after a long cateer with very few breaks in it.

None of his really big hits, or songs of his that would become blues standards are present here. The box set dug a little deeper into his career and came out with some real gems. There's a whole bunch of swining R&B here, early blues rock, almost nothing that is 'classic blues' from the east. All of these are perfect examples of west coast blues.

The Four Blazes
There were actually two groups known as the Four Blazes at the same time, one in L.A., the other in Chicago. The Chicago group was the blues outfit, whom we're listening to here. Closer to an R&B band in many ways, still very blues. The lives shows also featured more than music, each of the members would do impressions or short comedy routines during the set, making them more a stage act than others. The band had broken up by 1955, going their own ways.

This is, from what I can tell, close to an actual set list that would have been performed, and not simply a collection from their catalog. Though the interspersed comedy routines aren't present. The sound is good, clean, without any degradation due to time or trying to take from vinyl, which is nice. Though, they feel a lot closer to jazz than blues a lot of the time, but there's still always that blues rhythm under it. If you want some blues that's geared a little more toward a night club or dancing find some of their records, a few collections have made their way into the market.

Buddy Guy
George "Buddy" Guy is one of the more interesting guitarists in this box set, his playing is amazing, and sometimes bizarre as he's been known to play the guitar with drum sticks. He got his start in Louisiana, playing a custom built two string diddley bow. In 1957 he moved to Chicago, fell under the spell of Muddy Waters guitar playing, won a record contract on Cobra records (by beating out Magic Sam and Otis Rush), and launched a career that's still going today. One of the leaders of Chicago Blues through the sixties and seventies, but it wasn't until the 1980s that his career hit larger success with the blues revival.

Given that Buddy is still active, and has a fifty year career by now, the inclusion of only four tracks from this amazing guitarist is odd. I'll put it down to licensing. The four tracks we do get are classic Chicago blues with a strong guitar leading the band. He's definitely worth seeking out and finding more music from, most of it is readily available.

Arthur Gunter
Arthur was a blues guitarist from Tennessee, and may have lived and performed in near obscurity like many musicians were it not for one hit. Elvis heard 'Baby Let's Play House' and recorded it in 1955, making the song famous, but not Arthur. By 1966 his recording career had all but ended as his contract and band both dissolved. He never recaptured the early glory of the mid 1950s.

The first song we get is his hit, which is a nice little tune, you can easily hear how Elvis could turn this into Rock and Roll.  All the songs here are a classic Chicago-style rhythm and blues sound. Only one song short of the full ten most artists get in this box-set, and still, you feel a little cheated by it. A great collection of songs, it's too bad Arthur never made it bigger and remained in the shadows of the blues movement. Blues After Hours, his final song here, is absolutely amazing, it sounds like the iconic blues song of the fifties.

Slim Gaillard
Slim is actually known as a jazz and bebop artist, famous for singing in made up languages (hobbled together from the nine languages he's reported to have spoken). He started his music career in the 1930s with Slam Stewart as "Slim & Slam", even then most of his repertoire was a kind of improvised jazz-blues rhythm. His history is unknown, born in either Cuba, Florida, or Alabama. The legend goes his father took him to Europe when he was 12, where Slim was left behind on Crete, he worked his way back to the US, moved to Detroit and started to make music.

Given he is known for bebop and jazz, finding even seven blues tracks for this compilation must have been a bit difficult. Even the ones they did find have a jazz feeling to them, some overwhelmingly so. While I like the songs, they are excellent, and it was good to be introduced to the artist ... I would have preferred more actual blues - not a kind of bebop masquerading as the blues.

Music aside - they really should have flipped the number of tracks Buddy got versus the number Slim got on this disc. Buddy is a classic blues guitarist, and known for it. It seems on this disc they slipped a little too far away from The Blues. Though, given just how much Blues is in any form of American music, I can't say I'm surprised.

Next Week - Volumes 13 and 14: John Lee Hooker, Wynonie Harris, Earl Hooker, Screamin' Jay Hawkins. Some decidedly awesome blues in the next two CDs...