[Harp-L] RE: Stand Around Crying harp player (was Tongue (was throat) vibrato)

[scott <checker758@xxxxxxxxx>]

I know it's probably WAY beyond the point where anyone still cares about this thread, but I just came across it and have a few comments.
 
--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Bret Littlehales" <blittlehales@xxxx> wrote:
> <Junior Wells' vibrato is more throat than diaphragm, but with an even
> <slower
> <vibrato than Cotton's, and that's the vibrato you hear on Muddy Waters'
> <original recording of "Standing Around Crying.
> 
> Hey Bob-
> 
> Oh, no! The "Standing Around Crying" debate again! Whether or not one
> agrees w/ you as to the harp player on "Standing Around Crying" (and
> "Iodine in My Coffee"), I'd be hard pressed to label it as typical
> Junior Wells playing. There are actually two different types of Junior
> playing: early and later. Early would be the original of "Early in the
> Morning", the 1st position version, on Blues Hits Big Town, or any of
> the Chief sides. The later stuff on Hoodoo Man or It's My Life, Baby
> sound much more individual, and less in the Little Walter mode. By
> this time Junior has stopped using a bullet (or whatever) and is using
> his impeccable sense of timing to help drive the band. He's gone fr/
> Walter to Rice Miller, if you want to oversimplify, and is also
> varying his positions so that the harp and his voice are always in the
> same register.
> 
> Now, back to "Standing..." For the unititated in the list, this is a
> very controversial tune. Is it Junior? Is it Walter? Is it Pot Strong?
> (I actually know someone who swears it is.) Muddy and Junior both
> claimed it was Junior, but all the record lists say Walter. Walter's
> biographers say Junior and don't include the tune on their
> discography. The next matrix number is a Floyd Jones tune w/ Walter on
> it, so we know Walter was around at the time. I'm not going to list
> different harp player's names as to who thinks what, but I will say
> that several players I know (and you know also, Bob) and respect
> highly, say it's Walter. 
 
 
Actually, the next matrix numbers that Bret refers to, Floyd Jones' "You Can't Live Long" and "Early Morning", do have Junior Wells on harp.  You don't necessarily have to take my word for it - it's listed that way in the very well researched and comprehensive Chess Blues Discography by Les Fancourt.  These songs were recorded at the tail end of Muddy's Sept. 1952 session that produced "Standing Around Crying", which was the first session Muddy recorded after Walter famously left Muddy's band out on the road and came back to Chicago so he could get his own band together to capitalize on the success of "Juke".  Walter took over The Aces from Junior Wells, and Wells went out on the road with Muddy.  When this session was recorded, Wells was Muddy's regular harp player, and Little Walter was out on the road with his own band.  So in fact we can be pretty sure LW was NOT around at the time.
 
But even if the chronology of events didn't help to confirm it was Wells and not Walter, IMO it just doesn't sound like Walter.  I have to respectfully disagree with Bret here - it DOES sound like typical Junior Wells playing from that era to my ears, and very much unlike Little Walter in both attack and phrasing.  Wells plays much more consistantly hard (or as Dick Shurman astutely pointed out when crediting Jr. Wells as the harp player in his liner notes to the first official Chess US reissue of "Iodine in My Coffee", Junior's playing was more consistantly "wide open" than LW's), compared to LW's consistantly softer blowing, alternated with occasional blasts of sound - in other words, LW really used the dynamics in a way that Wells didn't then.  (Shurman quotes Jimmy Rogers recollections about this session, and Rogers says it was Wells on harp - and of course, Rogers was there on guitar, so he would know.)
 
The other (and even more important, IMO) thing is the phrasing.  Wells, even when he was making a conscious effort to play like LW, as he was at the time, always had a much more conventional approach to phrasing.  He generally played phrases that were shorter and more rigidly defined by the time signature and length of the bars.  In other words, he played a lot of two bar phrases that began and ended on the bar.  He also sometimes rushed these phrases, beginning them slightly before the beat, and, particularly noticeable on "Iodine In My Coffee" and the Floyd Jones tracks, sometimes played staccato licks that ended abruptly a little ahead of the beat, giving a subtle kind of rushed quality to the playing.  
 
All of these qualities are part of what I think of as "Memphis timing" - very much evident in the styles of Junior Wells, Junior Parker, Big Walter Horton, Rice Miller, Henry "Pot" Strong, and many others from around Memphis - and very much UNLIKE the way LW played.  This type of phrasing was atypical of LW's style - he was obviously making a conscious effort to NOT play that way.  LW typically anchored his phrases to a place a little bit after the beat, which is what gave his playing a lilting, swinging quality, even on material that didn't necessarily "swing".  Another important thing that marked the playing of Wells, Horton, et al, and separated it from LW's, was the way that the "Memphis guys" would either follow or repeat the melody line of the singer.  LW did this very infrequently, while for all of the other "usual suspects" it was standard operating procedure.
 
This is not meant in any way to denigrate the playing of any of these other guys, who were all great, and brought their own unique things to the party.  But it is, IMO, what set LW apart from all of them.  And it's why I'm so sure that it ISN'T LW on Muddy's "Screaming And Crying" session, or the Floyd Jones songs from the same session.
 
 
> Finally, there is also a debate going on about Sad Sad Day, which may
> have Henry "Pot" Strong on it instead of Walter. This would be
> significant because the only extant recordings of Pot's (hmmmm, wonder
> where he got that nickname?) besides the Henry Gray sides.

 
I assume the debate is about whether it's Henry Strong or BIG Walter Horton, since I've never heard anyone suggest that it's Little Walter (and to my ear it's an even stronger example of the "Memphis" sound that was atypical of LW.)  As I mentioned above, Horton and Strong did share some similar traits, so this debate might be a more valid one.  But I'm pretty sure it's Horton for a few reasons.  First, "Sad Sad Day" is from Muddy's next session after the one discussed above (in other words, his 2nd session after LW left the band), and it's pretty well known based on the testimony of people who were there that the chronology of Muddy's harp players was: LW, Jr. Wells, Big Walter, then Strong.  It's my understanding that Jr. went into the Army in late '52, and this session was recorded in January of 1953.  Muddy himself said that Horton only recorded one session with him in the 1950s before he fired Horton and hired Strong, so by the process of elimination, it seems like this has to
 be the session he did with Horton.  Secondly, recorded on the same day as the Muddy songs, the very next matrix number in the Chess discography is the Gus Jenkins session featuring Horton.  I've never seen ANYONE else credited as harp player on this session, and the playing has all the trademark Horton elements, so I think we have to assume that it's him.  Finally, the harp playing on both Muddy's "Sad Sad Day" session and the Gus Jenkins session is quite a bit more accomplished than the only recorded example we have of Henry Strong's harp playing to compare it to, and that was recorded AFTER these.  So I think we have to give this one to Horton.
 
All the best,
Scott
 
PS - Guitarist Jody Williams, who was Henry Strong's room mate when Strong was killed by a jealous girlfriend, confirmed that Henry "Pot" Strong got his nickname exactly the way you would think on your very first guess... :)

			
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