Re: Little Walter biography...

[Gatorharp@xxxxxxx]

glennw@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
 << As for the other points, the Chesses were fools for usurping LW's 
artistic judgement regarding amped harp, but they were following market 
trends. The more I read about them, the less I like them. Routledge also put 
out a book of Living Blues interviews this year called "Voices of the Blues" 
which has some very damning information on the Chesses, including how they 
screwed over Eddie Boyd ("Five Long Years"). Ugly stuff. Still, had it not 
been for them, we might not have had a lot a great stuff. What can you say? >>
 
 i assume that many who read the little walter bio might also have read (or 
be inclined to read) the muddy waters bio "i can't be satisfied," by robert 
gordon.  gordon is a wonderfully evocative writer, and when he describes 
things...the sounds, the smells, the sights...you get the feeling you are 
there.  even reading the forward, i had a tough time putting it down.  like 
the bible, it gets confusing keeping count of various "begats,"  but you get 
a true sense of what drove muddy, of some of his human flaws, and his 
contradictions.  like walter, none of this takes away from his art.  and his 
influence becomes bigger and deeper.  if you ever meet someone who winces at 
mick jagger shimmying beside waters during a mid 70s tribute, remind them 
that as a younger man, waters was much wilder on stage.  it was only when he 
started performing for mostly white audiences (which coincided with being in 
his 50s), that muddy stopped his stage theatrics.
starting to digress, but this book also delineates the chess' sometimes 
genius, sometimes foolishness.  to their (or leonard's anyway) credit, i 
guess, muddy, walter, howlin' wolf, and a host of others made good music 
under most of the scenarios chess records put them in (excepting stuff like 
unk in funk, electric mud, this howlin' wolf's new album...he doesn't like 
it), although i tend to think of this as artists being triumphant over their 
circumstances.  i agree, though, that had they not had the inclination to do 
what they did, we would have never heard some of the best american music of 
the 20th century.
 

stevenj...the gator-man