Sunday, November 6, 2011

The Day After The Sabbath 54: Late Night Woman Blues [blues pt.1]

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Number 54 is a collection of heavy blues and blues-inspired tunes, which now makes for four so far; Vol54Vol79Vol108 and Vol147. Being the root of what we know as rock music, I figured it was quite an important subject to tackle. This volume has a great age range, featuring one of the oldest tracks I have used so far (1965).

01. Booker T. & The MG's - Plum Nellie (1965)
02. Elias Hulk - Yesterday's Trip (1970)
03. Moloch - Cocaine Katy / Maverick Woman Blues (1970)
04. Band Of Light - The Cat [B side] (1973)
05. Bliss - Visions (1969)
06. Capability Brown - Keep Death Off The Road (Drive On The Pavement) (1973)
07. The Blues Goes On - Rimmler Blues (1971)
08. Moirana - Late Night Woman Blues (1974)
09. Olhssons Grova - One Bourbon One Scotch And One Beer (1971)
10. Arzachel - Leg (1969)
11. The New Cactus Band - Blue Gypsy Woman (1973)
12. Felt - Weepin' Mama Blues (1971)
13. Three Souls In My Mind - Lennon Blues (1970)
14. Stone Axe - Snakebite (1971)

We kick off with a short and brooding instrumental from Booker T. & The MG's. Jones was a child prodigy, playing the oboe, saxophone, trombone, and piano at school and serving as church organist. The band also features Steve Cropper, who was voted in at 36 on Rolling Stone's 100 greatest guitarists of all time. Next up is Elias Hulk, a one album band who made some great hard blues and are back in the studio this year for a 2nd album! Better late than never, they follow Iron Claw and Incredible Hog as some great heavy 70s obscurities who have also become active again recently. 

I used a short Moloch track back on Vol11. As a good example of how making these comps has developed my own personal taste, back then I thought there was only one worthy track but on a second look in my recent searches for blues I have realised how great their sole self titled- album from 1970 really is in it's entirety! Band of Light were based in Australia, Phil Key was the founding member, bringing with him Peter Roberts, both being kiwis who were previously in The La De Da's, who I used back on the New Zealand volume.

Arizona's Bliss produced one decent album of bluesy psych in 1969 and Capability Brown from the UK included Roger Flavell, who was later in Christie, a band I used back on Vol12. They excelled in 6-part harmonies and each of the 6 members sung with a different range, as well as all being talented musicians. Not much is known about The Blues Goes On, but they are thought to be one and the same as the "Live Experience Band", a group of West Germans who could imitate The Jimi Hendrix Experience like nobody else, doing covers, and originals like the track here, "Rimmler Blues". 

Moirana were a Danish super group including Ken Gudman from Culpeper's Orchard, who Zischkale used on his Cumulonimbic Rock comp  and they do a great job with the monumental performance of the comp's title track, "Late Night Woman Blues". Olhssons Grova were an obscure Swedish band that did this excellent raw cover of a track written by Rudy Toombs, a productive lyricist and composer of doo-wop songs and rhythm and blues standards during the 1950s and 1960s, which later became more famous when John Lee Hooker covered it in 1966. Arzachel (aka "Uriel") were a band that formed when the core members were all at school together, and eventually included names you may know, Steve Hillage and Dave Stewart who were also later in Gong, and Clive Brooks who went on to drum in Groundhogs. Their track here 'Leg' is an amazing psych-blues monster.

"The New Cactus Band", named in honour of Cactus but strangely containing no members of Cactus, did feature notable musicians such as Captain Beyond's Bobby Caldwell on drums and Iron Butterfly's Mike Pinera. Alabama's Felt made one album in 1969 that skillfully blended hard rock, blues and jazz and Three Souls In My Mind (later "El Tri") are an active Mexican band who were regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music. The comp ends with the A-side of a single I used already on Vol50  (my 'dubious' comp), I have since established that the single genuinely is from 1971 and Stone Axe featured two members of Josefus. I must thank Lectriclady for many suggestions on this one including Felt, Elias Hulk, The New Cactus Band and Olhssons Grova.


Thanks for listening! Rich

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3 comments:

  1. I keep seeing the name Stone Axe as an early 70's band...are they any relation to the recent band Stone Axe? Thought those were young guys, but their music could certainly be written by ex-Josefus members.

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  2. Hey Zische, check out this page: http://purepop1uk.blogspot.com/2010/12/stone-axe-snakebite.html

    I included Stone Axe on my 'dubious' comp a while ago, but have since found out they were the genuine article from reliable sources. I am amazed as the song 'slave of fear' is so brutally heavy for 1971, but it's true, thank satan.

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  3. That is a heavy one, when's that showing up on a comp?!?!?

    Can't wait to check this one out, heavy blues is almost its own genre.

    ReplyDelete