Re: John Brim

[rocket@eden (Rick Barker)]

Bernie Clarke writes:
>I, however, would exercise extreme caution on a harp discussion list with
>using >the name "Little Walter" and the word "joke" in the same sentence, but
>of >course you are entitled to your own opinion.  Hey, maybe Brim only payed
>Little Walter enough for one lick in that session!

I apologize if I didn't provide enough clarity on this one. Little Walter
is by far my favorite blues harmonica player. There is no better value in
my opinion and his early recordings are marvelous. On Ice Cream Man, I
think he was POed at somebody or something, possibly what you said. What he
did is nothing like the feeling on Juke - that's a whole different
approach.

On the Little Walter and joke issue, I have a recording with Little Walter,
Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley recorded shortly before Little Walter's death
in 1968. Let me use a harsher word than joke to describe his playing on
this one: pathetic(relatively speaking). On this particular recording his
playing is nowhere near the playing that I came to appreciate so much. But
then, it is said that Little Walter had a major drinking problem. Whatever
the case, all performing musicians know that "we can't break our record
everytime".

Ricky B.