Can't Be Satisfied

by Robert Gordon

  206 “shooting for the hippies”: Jones, Melody Maker, p. 29.

  206 Jimi Hendrix’s valet: His name was James Finney.

  206 “The first guitarist I was aware of”: Murray, Traffic, p. 132.

  207 “They got this funny thing going”: Guralnick interview with Muddy Waters.

  207 “that one was dogshit”: Wheeler, “Waters–Winter.”

  207 “We did a lot of the things over”: DeMichael, “Father and Son.”

  208 “Muddy’s got everybody crazy”: DeMichael, “Muddy Waters Week,” p. 13.

  208 Leonard was ready to move on: “No one got rich on the sale of Chess Records,” Marshall told me. “We got a tremendous amount of stock worth seven dollars a share that we couldn’t sell for five years. When I sold mine it was for one dollar and seventy-eight cents a share. And my mom and Phil, they never sold theirs. They waited until it was bankrupt.”

  208 “I made my money on the Negro”: Dean Gysel, Chicago Daily News, June 1967.

  209 “I’ll be with Chess”: Guralnick, Home, p. 233. Cookie remembered the Chess brothers: “The oldest used to always bring me candy. I think he thought if he bribed me it would be easy with Muddy and it worked. And I used to love bananas so he would come in with a bushel. And I would go there with Muddy and Muddy would come back to the car cussing up a storm about something they didn’t do. ‘Those goddamn Chess brothers!’ They had almost like a family relationship.”

  209 IOU notes: One report stated $150,000 worth of IOUs were found in Leonard’s office.

  209 “What [the musicians] were paid”: Cohodas, Spinning, p. 228. On page 229, Cohodas quotes Leonard saying he’d never give Sonny Boy a large advance. “He’d be broke tomorrow. . . . I’ll make sure that he lives and his rent is paid.” Cohodas also writes on page 229: “Some days the first-floor hallway at 2120 looked like the line at a bank teller’s window.”

  209 “You know we sold the company”: Guralnick, Home, p. 217.

  209 “[GRT] could have been in the tomato business”: Golkin, “Blacks, Whites, and Blues” part 2.

  210 “they wanted to get rid of my uncle”: Collis, Chess, p. 187.

  A brief history of Chess Records ownership: Len Levy, formerly of Epic Records, replaced Marshall and moved Chess to New York. Marvin Schlacter, from Janus Records, became president in 1971. He stabilized the company by merging Chess, Janus, and GRT, but by 1975 the game was over and Ralph Bass was charged with shipping all Chess masters to storage in Nashville. In England in the 1970s, Phonolog had the license and was actively reissuing the catalog, including the Genesis series of three boxed sets. In August of 1975, All Platinum (Joe and Sylvia Robinson) bought Chess for $950,000. They attempted only to work with the back catalog, not reactivate the label. Sugar Hill acquired Chess when All Platinum went bust, and MCA from Sugar Hill.

  212 YOU ARE NOW ENTERING KLAN COUNTRY: Paul Oscher told me, “I didn’t say anything, but fifteen years later I’m sitting in a bar thinking about that shit and I wrote down on a napkin: ‘Mississippi / land of darkness / the devil lives there in and around the low lands by the cotton fields / by the white crosses on the side of the highway / Satan lingers / Mississippi, your fertile soil have give rise to the dusty mouths of black folks who through wide gold-toothed grins shout out the blues, oh the blues, those lonesome blues.’ ”

  213 “He immediately agreed to come”: Lomax, Land, p. 420.

  213 “ ‘Hi, Lo,’ he said”: In his book, among the band members that Lomax names in Muddy’s car is Little Walter, then dead half a year.

  215 “If you lose just an ordinary sideman”: Guralnick interview with Muddy Waters.

  215 “Pinetop, he come from the part of the country”: Ibid.

  215 $3,500 for a one-hour set: As per a contract with the Southwest 1970 Peace Festival in Lubbock, Texas.

  216 “I used to be a good liquor drinker”: DeMichael, “Father and Son,” p. 32.

  216 “Champagne for breakfast”: Nicholls, “Strangers.”

  216 “up through Maine”: Guralnick interview with Muddy Waters.

  217 “I ain’t dying”: “Car Crash,” Rolling Stone.

  13: EYES ON THE PRIZE 1970–1975

  Living Blues Founded: As the sixties became the seventies, white audiences in South Side clubs became more common, though they were still outsiders. “In the seventies, policemen thought we were criminals,” said Dick Shurman, who’d moved to Chicago in the late 1960s. “One time Jim O’Neal and I were leaving and a couple plainclothesmen grabbed us on the way out. They figured we had been picking up protection money. They had me pop the trunk on my foreign car and I had a little compact jack. They said, ‘What’s this, a machine gun?’ ”

  It was in this environment that the magazine Living Blues was founded, taking the South Side — and other blues scenes — to mailboxes around the world. With seed money from Bob Koester, several of his employees at the Jazz Record Mart and Delmark Records began the magazine to document “the Black American Blues Tradition.” Founders included then-husband-and-wife Jim O’Neal and Amy van Singel, Paul Garon, and Bruce Iglauer (who was working as a shipping clerk for Delmark when Koester declined the opportunity to release a Hound Dog Taylor album, giving Iglauer the impetus to found Alligator Records). The first subscriber was Victoria Spivey.

  Living Blues became something of a blues family newsletter. Howlin’ Wolf was interviewed in the first issue; Buddy Guy in the second. “I’d go around the country doing interviews with other people,” said Jim O’Neal. “I don’t know how many would ask, ‘Is Muddy Waters still alive?’ This was at a time when he had disappeared from black radio and that circuit.” The magazine sought to document, not analyze, and so musicians could sound off in a way that the mainstream press would not allow. “I read in Down Beat or Time magazine while I was in Africa, ‘The Rebirth of the Blues,’ ” said Buddy Guy. He continued:

  You know, they printed that wrong. They should have said it was “The Reprinted of the Blues,” because we ain’t never give it up. You could come here and Theresa [of Theresa’s Lounge] won’t allow nothing but a blues band. So don’t say “The Rebirth of the Blues.” Just say Janis Joplin and the Cream and all of ’em went to playing the blues, because we never left it. If we had left it, they wouldn’t have found it out. . . . It seems like to me, all you have to do is be white and just play a guitar — you don’t have to have the soul — you gets farther than the black man. (O’Neal and Zorn, “Buddy Guy”)

  Blues label owners who got their start learning the ropes from Koester as Jazz Record Mart employees included Iglauer; O’Neal and van Singel, who founded Rooster Records; the late Pete Welding of the Testament label; Don Kent of Mamlish; the late Bruce Kaplan of Flying Fish; Pete Crawford of Red Beans; and Michael Frank, whose Earwig label perhaps most closely follows Koester’s tradition of recording older, less commercially viable artists. Koester’s role as a mentor and pioneer in the independent record business was formally recognized in 1996 when he was elected into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame. (Barretta, “The Monarch,” p. 28.)

  Messinger’s Memory of His Parting with Muddy: “I heard from the American promoter Lew Futterman that Muddy was drinking a lot of Piper-Heidsieck and it was costing a lot of money,” Messinger told me. “I went to my home on Cape Cod, where I’m from originally. Muddy came back while I was gone, we had made some sort of arrangement about the cars. And I got a panicked message of some sort. ‘Where’s the money?’ I had been sending money to all the designated places. They went back to Chicago. Next thing I know, I got a letter vilifying me and discharging me.”

  As support, Messinger proffered a letter typed on blank paper — no letterhead — and dated by hand as December 23, 1970. It was to Muddy Waters, from Lyon–Futterman Associates, Ltd., the tour’s booking agent. It stated, in part, “This is to confirm the intention of our organization to honor its outstanding financial obligation to you.” The letter is signed by Lewis Futterman “for Lyon–Futterman Associates
and as a personal guarantee.” Messinger continued, “First Futterman was going to be helpful, then he became incommunicado. I never talked to Muddy again. If I had had a road manager like I wanted, none of this would have happened.”

  Scott Cameron’s Developing Relationship with Muddy: Cameron’s relationship with Muddy took hold and, with things looking up, Muddy invited his new main man to his South Side home for dinner. Cameron met the family: Charles and Dennis, Dennis’s girlfriend Jean, Cookie and her daughter Chandra. Cameron remembered, “I think Big Walter was over there that night, too. Not everyone could fit at the table. There were a lot of scamperings in and out.” Muddy served collard greens and smothered steak. Geneva fixed chitlins. “As soon as the sun started going down, Muddy said, ‘You gotta go now because they might start shooting.’ He’d always send me home before the lights started coming on.”

  In anticipation of Muddy’s higher profile East Coast tour, the Washington Post sent a reporter to Chicago. Mr. Hollie I. West found Muddy’s “well-kept two-story brownstone stands out among houses that are deserted or crumbling in disrepair.” He noted that Geneva maintained a garden and was impressed with the couple’s relationship after thirty-three years of marriage; Muddy greeted her with, “How ya doin’, baby?” They sat down to eat bacon and eggs. “If I’d known you was a brother, I would’ve had some pork chops waiting for you. Don’t think I can’t cook because I can take care of business in the kitchen. Soul food is my specialty — chicken, pork chops, soup. My wife will lay back in a minute and let me burn. Pound cake is my specialty. I use a pound of butter and six eggs. You got to cream that butter until it’s almost like ice cream. I cook when the notion hits me. But I’m a pepper man. My family, man, has to watch my hand with the spice.” (Hollie I. West, Washington Post, September 24, 1971, Sec. B.)

  After Scott went from agent to manager, Muddy was booked by William Morris, then Premiere, then Paragon (which handled southern rock bands), and finally Rosebud.

  Mr. Kelly’s: “We were riding back to Muddy’s house from the Kelly’s gig in his Cadillac,” said Paul Oscher, “and Muddy whispers to me, ‘Motherfucker, you’re blowing that motherfucker now.’ And I knew I was, too. I was playing my ass off. But I really felt good when he said that.” Oscher, who was playing through a Guild Thunderbird amp, achieves a deep tone throughout the live recording. His expertise is most exciting in the staccato comp licks he plays during his solo on the Jimmy Reed song “You Don’t Have to Go.” He shows a profound understanding of when to lay back; where some harp players are compelled to play all the time, he jumps in and out — as in the instrumental “Mudcat,” where he lets the band set the shuffling groove, then steps forward for his solo, then is out again. His absence fattens the band dynamic; less is more.

  “I got pretty close to Muddy during Mr. Kelly’s,” said Oscher, “but it’s hard to get close to Muddy. Most every night we came back, Muddy would cook fried bologna or something, and we’d sit there and have a few more drinks and talk some shit. So he asked me would I give him twenty percent if he made me a star. We were talking shit at his kitchen table so I said, ‘Well, what about ten percent, man?’ Then I ran into this girl who was doing public relations for Chess and she told me that Chess had a big interest after the Mr. Kelly’s gig to do a record with me. Muddy wasn’t going to tell me that Chess wanted to do it because that would be cutting his part out. It was a country thing. Cotton was probably making more money than Muddy at the time. I was in his corner. If he’d told me, I would have said, ‘Yeah, of course, I’ll give you whatever you want.’ But that’s how he communicated: indirect ways.”

  Oscher’s departure from the band in 1971 — a beautiful swan dive into a murky swamp — came soon after. He caught a cold that turned to pneumonia and he returned to Brooklyn to heal. But a week after arriving home, he found his harmonica talents mysteriously transformed. “There’s a lot of strange things that happened to me,” he said, his tone getting hushed. “I don’t know if I really want to get into it, but a week after I left Muddy, my skills were stolen from me. I had to go through a relearning how to blow.”

  Oscher would be replaced by Mojo Buford, the replacement man, who this time stayed with the band nearly three years. His stint would not start, however, until after a West Coast tour that brought George “Harmonica” Smith back into the fold. That tour was documented by a film crew. An edited version of their footage has been released on videotape by Vestapol as Muddy Waters in Concert 1971. The audio portion is available through Blind Pig on an enhanced CD titled The Lost Tapes. The live footage, shot with several cameras, does a very good job of intimately capturing Muddy and the band. The film crew’s documentary footage, shot mostly in the station wagon while driving on the highway, is less professional, with horrific road noises, an interviewer’s head disembodied by the car seat before him, and a line of questioning that reveals more about the crew’s lack of preparation than about Muddy. By virtue of its proximity, however, it does open a window into Muddy’s life on tour. Big Mama Thornton is seated next to him, drunk and interrupting, her frequent demands for a bathroom stop unheeded; she threatens to pee on the floor. Muddy retains his composure, except to shout cautionary warnings to the driver — his accident was recent.

  219 “sunup and sundown here in the house”: Guralnick interview with Muddy Waters.

  220 “I’m up and around”: “Back on His Feet,” Rolling Stone.

  220 news about Otis Spann: By 1970, Spann was living a block from Muddy at 4311 S. Greenwood. Boston guitarist Peter Malick stayed there the last couple months of Spann’s life:

  Spann’s home was a two-room apartment, a bedroom with a kitchenette and a living room with a cot. There was one bathroom for all six apartments. There were cockroaches, flies too. No screens on the windows. You lay there at night and cockroaches might crawl over you. There wasn’t a whole lot you could do about it. . . . Spann and I played every night in his little apartment. Part of it was that he needed a way to pay the rent. People would come over and leave a couple of bucks. That’s how he got by but that’s also what he loved to do. (Brisbin, “Malick”)

  220 “A skeletal-looking man”: Guralnick, Lost Highway, p. 294.

  221 “There are some beautiful white bands”: “Rebirth of the Blues,” Newsweek.

  He told a 1971 documentary crew, “I like to get the Mississippi tone, the down South tone. I like to play an open sound, not playing flats and sharps. I stay with the natural keys like E natural or A natural. I think your instrument and you, when you’re singing the type blues that I sing, [it should sound] like some people arguing. I talk to it and it talk to me.” (Wyler and Ragsdale interview with Muddy Waters.)

  222 “He strolled on stage with a crutch”: Random Notes, Rolling Stone, July 23, 1970.

  223 “As we go to press”: Blues News, Living Blues, winter 1970–1971.

  224 “Lucille got in the wrong crowd”: Cookie confirmed Willie’s assessment of Lucille: “An older girl that rented upstairs at Lake Park, Doris Priestly, told me then that C. D. had turned Lucille on to drugs.”

  224 “They’re all new people”: Guralnick interview with Muddy Waters.

  226 According to the papers that Muddy couldn’t read: If Muddy had higher literacy skills, a clause such as this may have prompted a question: “The Compositions, including without limitation, the lyrics, music, titles, and characters described therein shall be and are the sole and exclusive property of the Employer, together with all copyright rights therein and all other rights thereunder. . . .” (U.S. District Court, “McKinley Morganfield v. Arc.”)

  228 “Muddy emotes warmly”: Charles Giuliano, “Muddy Waters at Jazz Workshop,” Boston Herald Traveler, March 19, 1971.

  “The Jazz Workshop was a tough week,” said Dick Waterman, who co-owned another Boston club. “It was a Monday to Sunday seven-night week with a Sunday matinee. My club, Joe’s Place, was working a five- or six-night week, with no matinees. I never asked Muddy to play, and when we were tal
king, he said, ‘Back when not too many people knew my name, Freddy Taylor [at the Jazz Workshop], Freddy wanted me to play.’ He said, ‘Now I like Freddy. Freddy work you hard. But I got to show the man the consideration.’ ”

  228 “He was in as fine a form”: Jon Landau, “A Man of Great Pride, Great Dignity,” Boston Phoenix, March 23, 1971.

  In New York, Muddy played the Gaslight Theater, a burgeoning blues club — even if it was in the basement. “There was no backstage, it was a kitchen,” said Willie Strandberg, fan and friend of Paul Oscher. “Muddy was like a regal king. He was sitting up on the stove, he had a big fur coat on, a Tiparillo sticking out of his pocket, and I said, ‘Hey, Muddy, nice to meet you.’ He said, ‘Oh I love these waitresses, the hippie chicks.’ ”

  230 The London Muddy Waters Sessions: Rory Gallagher said:

  I learned a lot watching him tune his guitar and watching the way he sang and performed. . . . The hardest thing was to get the drums and bass in sync with Muddy’s type of rhythm guitar. . . . A couple of times Muddy would stop the song if he didn’t like the way it was going, but a few suggestions were made by Steve Winwood as well and Georgie Fame, who was playing piano. But with a lot of these types of sessions, there’s not all that much verbal communication. A lot of it’s just stop and start again: “Can you pick up on that?” or “Can you start in a different key?” (Skelly, “Muddy Waters”)

  Carey Bell played on and off with Muddy’s band over many years. He’d come to Chicago from Mississippi and had gotten his start with pianist Lovie Lee, who later joined Muddy’s last band. Bell got guidance from Little Walter, and was strong enough to record with Earl Hooker, subtle enough to record with Honeyboy Edwards.

  232 Can’t Get No Grinding: “ ‘Can’t Get No Grinding,’ ” said Muddy, “I heard that from Memphis Minnie a thousand years ago.” Which doesn’t stop him, in the blues tradition, from putting his name on the song. (O’Neal and van Singel, “Muddy Waters.”)

  232 circuit of higher-class cabarets: Some of his higher-class gigs: On the fifth day of 1973, he played the Avery Fisher Philharmonic Hall on a bill with John Lee Hooker and Mose Allison; he returned two months later, playing another “Blues Variations,” this time with Lightnin’ Hopkins and Bonnie Raitt. Both shows were sold out. He also played the larger Carnegie Hall on June 29.