All in the Family: The Holiday Season, Rock Family Trees & Muddy Water’s Spawn
Well, it’s that time of year again…the holidays. You know what that means for millions of Americans, right? It’s time to focus on the Three F’s: Family, Friends and Fornicating. Yes, that’s right…Fornicating.
Did you know that in the U.S. more babies are born during the months of August and September than any other months? You do the math. Any babies born during these two months would have had to be conceived in the xmas and new year’s months of December and January. People get crazy over the holidays: gullets are open wider for more boozing, top buttons are undone to allow for more gorging and more yule logs are being put in fireplaces in bedrooms across the country.
Hey, it is the time of giving and receiving, right? I guess that all makes sense; fornicating is fun and from it you can make families. Family…that is what matters most. Holidays are special because we get to spend them with our families. Now, I know that not everyone is fortunate enough to have an immediate family to spend the holidays with.
That is the beauty of “family”. The concept of family can be extended beyond the mom and pop organization. Some have groups of people they call their “work family”. Some have groups that they call their “online family”. Some people that are in bands and have band mates that they call “family”. When it comes to band families, no one has explored, dissected or recorded more band families than Pete Frame.
Pete Frame has been been recording the music scene in Britain and beyond in many ways for over forty years: he is a music journalist, he started Britain’s first rock magazine, ZIg-Zag, in 1969, he’s been an A&R man, a band manager, an author and, arguably what he is most known for, he is the creator and craftsman of the Rock Family Trees (examples above).
I wouldn’t want to go up against this guy in a band trivia contest. He has mapped out a massive list of different bands and their lineage. A list on his website totals 127 different family trees on bands, single artists, music scenes, individual songs and genres. The dedication and passion it takes to create these historical works of art/entertainment is extreme. I applaud his efforts and love his work.
You can click on over to his site to see his maps of which he has for sale along with his two books of Rock Family Tree collections. I have my eyes on a few Trees myself. In November there was an exhibition of the Trees here in London at the Elgin Pub. I went to this and seeing the Trees in person was exciting…and only made me more anxious to buy a few.
Frame also had a Rock Family Tree TV program here on the BBC with twelve episodes having aired. You can’t buy them on DVDs yet (so says the website), but you can view a handful of them here on Pete Frame’s site. There were a couple that I really enjoyed and am sharing them here:
Rock Family Trees: The Fleetwood Mac Story (part 1 of 5)
Probably the most dysfunctional and problematic family in all of Rock and Roll history would be Fleetwood mac. You may know the story by heart, but check out this vid with the “Tree” as a your guide.
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Rock Family Trees: Black Sabbath
Any early Ozzy footage captivates me. He was a force on the mic and had a heavy presence. Before he became his image, he truly lived it. This episode/Tree is cool as it touches on Quiet Riot, Dio and the rest of the devil-horn salute bands.
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The Big Daddy
After pouring over these maps, I realised that there was one guy I thought was missing from Pete’s portfolio: Muddy Waters. The list of artists who Muddy influenced is ridiculously long. Whether he was influencing the delta blues with an electric sound, other genres, his peers, young white guys from the U.K., or young blues upstarts throughout the U.S., Muddy left his mark. I don’t blame Pete for not wanting to tackle Muddy’s Family Tree; that in itself could be a life’s work.
Muddy was as famous for his back-up bands as he was for his searing slide work and iconic blues vocals. His bands always employed the tipity-top shelf players that Chicago had to offer. When he first got to Chicago he recorded for Chess records. The records he recorded were of the folk blues variety or he was backed by a plugged-in band of Chess session guys. It wasn’t until he got his live club band in the studio did his influence (and success) overtake the Chicago blues scene.
Initially, the Chess brothers would not allow Muddy to use his own musicians in the recording studio; instead he was provided with a backing bass by Ernest “Big” Crawford, or by musicians assembled specifically for the recording session, including “Baby Face” Leroy Foster and Johnny Jones. Gradually Chess relented, and by September 1953 he was recording with one of the most acclaimed blues groups in history: Little Walter Jacobs on harmonica; Jimmy Rogers on guitar; Elga Edmonds (a.k.a. Elgin Evans) on drums; Otis Spann on piano.
Inclusion in Muddy’s band could also earn you a solo spotlight. Muddy’s bands birthed many a solo career and a few blues legends. Here are a four songs by four Blues legends that played with and played a huge role in shaping and Muddy’s sound.
“Juke” - Little Walter
“Spann’s Boogie” - Otis Spann
“That’s Alright” - Jimmy Rodgers
“Slow Blues” - James Cotton
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“Brother can you spare a band…?”
This is the thing about sidemen and backing bands (family members): when they are tight they can make a bad frontman sound good; when they are shit-hot they can make a great frontman sound even better. Case in point…
Here, the Boogie Man, John Lee Hooker is sitting in with Muddy’s band for a couple of tunes at the Newport Folk Fest, circa black and white TV days (Otis is on the 88′s and James Cotton is on the blower). What I love about this is that Hooker is famous for his songs with very little structure to them. Most of them don’t even have beginnings and endings…just middles. A Hooker jam just turns-on smack in the middle of a deep boogie groove.
Here The Hook is playing with a band that puts a bit of form to his sound. The results is a Hooker showcasing his vocals and responding to the band, rather than leading them on a rambling boogie (which isn’t a bad thing when it goes does down). This is killer shit.
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The Blues Had a Baby (and They Named it Rock & Roll) – Muddy Waters
Muddy just didn’t inspire and help launch individual careers. His sound also help shape what would become a global phenomenon…the birth of Rock and Roll. I think he summed it up best in this classic tune from his 1977 “Hard Again” album…which had a band that wasn’t too shabby in it’s own right: James Cotton on the Harp, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith on Drums, Pinetop Perkins on piano and some help from Johnny Winter on geetar and as producer.
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Speaking of “families”…this is my fave rave tune of Muddy’s “Fathers & Sons Album“: Long Distance Call. Yes, it is a bow-down classic, but what I love best about it is the delivery. This is Muddy playing the crowd, putting them right in the palm of his big ol’ hand. He is a storyteller and this is one hell of a whopper; another mule kicking in the stall is a stone cold gut punch.
This is the blues, isn’t it? Just listen to the way he tells the story in the last minute and a half of the song. There’s no music, no guitar solo, no drum rolls or no ivory tickling going on. Nope…it’s just ol’ Mud preaching the blues. His voice IS the guitar solo. The blues is a feeling…one that is given and one that is received. The instruments are just an accompaniment to the Blues. That’s why some of the best musicians can’t play the blues: they play the music and not the feeling.
The other reasons why I like this song are that it is live (the crowd is LOVING it at the end) and Muddy’s slide work is stunning. It’s surgical knife sharp, done with surgical precision, but it is a rough-hewn and honest sound. Enough from me, dig this:
“Long Distance Call” – Muddy Waters, Fathers & Sons
