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CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE
The Best Of The Vanguard Years (Vanguard)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale
Charlie Musselwhite's name is inextricably linked with Paul Butterfield as one of the top white blues harp players to come out of the sixties blues revival, but the Mississippi born, Memphis raised Musselwhite brought an element of country blues grit to his music that differentiated his sound from the Chicago reared Butterfield. Although he came to wide attention through the same Chicago club scene that produced Butterfield, that stylistic difference was enough to make room for both players.
This collection is a look at those first heady days in Musselwhite's career, before a battle with alcoholism took a toll that robbed him of several years of productive work. Now recovered from his addiction, Musselwhite has re-established his career, but for many his early output on Vanguard remains the definitive Charlie Musselwhite, and these 20 tracks are arguably the definitive efforts of those years.
Opening with five cuts from his debut as a recording leader, Here Comes Charlie Musselwhite's South Side Band, and continuing through to some unreleased cuts from the 1994 compilation The Blues Never Die, these cuts feature some distinguished sidemen, including guitarist Harvey Mandel, keyboardist Barry Goldberg and a 1965 lineup that featured John Hammond, Robbie Roberston, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and a piano appearance by Mike Bloomfield. The 1966 landmark release, Chicago/The Blues/Today!, found a young Memphis Charlie Musselwhite in the company of Chicago legends Big Walter Horton and Johnny Shines. Those names alone should tell you that there's some very special music encoded here.
No blues shelf is complete without a sampling of Charlie Musselwhite, and this is about as good a sample as you'll get.
Track List:
Chicken Shack * No More Lonely Nights * Help Me * Cha Cha The Blues * Christo Redemptor * My Buddy Buddy Blues Friends * Gone And Left Me * Juke * Tennessee Woman * I Don't Play, I'll Be Your Man Someday * Blue Feeling Today * Everybody Needs Somebody * Little By Little * I'm A Stranger * Rockin' My Boogie * O Yea! * So Many Roads, So Many Trains * Too Hot To Touch * The Blues Never Die * After While
© 2000 - Shaun Dale