Re: [Harp-L] James Cotton recommendations

[Joe Lempkowski <mr_jlemko@xxxxxxxxx>]

There is a lot of great James Cotton material out.

The two releases on Alligator, "Live From Chicago - Mr
Superharp Himself" and "High Compression" are
excellent.  

The live CD catches him in excellent form with his
kick-ass band from the mid 1980's.  "High Compression"
is a mix of him with two bands.  Half of the CD has
him backed by his big band.  The other half he is
backed by an all star band of fabulous Chicago players
including Magic Slim.

There is a live CD on the Antone's label called "Live
At Antones Nightclub".  It's out of print, but very
good.  It features Matt Murphy on guitar.   This CD
has him backed by a fabulous group of Chicago
musicians at Antone's.  He tears through a several
Little Walter tunes and really rips it up on The
Creeper. 

The "Best of the Verve Years" is great, too.  Lot's of
really great harp playing on this, but he also
demonstrated that he was a great singer back in the
day.  The backup band features Luther Tucker, Sam Lay,
Jerome Arnold.  Many of these guys backed up Howlin'
Wolf.  Most of the people on this list might recognize
some of the names from the first Paul Butterfield
albums.

I like another one entitled "Take Me Back."  It
features a great band playing some classic 50's style
Chicago Blues.  It has some great guitar work by the
little known, but phenomenally great Sammy Lawhorn.

One of my recent favorite Cotton recordings is T.D.'s
Boogie Woogie on the first Superharps CD.  He and
Billy Branch really tear it up trading off some
fabulous soloes.  It's really great stuff.

Gotta roll.

Joe

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