Roots

Yesterday I linked to a pair of videos by Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears.  Why did I do this?  Because they’re fucking awesome and, really, do I need any better reason for that?

Well, yes, actually.  The last opening act I ended up being so enthralled by was Sons of Bill.  They took a couple weeks to really grow on me, though, and it was only a few songs at first.  I’m completely sold on Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears right now.  The last time this really happened was with the Alternate Routes, who opened for the Peacemakers way back in the day.[1]

The thing about Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, though, is that I’ve never quite heard a band that is so historically fascinating.  What I mean by that is if I had to describe them I’d say they’re what would happen if James Brown and Howlin’ Wolf had a bouncing baby band and raised that beautiful child on Robert Johnson, Buddy Guy, and Elvis, with a little Sugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash, and Parliament Funkadelic thrown in for good measure.[2]  They are the rare band that makes their influences bleedingly obvious to anyone who knows much of anything about music, but who also manage to sound fresh.

Thanks to them, meanwhile, I’ve been spending the day on a magical fucking journey through musical history.  I can do that with basically zero effort these days, what with the internet and all.  More than that, I can invite you to come along.

Let’s start where I started with this journey.  Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, “Sugarfoot:”



It’s almost impossible not to hear the James Brown in “Sugarfoot.”



There’s more than a hint of Parliament Funkadelic in there, too.[3]



It also sounds a great deal like the vehicle through which the blues were introduced to my generation.



I’m not necessarily claiming the Blues Brothers as an influence, though, I’m mostly using them as a jumping-off point.  “Sweet Home Chicago” threads through the last century of music.  It might be one of the most important blues tunes of all.



That’s Buddy Guy, synonymous with the Chicago blues sound (also, too, the Blues Brothers' guitar player in the above clip, if I'm not mistaken).  He didn’t exactly write “Sweet Home Chicago,” though.  That honor (probably) goes to Robert Johnson.



Everyone knows the legendary story of Robert Johnson, I hope.  The story goes that he sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for mastery of the blues form.  The supposed song about this moment is “Cross Road Blues.”



That song got a new lease on life in the ‘60s with Cream.



We’re following a sort of parabola here.  Robert Johnson was supposedly the greatest blues guitarist of all time.  It’s hard to square that with Buddy Guy’s version of “Sweet Home Chicago” and Clapton’s blazing version of “Crossroad.”  Without Robert Johnson, however, there would be no Buddy Guy.  Without Robert Johnson there would be no Slowhand.

This is the nature of history.  We look back and can’t fathom why anyone would do things the way they did back then.  But they did things the way they did back then because they were inventing the future.

Let’s try a different one.



Robert Johnson to Elmore James playing the same song.



Now we move to a non-cover, but listen to the first thirty seconds.



You hear that?  The opening is louder and there’s more stuff going on, but the Robert Johnson in Roger Clyne’s intro is unmistakable.  Let’s try another.



Those are my Irish buddies Senekah.  The instrumentation is Robert Johnson by way of Cream.  This isn’t to say that Senekah is on the level of Cream[4], but that bands right now, today, are still fundamentally doing what Robert Johnson did nearly a century ago.  We knew that already, of course, since that’s what I’ve been talking about in this post.  It’s just fascinating to listen to music in the context of that which went before.

The early blues greats hit upon something amazing.  Those who followed have modified and, in many cases, improved upon what the greats did.  That might make that older generation appear diminished, but it couldn’t be farther from the truth.  You need to find a giant in order to stand on shoulders, after all.

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Oh.  Howlin’ Wolf.  I mentioned him but didn’t, y’know, play any of his stuff.  Here’s his greatest hit:



My introduction to Howlin’ Wolf actually came through an extremely unlikely channel.



Yeah.  Soundgarden covered Howlin’ Wolf on Utramega OK, their first full-length album.  It’s completely bugnuts that there is actual live concert footage of that, too.  YouTube, man.  YouTube.

And, for the record, I’d much rather hear Soundgarden introduce Howlin’ Wolf to a new generation than this load of horseshit.



Yup.  That’s “Smokestack Lightning” in a Viagra commercial.  It’s both kind of offensive and kinda funny.  As such, I call it “offunsive.”  Also, I have no goddamn clue why I need to wait until I hit middle age to figure out that pouring water in to an overheating car's radiator might be a good idea.  Although since I'm not middle-aged, I also know that pulling in to a gas station, hopping out of the car, and casually popping the radiator cap off is just about the worst thing you can do in that situation, since the radiator in a running car is kind of a pressure vessel, so you run the risk of burning your face off.

Also, too, I can get an erection without any chemical assistance. So take that, you smug, Viagra-taking bastard.

And that, kids, is the end of this installment of “Geds writes a post about something he knows fuck-all about.”  I hope you enjoyed it.

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[1]For the record, that leaves RCPM’s legacy of opening acts I ended up becoming a fan of at three: the Alternate Routes, Sons of Bill, and American Aquarium.  Flogging Molly is in second, then, with Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears.  Local H and Mike Doughty, meanwhile, seem to have made it their goal in life to find opening acts that are terrible.  While Local H did bring me the ever-amusing Francois Dillinger, though, Mike Doughty’s last tour involved him pulling a couple of buskers off the goddamn subway in New York and saying, “Hey, you wanna open for me on tour?”  I’d like to offer a piece of advice to anyone who’s planning a national tour:  If you’re thinking of getting two guys who only play saxophone and don’t, like, sing or anything, you’ve already failed.  If they’re going to dress like Don Johnson on Miami Vice, you’ve failed harder.  If one looks like Ricky Schroeder and the other has a haircut like he’s trying out for Flock of Seagulls…well, fuck, I guess if you’re going to bite it, bite it so goddamn hard your gums bleed.

Also, too, Soundgarden had the fucking Mars Volta open for them in Chicago.  I specifically timed my arrival to coincide with the end of that awful set.

[2]And so but anyway, I just looked up their Wikipedia page, y’know, because.  This is the very first sentence:  “Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears is a blues band influenced by Howlin' Wolf and James Brown.”  Ha!

Also, they’re an Austin band that broke out at SXSW in 2009.  I’m quite angry that I didn’t learn about them until this past weekend since they’re, y’know, awesome.

[3]Things I do not understand: the ‘70s.  Specifically the fashion.

[4]Sorry, mates.

EDIT: Oops, there was another "Sugarfoot" embed in the post, rather than some Parliament Funkadelic. Apparently the YouTube video I wanted to use had embedding disabled and I didn't notice. This was my original offering. That is some crazy-ass shit right there.

Comments

[The Everlasting Dave]

You can't unleash the funktopus without Bobby Byrd, and Maceo & the Macks. Also, if you follow the thread through funk instead of through blues, you eventually end up at Beck. Which I think is straight up propa.

[Geds]

I thought about unleashing the funktopus, but the problem there is that you can't really do funk without also doing soul. Blues is fairly straightforward and something I already knew enough about to know where to look and how the road runs. For soul I've got James Brown and Ray Charles and nothin'. With funk I just kinda hit Parliament Funkadelic and my brain goes into a, "Wait, what?" loop.

So, y'know, I decided to just go with the blues.

[chris y]

Yeah. I attended Cream's farewell concert, and it was a fine time, but you know what? If the Devil or Dr Who had appeared to me as I was waiting to go in and said, "Here's a time machine. For the price of your ticket you can go and listen to Robert Johnson play live for half an hour," it would have been a total no-brainer.