What with Winter dragging on and on (even though I'm way out here in the sunny Southwest and I don't have it as bad as you guys in Cleveland or Chicago), the flu kicking me ass backwards and with all of the pointless infighting going on around BC lately, I just can't help but to feel a little bit down, ya know.
So, as is my wont, I broke out some loud & raucous Chicago Blues and a bit of that Kentucky liquid sunshine (medicinal purposes only, kids) the other night to help me fight off these doldrums.
Knowing that someone else's pain is worse than your own (or sounds like it could be anyway) is always somehow refreshing. Fighting fire w/fire, blues w/the blues if you will.
So, after running through the usual suspects: Hound Dog Taylor, Wolf, (the musical equivalent of a cold cock punch), Magic Sam, Otis Rush, Son Seals, Jr. Wells and Muddy, I broke out my "Best Of Little Walter" 2 LP set.
Having not listened to this for several years, I was just blown back out of my seat by these sides. This s**t just flat out rocks! Little Walter is truly the most innovative harp player ever. He is as great on his instrument of choice (not a bad guitarist either by the way, check out his solo on Muddy Waters "Still A Fool"!) as Coltrane, Parker and Hendrix were at theirs.
Unfortunately, he was just as dysfunctional in his own personal life as they in theirs. As is the case with a lot of musical genius/savant types, Little Walter was a seriously flawed human being (who isn't?) and by his being in the public eye as he was, it was illuminated just that much more so. The latter half of this book deals with this in depth, but I digress here.
After listening to Little Walter, I was finally inspired to read his bio and was not at all disappointed. Well-researched, informative and entertaining this is as much of a revealing look backwards into the formative years of the heyday of the electric/post WW2 Chicago Blues scene as it is into the life of Little Walter Jacobs himself.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Very deeply felt and well-done, HW. Just by scanning the pics on the Amazon links, you can see the deterioration, but the grat thing about great music is that it stays great no matter what happens to the person. Thanks!
2 - HW Saxton Jr.
Thanks much,Eric.I really do appreciate it.I hadn't noticed the deterioration in
the posted pics until you mentioned it.
Walter had a degree from the school of
hard knocks with a doctorate in the art
of dissapation.By the time of his death
he had been shot,stabbed and beaten on so,so many different occasions that his
body couldn't hold out any longer.You're
right though,that great music will stay
great no matter what.