WorldofBlues.com

Willie Dixon, He Was The One

About a month ago I tweeted out a great youtube video that I found of Willie Dixon singing “The Seventh Son”. As I watched I noticed Willie Dixon strutting and smiling as he sang those word: “I’m the one, yeah I’m the one …” and I thought to myself he’s right he was the one and he knew it too. Somehow modest, in my opinion, here he is larger than life in that bright pink jacket singing The Seventh Son’s great line “I’m the one” and smirking.

Yes he was the one alright! He’s the one who took Chicago Blues and so many performers with him to the world. Willie Dixon may not be as commonly known as say Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf or Little Walter but Willie did write over 90 blues tunes and was recorded by so many greats. Check this table I made from a quick analysis with the data from Wikipedia’s page on Willie Dixon.

Willie Dixon was an incredible talent and his work still resonates in the works of rock songs past and present. I’m quite certain that Willie Dixon songs are among the most recorded blues songs out there. I have a database of 140,000+ blues CDs. Now there may be duplicates and non-blues albums in there but that’s some raw data I have. Now searching through it here are the most recorded Willie Dixon songs.

* Theoretically this suggests the song appears on this many cds. I need to stress the database is not validated, may contain duplicates and other songs of the same title would have been counted. Still these types of numbers do not occur when I search for other song titles.

Willie himself was a bass player as well. Here is one final clip showing another side of Willie Dixon for all the Jazz fans out there.

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T-Bone Walker - The Electric Guitar Pioneer

You could be forgiven for not looking into T-Bone Walker if you’re not a Texas Blues or early Chicago blues fan. The time of his appearance on the blues scene and name could easily have you lumping him in with others who you may have listened to and maybe not appreciated at the time. That’s what I did. But I was wrong and you would be too.

B.B. King himself has stated that T-Bone Walker was his primary influence. Even that only scratches the surface of what T-Bone Walker gave us. T-Bone popularized the lead electric guitar. His blues spanned jazz, swing, doo wop and early rock. His riffs echo in the playing of Freddie King, Chuck Berry and Jimmy Rogers. Make no mistake, T-Bone Walker changed the world of blues and left an indelible mark on many modern music genres. He also played his guitar in a way cool way horizontally out in front of his body. Here’s a great example.

T-Bone was a consummate musician who wrote musical scores. His blues do not sound like those handed down through the ages. I find it fascinating that one of my favorite blues songs of all time was “borrowed” by Jimmy Rogers and in fact was a T-Bone Walker tune. Check this out

Yeah, Jimmy Rogers “Walkin’ By Myself” is really different lyrics to a T-Bone Walker song called “Why Not”! In just those first few bars you can hear more music than most of us generate in a lifetime. Another great T-Bone tune is Stormy Monday. Stormy Monday has been covered by almost every blues and jazz musician as well as almost any rock band from the early 70’s. As a matter of fact if you search for an MP3 of Stormy Monday on Amazon.com you’ll get 645 hits.

OK so the list of T-Bone Walker recommended recordings is pretty long but here are just a few:
T-Bone Blues- 1959 (great coverage of his work in the 50’s and great sound too considering the vintage)
The Complete Recordings of T-bone Walker 1940-1954
- this is a 6 CD set that covers from 1940 to 1954.
Blues Masters: The Very Best of T-Bone Walker
- this is single CD collection for those wanting the abridged version of The Complete Recordings. It comes highly recommended by Club Koda co-author of Blues for Dummies.

Here is a real treat for blues fans - this video is 25 minutes of a TV concert featuring T-Bone Walker and a young B.B. King.
T-Bone Walker and B.B. King

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Today’s Chicago Blues (book) - The Current Chicago Blues Scene

If you’re headed to Chicago any time soon I recommend you pick up the book “Today’s Chicago Blues“. There are lots of books about the history of the blues in Chicago but this book is all about the current blues scene and sure to enhance your visit.

Karen Hanson, the author of the Today’s Chicago Blues book is a journalist, author, dedicated blues fan and blogger who also keeps us current with lots of blues news at the Today’s Chicago Blues Website. Thanks Karen for authoring this wonderful book and the great website.

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Freddie King - Number 25 of 100 Greatest Guitarist

Being born in Texas in 1944 and moving to Chicago in 1956 may explain a lot about Freddie King - Rollings Stone’s Magazine #25 in list of 100 greatest guitarist . How else to you get Texas Blues out of Chicago? Texas didn’t let go of this great man go as unrecognized and in 1993, declared September 3 Freddie King Day. Freddie was hugely influential in the British Blues scene having Eric Clapton as a fan and may well be why frequently British Blues sounds so much like Chicago blues to me.

Freddie King’s album “Hide Away, The best of Freddie King is also listed by Rolling Stone Magazine as an “Essential Recording” to own. I could only find one new copy for $120! My personal Favorite album is Burglar though with a couple blues tunes known to all of us - “Same Old Blues” and “Let the Good Times Roll”

Here is a nice little collection of Freddie King samples to check out - hope you enjoy them and support WorldofBlues.com.

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Climax Chicago Blues Band

My Favorite Chicago style blues album of all time.

Here is the track list

1. Mean Old World
2. Take Out Some Insurance
3. Going Down This Road
4. You've Been Drinking
5. Don't Start Me Talking
6. Wee Baby Blues
7. Twenty Past One
8. Stranger in Your Town
9. How Many More Years
10. The Entertainer

Now that last tune , yes Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer, is a rather bazaar one
to have on this album, I’d love to know the story behind that.

Here is a cool little Amazon.com widget where you can actually listen to
a little sample from each song - gotta love that!

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