Duffy Power - Tigers

Power of Discovery

To remind me again of how little I know about important musical history, this album has brought Duffy Power to my amazed attention. My acceptable excuse in this case is that Power’s critical status in the blues and skiffle scene was established in the early 60s as I was only just beginning the serious aural journey, and he was then suddenly a reclusive figure not playing live or recording for over 30 years.

Released last summer, Tigers is a collection of recordings coaxed from Powers by Irish music journalist and composer Colin Harper between the years 2000 and 2006, including the one exception from 1996 which is the song Spaces, the last recording made by saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith, famously of Colosseum.

The other aspect to amaze me is how much the singing and guitar playing reminds of John Martyn, the vocal especially in its slight gruff slur, an echo of John’s much more pronounced development, but also the recording on this album of The Slickers’ Johnny Too Bad [with an additional vocal tone of Warren Zevon]. The song Now and Then also has a beautiful echo of Martyn’s vocal as well as early folk guitar picking [itself such a reflection of Jansch et al]. What is distinctive is Power’s superb blues harmonica playing.

The opening three tracks are such an excellent start: Sweet Again; Tigers; Johnny Too Bad

14 Bar Blues

got the blues in patterns of rhythms and grooves

patterns of rhythms and grooves got in the blues

blues got patterns and in the rhythms of grooves

grooves and blues got in rhythms of the patterns

and patterns of rhythms got in the blues grooves

rhythms of blues and grooves got in the patterns

in the grooves blues and the patterns of rhythms

of blues rhythms and patterns got in the grooves

grooves of patterns got in the rhythms and blues

and the blues got rhythms of grooves in patterns

got in patterns of blues rhythms and the grooves

blues of grooves got in the patterns and rhythms

in the got patterns and rhythms of grooves blues

got the blues in patterns of rhythms and grooves

John the Conqueror - John the Conqueror

Rhetorical

Three young cool looking guys from Philadelphia chugging out dirt rock blues as derivative as you want your echoes to echo, but if the blues isn’t derived from itself in familiar rhythms, beats and repetitions then you wouldn’t be hearing the blues, would you? I call this Blues Rhetoric.

Pierre Moore on guitar, vocals and song-writing duties; Ryan Lynn on booming bass; Michael Gardner on drums.

Get down. But you won't be able to sit still.

The Visitors - Neptune

Influential Tuition

When I started this blog the idea was to post quick references to great music I was listening to at that time - a musical and celebratory diary of my likes. It has changed quite a bit over time, but I hope at its core is this celebration.

Tonight as I was inputting exam marks onto the computer [it's the marking season again, though the last time it will happen mid-year], I have been listening to The Visitors' jazz album Neptune, recorded for Muse Records in 1972. It's superb jazz sax playing. Of special and amazing interest is that the two brothers Carl Grubbs [alto] and Earl Grubbs [soprano and tenor] took saxophone lessons in the 1950s with the great John Coltrane who was then dating and later married their cousin Naima after whom the second track is titled. The influential tuition is pleasingly evident, as all good teaching should be. It is never flash here, but it can be delightfully energetic as on closing track Reflections On New York where the brothers sparkle in tandem.

Did You Write 'Wichita Lineman'?

Not the complete ghost to be able to ask, but it is

a question that haunts. The star studs still shine

even if in reflecting from the past, and the lines

echo messages about needing and wanting that we

too can hear though they might not last as well.

This is about how a song connects with another

time, and when we are lucky the moment is one

and the same. He listens again to the words  –

some that are his own, some of others’ making, and

those  that merge or come and go as wires are

crossed and signals fade exactly like memories.

A better question would be whether a god really

wants him and us to forget for a greater purpose, or

when we hear our lines we sing along like knowing.

Last night I watched the very good BBC documentary on the music and life of the great Glen Campbell, diagnosed in 2011 with Alzheimer's. Near the end, Jimmy Webb - lifelong friend and collaborator - tells the sad anecdote of how at a recent concert, Campbell is on stage and when spotting Webb at the side asks him the question of the poem's title, itself prompted by this story. Campbell's last album Ghost On The Canvas is reviewed here, August 30th, 2011.

Mahsa Vahdat & Mighty Sam McClain - A Deeper Tone of Longing: Love Duets Across Civilizations

Musical Merging

Cross-cultural it may be, and the Classical Persian/American Blues dichotomy is distinct, but there is also a perfect musical coalescence in this pairing. Mahsa Vahdat’s Farsi lyrics and vocals are beautiful, and the ‘yodel’ inflection in the singing captivating. The dominating instruments are the Persian kamancheh and ney, played respectively by Pasha Hanjani and Shervin Mohajer, and the Western horn of Mathias Eick, member of the predominantly Norwegian band. Mighty Sam McClain’s vocal is more jazz standard than bluesy, but it is an elegant tenor counterpoint.

Opener A Deeper Tone of Longing sets the principal tone, a beautiful ballad begun by the mesmerising, meandering voice of Vahdat, and then McClain sings his chorus with the kamancheh played plaintively behind its strength. There is the one and only element of funk in second track When You Came which McClain begins, again with such clarity and strength. Jazz guitar takes over from the kamancheh and the funk riff is accompanied with a ‘hey, hey, hey’ chorus.

There is an over-earnest and therefore jarring lyric to fifth track Sun of Iran, but otherwise the music is gently and meticulously appealing. Sixth We Are Sailors has a folk tone to its melody and storytelling, and seventh My Heart Doesn’t Know Borders has a wonderful folk/blues slide guitar layer over which the melody is sung in quickly alternating vocals – perhaps the finest example of this clever pairing.