Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues

by Peter Guralnick

  Big Mama Thornton taught white audiences the original version of “Hound Dog.”

  Koko Taylor first recorded for Chess in the sixties and moved to Alligator Records in the seventies.

  The blues also lost its own key figures, more from hard living than heroin, which in the seventies ran rampant through the rock world. Little Walter was killed in a street brawl in 1968. Magic Sam died of a heart attack in 1969; he was just thirty-two years old. Skip James and Leonard Chess died that same year. Earl Hooker succumbed to tuberculosis in 1970 at age forty. Mississippi Fred McDowell died of cancer in 1972. Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed, and Freddie King passed on in 1976.

  Chess Records was sold in 1968, and Phil Chess went into radio. Leonard’s son Marshall moved to another label, Rolling Stone Records. There was little profit left in turning out blues records. Without blues-rock bands continuing to produce exciting music, the white audience drifted and it too eventually abandoned the blues. Young black audiences, now tired of soul, moved on to a new sound, funk. The success of the civil rights movement in the sixties had brought significant change for African-Americans, and no one wanted to look back.

  Despite its dire predicament in the 1970s, the blues hung on, and in some pockets even thrived. The southern chitlin’ circuit, that motley collection of black clubs, jukes, bars, and roadhouses, continued to feature blues bands doing one-night stands from Texas to Georgia. The audiences weren’t large, the money was barely enough, but black singers and musicians committed to the music played on, just scraping out a living, and longtime fans who still felt connected to the music’s emotional intensity turned out to hear them perform. Europe, with its seemingly endless fascination with American music, particularly black music, provided work for blues artists. But even that, too, was spotty, and available only for the biggest names. The blues and the business of the blues had come full circle by 1973. After enjoying a twenty-five-year period of unprecedented growth and popularity, the blues slid quietly out of the spotlight, finding refuge in the remaining blues clubs on the South Side of Chicago and in clubs in other cities where the aging black blues crowd continued to congregate, and in the occasional summer blues festival.

  All was not lost, however. In Chicago, a young blues fanatic, Bruce Iglauer, started a blues record company, Alligator Records, and sold his music the old-fashioned way: out of the trunk of his car. Iglauer had worked with another Chicago blues and jazz label, Delmark, which, in the mid-sixties, had released one of the greatest Chicago blues albums of all time—Junior Wells’ Hoodoo Man Blues—along with Magic Sam’s classic effort West Side Soul. After hearing a six-fingered slide guitarist named Hound Dog Taylor in Florence’s, a small Chicago club, Iglauer pleaded with Delmark owner Bob Koester to record Taylor. Koester, a longtime advocate of black music, refused, figuring the venture was not a wise one, given the state of the blues record business. Iglauer, who dreamed of one day running his own label, recorded Taylor and his band the Houserockers with his own money, in 1971. The self-titled album became the very first release on the Alligator label.

  Encouraged by his success with Taylor—the artist and his record received positive reviews in the music press and sold well enough—Iglauer decided to make Alligator a permanent entity and began looking for more blues talent to record. Iglauer moved slowly, careful not to overextend himself in the depressed blues market. By the end of 1977, he had released just nine albums. But his persistence paid off. In 1978 Alligator released Ice Pickin’, an album by veteran blues guitarist Albert Collins, who had begun his career in the early fifties, developing along the way a reputation for playing in a “cool” blues style. Collins had enjoyed some success in the late fifties with a record called “The Freeze,” followed by “Frosty,” “Frost-Bite,” and other similarly named songs. Although the Alligator album, Ice Pickin’, continued Collins’ familiar cool connection, the work featured freshly “chilling” guitar work and inspired vocals. Ice Pickin’ was just what Collins needed to resuscitate his career and just what Iglauer needed to take Alligator to the next level. The album was nominated for a Grammy, and another Alligator album, The Earthshaker, by longtime blues singer Koko Taylor, also garnered favorable attention. Taylor, who had been discovered by Willie Dixon in the early sixties, recorded a best-selling single for Chess in 1966, “Wang Dang Doodle,” written and produced by Dixon. A hard-working performer with a gritty blues growl for a voice, Taylor toured regularly in the seventies, gradually rebuilding her career, with lots of help from Iglauer.

  Hound Dog Taylor’s six-fingered hand

  The year 1978 was the turning point for Alligator. In addition to Ice Pickin’, the label garnered three other Grammy nominations, making Alligator the most important Chicago blues label since the sale of Chess nearly ten years earlier. Iglauer’s strategy was simple: sign up veteran blues talent with name recognition who still had exciting music in them. By the early eighties, Alligator had added to its roster Johnny Winter and James Cotton, along with zydeco king Clifton Chenier and Arkansas guitarists Roy Buchanan and Son Seals. Alligator’s success enabled Iglauer to search out and then cultivate new blues talent such as Lucky Peterson, William Clarke, and the female blues group Saffire, becoming the number one blues label in America.

  Alligator wasn’t the only small, independent label releasing blues records in the seventies and early eighties. Delmark continued its steady flow of quality blues releases. Hightone, Testament, and Tomato released blues albums with some success. And the major record companies continued to release the occasional blues and blues-influenced album. Warner Bros, kept the blues alive on its roster by issuing records made by the Texas boogie band ZZ Top and the talented, red-headed slide guitarist Bonnie Raitt. Warners also signed Taj Mahal, who began his career in the late sixties with Columbia, making some of the most innovative blues of the period; in the seventies he continued his quest for new blues sounds by blending, among other things, Caribbean music with the blues. A Columbia subsidiary, Blue Sky, permitted Johnny Winter (before his exodus to Alligator) to produce a series of critically acclaimed Muddy Waters albums that represented the best work Waters had done since his fifties heyday with Chess.

  Nonetheless, the business of the blues continued to suffer throughout the seventies and early eighties. A commercially successful blues album was the exception, not the rule. The music needed more than the small but dedicated core of record buyers to support it and foster growth. The blues also needed a brand-new artist who could garner the kind of excitement and media attention normally owned by rock and pop artists, as well as a new scene to complement Chicago. The blues got what it needed in the mid-eighties, and then some.

  Texas had always been a state blessed with blues talent. In the music’s formative years, Dallas, particularly the Deep Ellum section of the city, fostered a busy blues scene with the likes of Blind Lemon Jefferson playing on street corners. Later on, Houston became an important blues city with Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Albert Collins, Johnny Copeland, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, and others gigging at blues clubs there, and with Don Robey’s Peacock and Duke Records recording both homegrown and outside blues talent in local studios. By the sixties, the blues scene in Austin, home to the University of Texas, heated up. But it wasn’t until the late seventies and early eighties that Austin truly came of age as an important blues city, one that could—and would—rival Chicago.

  Because of a steady stream of college kids, there existed a vibrant music club scene in Austin, and more than a couple of them were not averse to featuring touring blues acts. Threadgill’s was where a young Janis Joplin sang. The Armadillo World Headquarters imitated the booking style of the old Fillmore venues, putting established blues artists on the same bill as featured rock bands. In the mid-seventies, Antone’s, a club owned by Clifford Antone, a music fan with an insatiable blues appetite, began booking Muddy Waters and other traveling blues greats, eventually starting a blues record label and touring company. Solid fan support enabled Antone to bring in loca
l talent, in effect, cultivating an exciting homegrown blues scene that would soon break nationally.

  The Fabulous Thunderbirds, led by guitarist Jimmie Vaughan and singer/harmonica player Kim Wilson, was the first blues-based band to graduate from the new Austin blues scene. The Thunderbirds formed in 1974 and released their self-titled debut album on the Takoma label in 1979. The following year they moved to Chrysalis Records and quickly issued three critically acclaimed but marginally successful albums, sales wise: What’s the Word, in 1980, Butt Rockin’, in 1981, and T-Bird Rhythm, in 1982. The band’s breakthrough occurred in 1986 with Tuff Enuff, its debut album for the Epic label. The title song made it as a single into the Top Ten of the Billboard pop charts, not only establishing the Fabulous Thunderbirds in blues and rock circles but also drawing important attention to Austin.

  But it was Jimmie Vaughan’s kid brother who really put Austin on the blues map. Stevie Ray Vaughan followed his big brother to Austin from Dallas, their hometown, in 1972 and joined the Nightcrawlers, followed by the Cobras, before forming a blues-rock group, Triple Threat Revue, with singer Lou Ann Barton. In 1978 Barton left and Vaughan re-formed the group as Double Trouble. With Stevie Ray now doing all of the singing, and with his guitar blazing through blues standards and a growing batch of originals, the trio, which included former Johnny Winter bass player Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton, tore up the Austin music scene. At the invitation of legendary Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, scoring the same results registered nightly back home in Austin. Shortly thereafter, Vaughan and his band signed a recording contract with Epic. Vaughan was finally poised to make blues history.

  Brothers Stevie Ray (left) and Jimmie Vaughan reinvigorated the national blues scene.

  Vaughan’s debut album for Epic, Texas Flood, was released in 1983, the same year the world lost the great Muddy Waters, who passed away in Chicago. Keeping the sound alive, Vaughan wowed critics with his scintillating guitar work and incredible blues command. He continued to garner fans via his live shows, which exploded with his potent interpretation of Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile.” The Hendrix link attracted curious rock fans eager to find a new guitar god in the swamp of synth-pop and Michael Jackson/Madonna dance music that was filling up the charts in the mid-eighties.

  Vaughan’s success brought new fans—and new meaning—to the blues. Suddenly, magazines like Rolling Stone and Musician began paying attention to the music form again. Vaughan followed the success of Texas Flood with the equally acclaimed and commercially successful Couldn’t Stand the Weather (1984), Soul to Soul (1985), Live Alive (1986), and In Step (1989). He toured endlessly, growing his audience as he went along and upping his guitar talent seemingly every time he took the stage. Vaughan was the first blues superstar of the postmodern blues period; that he was white made little difference to record buyers or even purists. He had given the music a long-awaited shot in the arm, without sacrificing integrity or a commitment to the music’s storied past.

  John Lee Hooker (left), who electrified the blues in the 1940s, and Robert Cray, who did the same thirty years later.

  Equally important to this blues revival was Robert Cray, a black Pacific Northwest blues artist who had a cameo in the 1978 comedy National Lampoon’s Animal House, which starred John Belushi. Cray had made a couple of R&B-influenced blues albums before participating in an Alligator project, Showdown!, which featured, in addition to Cray, guitarists Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland. Released in 1985, Showdown! was one of the most important blues albums of the decade. Not only did it showcase Cray to a broader audience, pump life into Copeland’s career, and further Alligator’s mission of remaking Collins’ career, this guitar summit sold nearly a quarter million units, an unheard-of number for a blues album, and earned a Grammy Award in the blues category.

  Cray, who considered both Collins and Copeland blues mentors, gained the most from Showdown! The exposure from the album and the critical acclaim that went with it led to critics taking seriously his Strong Persuader album, which was released the following year. The record contained the hit single “Smoking Gun” and got Cray his second Grammy in as many years.

  By the mid-eighties, these two new exciting and important blues artists, as well as a pair of veteran performers, Albert Collins and Koko Taylor (now dubbed Queen of the Blues), had spearheaded the music’s sudden revival. But there was one other element that needed to be added to the mix, something that would push record sales and reconnect sixties blues fans who had lost touch with the music. Technology came to the rescue in the form of the compact disc. By the late eighties, the CD had become the perfect alternative to the vinyl album and to the cassette. Music fans who got tired of playing their old blues albums—with all the scratches, pops, and crackles that accumulate on worn vinyl—began replacing them with CDs.

  When record companies realized this new buying trend, most of them began to reissue old, long-out-of-print albums. It was easy money.

  Nothing new needed to be recorded; it was simply a matter of transferring music from the master tape onto this new medium. Sometimes selling just a few thousand albums meant profit. Blues artists had been making records since the 1920s, so, as with jazz, there was a lot to reissue. Record companies both big and small began mining their vaults for old chestnuts. Beginning in the late 1980s and carrying on right through the next decade, thousands of old blues recordings saw the light of day again on compact disc. In addition to reissuing old albums, record companies created compilations and then a new concept, the box set, all of which sent very healthy revenue streams into the coffers of labels with any kind of back catalogue.

  At Columbia Records, a persistent A&R man who loved the blues, Lawrence Cohn, persuaded the label to release all of Robert Johnson’s recordings in a special set. Despite the rise in CD reissue sales, label executives were skeptical that a full collection of recordings made nearly a half-century earlier would make sense to release. Who would be interested in such music, especially in the case of Johnson, where the master tapes of his recordings had never been found? Recording engineers would have to take Johnson’s music from the best 78s they could find, scratches and all. Cohn insisted that the box set’s release would make economical sense since Johnson was one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century, and that music fans wanted his recordings. Columbia executives hoped to sell ten thousand units, recoup the investment, and move on. Everyone at the label, even Cohn, was stunned when the set sold half a million units, garnered a Grammy, and inspired dozens of magazine pieces.

  Such was the state of the blues in 1990. Interest in the music was part of a greater fascination in American roots music that would continue through the decade. There were more blues recordings available than ever before, thanks to CD reissue campaigns that just about every label participated in. Equally important, these same labels also began to search out new talent, something that hadn’t happened in earnest since the 1960s. Traditional country-blues artists such as Keb’ Mo’, Corey Harris, and Alvin Youngblood Hart made debut recordings in the mid-nineties and settled into careers that would have been impossible without the roots music revival in full swing. Young white blues guitarists—Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Jonny Lang, and Susan Tedeschi, among them—secured record deals and attracted not just blues but also roots-rock audiences. Lang even toured with the Rolling Stones as an opening act.

  In 1991, Buddy Guy attained the kind of commercial heights and critical acclaim that had always eluded him in the past when he released the Grammy-winning Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues. In the nineties, Guy’s elevated blues status meant he shared the same spotlight enjoyed by B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, and other longtime stalwarts. After a decade and a half of pop and rock albums, Eric Clapton returned to the blues in 1994 with From the Cradle, his first full blues album since his mid-sixties days with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. An acclaimed tour followed. At the decad
e’s end, he collaborated with B.B. King on the Grammy-winning effort Riding With the King, released in 2000.

  “All my early years I worked in the fields picking cotton with black people. We were the only white family sharecroppin’ on this one farm. I remember that late in the evening when the sun was getting low, you would hear these wonderful voices start to sing out. The music of these people would be flooding the air after a while. To this day, I can hear that music in my soul, the rhythm, the feeling it gave.”—Carl Perkins

  Robert Johnson won the acclaim of a rock star when this box set garnered a Grammy and went gold.

  By then, King’s stature was such that he had become blues music’s elder statesman and ambassador, its true spiritual leader. He had spent the nineties playing nearly two hundred dates a year, releasing album after album, and making television commercials with blues as the soundtrack, John Lee Hooker had not been left out of the blues revival either. In 1989 the small Chameleon label issued The Healer, a Hooker album that featured guest appearances from Carlos Santana, Robert Cray, Bonnie Raitt, and others. It won a Grammy and set in motion a 1991 followup, Mr. Lucky, that this time featured cameos by such fans as Van Morrison, Keith Richards, and Ry Cooder. Not as articulate as King, Hooker nonetheless enjoyed elder statesman status in the blues and American roots music in general until his death in 2000.