Posted in 1960’s

Earl Hooker- Walking the floor/ Off the Hook

Earl Hooker was a guitarist’s guitarist, one of the finest slide blues guitarist of his generation. Born in Clarksdale Mississippi (he is a cousin of John Lee Hooker) but his musical career didn’t really start until his family moved to Chicago, where Earl would cut his musical teeth playing on street corners (occasionally with Bo Diddley). Earl would strike up a friendship with legendary blues slide guitarist Robert Nighthawk, who would develop Earl’s own technique (not dissimilar to Nighthawk’s own).  In 1949 Earl moved to Memphis to join Ike Turner’s band and they began touring the south, he also appeared on Memphis Radio (KFFA) with Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) before returning to Chicago in the 1950’s where he formed his own band.

He made recordings for small labels such as Sun, King and Rockin, he even appeared on English TV show “ready, steady, go” during a European tour. Hooker spent ,most of the 60’s playing Chicago clubs (mostly alongside harp player Junior Wells).

Earl also toured with the American Folk Blues Package where this clip comes from.

Hooker suffered from Tuberculosis for most of his life and this probably prevented him from becoming a bigger star, he finally succumbed to the disease in 1970 at the age of 41.

Bo Dudley- Shotgun Rider

I have been listening to a compilation of black rock’n’roll numbers this week and one of the tracks got me puzzling about who the artists were (especially the crazy steel guitar part).

Anyway, turns out that Bo Dudley was the stage name of Oscar Coleman and the guitarist (who I thought sounded a bit like Earl Hooker) was actually Freddie Roulette. Big Moose Walker plays piano and Mac Thompson is on bass.

The other surpising thing about this track is that it was recorded in 1968 (sounded like a late 50’s track to me).

http://media.switchpod.com/users/nathansears74/ShotgunRiderBoDudley.mp3

Freddie is still going strong (in the Oakland area) by all accounts, as this appearance on the Bruce Latimer show confirms, performing Sleepwalk.

I guess Oscar Coleman is doing ok too as he is booked to play the Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans on the 29th and 30th of April this year.

Ivory Joe Hunter-The Cold Grey Light of Dawn

I kind of rediscovered this track whilst sifting through some mp3s on my PC. Ivory Joe Hunter (his real name) came from a musical family in Kirbyville Texas and became a talented pianist in his early teens. He recorded for Alan Lomax in 1933 before getting involved in Texas radio in the 1940s. He became a member of Johnny Moore’s Blazers and started a prolific songwriting career when his “blues at sunrise” (issued on his own Ivory Records) became a local hit. He also started Pacific Records before becoming one of the early 1950’s most prolific R&B stars (mostly for MGM Records) and it is for these recordings that he is best known. He moved to Atlantic Records in 1954 having already notched up at least 100 recorded sides. Hunter had a very smooth almost crooning vocal style, which had country overtones at times and he seemed to be popular with country and western fans. Ivory Joe was invited to Graceland by Elvis in 1957 where the pair spent the day singing “I almost lost my mind”, Elvis would record Hunters “My Wish Came True” and “Ain’t That Loving You, Baby” later in his career.

Hunter’s popularity as an artist faded at the end of the 1950’s but he continued writing songs, he wrote in the region of 7000 songs in the course of his career.

In the late 60’s Ivory Joe made a come back as a country artist (appearing on the Grand Ole Opry) and releasing a couple of albums. Which brings me nicely back to the track that I have become obsessed with of late, the self penned “Cold Grey Light of Dawn” a real forgotten classic. It has been covered by Nick Lowe but his version pales in comparison to this.

http://media.switchpod.com/users/nathansears74/1Thecoldgreylightofdawn.mp3

Ivory Joe died from lung cancer in 1974.