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This Week in BluesWax:
Bobby Radcliff
- In the E-zine:
BluesWax is Sittin' In With Bobby Radcliff, Part Two. Join Bob Margolin
as he sits down with the guitar player's guitar player, Bobby Radcliff.
- On the News
Page: Son Seals Passes; Dick Heckstall-Smith Passes; Handy Nominees,
Get Your Votes In; Fruteland Jackson News; Tito Jackson A Special Guest On
Legendary Blues Cruise; Buddy & Hopkins In Print; Duke Robillard And
Ronnie Earl To Release Album; Jay Geils Plays Jazz; Second Ray Soundtrack;
Bandana Blues News; Tampa Bay Blues Festival Announces Lineup! And More!
- On the Photo
Page: Tab Benoit Live!
- On the Blues
Bytes page: The Rev. Bob Gersztyn has reviewed the new Robert Darden
book, titled People Get Ready! A New History Of Black Gospel Music.
Check out this great resource today.
- On the Blues
Beat page: Vincent Abbate spent a Night of the Blues in the
Netherlands. Check out who played at this series of concerts.
- Under BluesWax
Picks: Pete Lauro reviews Willie Smith's Bluesin' It; Beardo
reviews the Blasters' Going Home Live and Mark Hummel's Blowin' My
Horn; James Walker reviews the Whoodoo Band's Bringin' Home The Blues;
plus reviews of Ollabelle's self-titled release and Come and Get It by
the Sauce Boss.
- One
Year Ago Today In BluesWax: T-Bone Erickson's "50 Most Influential
Blues Artists of All Time, Part Two." Check out this incredible list of
Blues pioneers and legends.
- Don't forget to play the Blues Trivia
Game: Remember, everyone who plays is in the drawing for the prize!
This week's prize: a two CD pack! The pack includes Peter Plays the Blues:
The Classic Compositions of Robert Johnson, by Peter Green with Nigel
Watson, courtesy of our friends at Eagle Records and Genuine Houserockin'
Christmas by various artists, courtesy of our friends at Alligator Records.
Play Today!
BluesWax Sittin' In With
Bobby Radcliff
New West Side Soul and Beyond
Part Two
By Bob Margolin
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Bobby Radcliff
Photo By Breton Littlehales
We pick up Bob's conversation with guitarist Bobby
Radcliff talking about his band and his new album, Natural Ball. If
you missed Part One of this interview check it out HERE.
If you're up to speed enjoy this week's installment of BluesWax!
Bob Margolin for BluesWax: Your band, live and on
the new album, really understands your style and backs you strongly. Tell us
about them...
Bobby Radcliff: My bass-player, Chris Matheos,
was brought to my attention by that harp-burning, gumbo-cooking mutha known as Mel
Melton. I was bitching about not being able to find players in New York who
would travel and Mel hooked us up. Chris was living out on Long Island at the
time, so he started coming into New York City to work with me. I've always had
a pretty weird repertoire, but Chris can play anything. He also had some
recording gear, so he was declared chief engineer and we moved into his
backyard tool shed for the sessions. Chris brought in a friend of his named Keith
Hurrell to take over on drums. Like Chris, he's a "schooled"
musician who is dedicated to finding the funk. Once I mentioned names like Fred
Below, Frank Kirkland, and Odie Payne, he was off to the
races. He's also a student of both Japanese and Chinese martial arts and I
think you can hear it in his playing, especially up on the hi-hat.
BW: Is there anything else you'd like to tell our BluesWax
readers?
BR: It took a long time to get around to it, but
after all these years, I finally feel free to play my own music. No one can
judge my music because it's mine! I'll always play the standards with respect,
but I'm doing them my way, having grown as a human being and then as a
musician. I know a lot more about myself now and I have a lot more hope. That
feeling came out strongest in a song near the end of the record called
"Finally Found Myself." It represents the freedom this whole project
has given me and it really was a Natural Ball.
BW: The songs that you've written for Natural Ball, as
well as how you've personalized the cover songs, show me that you're coming
from and traveling to some interesting and surprising musical directions. Tell
us the stories behind the individual songs ...
BR:
"Natural Ball" (T-Bone Walker)
I thought we should start this joint with a real
house-rocker, but it's got the swing of the original by T-Bone Walker. Vocally,
I'm drawing from Albert King and his pre-Stax recording on the King
label, but when it really all comes down, it was Otis Rush that really
crystallized this tune for me.
"Hard Road To Travel" (Jimmie Harris/Jimmy
Dawkins/ Robert Radcliffe Ewan)
This is a long-time favorite via Jimmy Dawkins. In fact I
recorded it in 1989 for Black Top, but a few years back I was looking to change
it up and get away from all the clich�d 7th and 9th chords. At the time I was
experimenting with a drumless string trio: a two-guitar and bass format I
called "Music Brut." We developed the three-chord sequence you hear
at the top and it sets up all the space of a slow Blues, but it really blows up
right in front of you.
"Icy Blue" (Albert Collins)
Anybody who listens to me can hear the influence of Albert
Collins, but this is one of his weirder tunes. In fact, on the original he
doesn't really even solo, so I focused on the horn patterns and translated
those riffs for guitar. It's almost a Tex-Mex thing, but somehow when I started
playing it, it turned Arabic on me. I hope Dick Dale is listening. Maybe
it's time for another Surf music revival.
"Chicken Heads" (Calvin Carter/Bobby
Rush)
I picked up Bobby Rush's 45 of this on Galaxy at a one-stop
convenience store back in the early Seventies. I knew he was a producer on some
singles by Magic Sam, so I picked it up and it's been a regular feature
of my live sets ever since. The crowd always asks for it, but for some reason I
had never set it down on record. So here it is ... now get off my back!
"The Horse" (Jesse James)
1968 was such a great year for instrumentals on the hit
parade and "The Horse" has been a break tune for me ever since.
You'll hear bits and pieces of the Cliff Noble horn charts in my
version, but it was Steve Cropper's cover of it with Booker T &
the MGs that opened it up for me.
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Natural Ball by Bobby Radcliff
Click Cover For More Info
"Feel So Good" (Junior Parker/Magic Sam
Maghett)
Everybody makes a lot of my contact with Magic Sam, but hey,
what can I say, he was a sweet guy and a unique talent. Originally written by
Junior Parker, it was Sam's version on West Side Soul (1968) that really
showed me the true joy that lives inside the music of the Blues ... if that's
what you want to call it. Since nobody can really play like he did, I combined
some of his chops with what Joe Young was doing on rhythm guitar. It's
also a bitch to sing. Once again, I've been performing it since I first heard
it, but I never put it on record before. Why? Maybe out of reverence for Sam.
Now it's an offering to the spirits.
"You Left Me With A Broken Heart" (James A.
Lane)
This one goes all the way back to Memphis Minnie, but
Jimmy Rogers wrapped it in the sound he created for Muddy Waters and
managed to score the writing credits. But out of this mellow Country Blues
landscape, I wanted to give it a West Side twist. Special thanks go out to the
late, great Hip Linkchain for showing me how to funk it up.
"A Real Mother For Ya" (Johnny Guitar Watson)
I worked on this one for a long time, but it was when I was
playing with The Mighty Reapers down in Australia that I learned how to
set the scene with that descending chord sequence at the top. After living
through 9/11 in lower Manhattan, I started singing it without the euphemism in
the chorus. I also figured we were all grown up enough to sing it like it
should be, without mincing words. That's why there's a parental guidance
warning on the cover; so don't blame me. I don't think Johnny Guitar Watson
would have minded.
"Down Stroke/Fourth Invention" (Robert Radcliffe
Ewan)
I remember the conductor Kurt Mazur once said that
there was a guy who was playing the Blues a few hundred years ago named Johann
Sebastian Bach. I guess it's that circular invention and resolution that's
so central to the Blues. Sometimes I practice by playing along with "The
Art of The Fugue" and this is what came out. You'll also hear a little Ennio
Morricone in there too. In case you were wondering about the credit, my
full name is Robert Radcliffe Ewan. Friends tell me my Scottish roots are
showing.
"Lover Death Zone" (Robert Radcliffe Ewan)
I always try to put a South Side slow Blues on every album
and I usually use a Buddy Guy classic to showcase that feel and emotion.
You can find them on my old albums. When we were putting the tracks down for
this disc, Chris Matheos (my bass player and engineer) turned to me and said,
"Hey, Bobby, with what you've lived through, I know there's a ton of songs
inside you." That got to me and so I decided to pull something up out of
my guts. This is what came out, right then and there.
"Dog House: A Tribute To Hound Dog Taylor" (Robert
Radcliffe Ewan)
Every Blues guitarist has to learn "Hideaway"
somewhere along the way and I'm a big fan of Freddie King, but the song
really started with Hound Dog Taylor, with a few notes turned around. So
I turned the whole thing upside down, added a quote, and it mutated into a
tribute to the original Dog. Hey, wait a minute! Am I giving away all my
secrets?
"Catfish Blues" (McKinley Morganfield)
Hats off to Muddy Waters and this, the deepest of the Delta
Blues. I have to say, however, that it was John Littlejohn's rocking
update on Arhoolie that really convinced me to learn it. If I get to heaven,
the first thing I want to do is go fishing with Muddy and John. We might not
catch any fish, but at least we'll have all the women swimming after us.
"Finally Found Myself" (Robert Radcliffe
Ewan)
I've always loved the music of all the Caribbean islands.
You might think this is a Reggae tune, like maybe something Toots might
do, but technically it's not. It's a one-take wonder I laid on the band at the
end of our last session and damn if they didn't fall right in. My good buddy
Simon encouraged me to develop the lyrics, right out of the headlines of my
life. Definitely a positive vibration..."once there was rain/now
there's sunshine!"
"Sourpuss" (Robert Radcliffe Ewan)
As you may have figured out by now, I love instrumentals. I
guess I listened to too many Ventures records when I was a kid. This
one's almost a Country hoedown, like something Roy Clark might do on a
TV show. Hey, somebody please use this in a videogame so I can make some of
those big-time media-bucks!
BW: Nobody in the little Blues World knows anything about
"big-time media-bucks"... what are you thinking? But BluesWax's
readers are a worldwide community of soulful Blues music lovers. When they hear
your music at your gigs or on the radio, you will reach them and touch them
deeply. And as another guitar player; thanks for the inspiration.
Bob Margolin is a contributing editor at BluesWax. Bob
may be contacted at [EMAIL PROTECTED].
