[Harp-L] Re: Juke

[scott <checker758@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Winslow,
I've read the same interview.  I also spoke with Jimmy Rogers about Little Walter on numerous occasions.  Jimmy had a problem with Little Walter - he never passed up an opportunity to bring Walter down a notch or two when people asked about him, which was often.  Billy Boy Arnold has said that Jimmy resented the fact that after Jimmy's first Chess recordings with Walter on harp were successful, Leonard Chess decided to continue to bring Walter in to play on Jimmy's sessions.  Jimmy apparently felt he didn't need the help of somone he considered a young upstart, but when his later non-Walter recordings stiffed, Chess insisted he be brought back, even though he was never actually a member of Jimmy's own band.  It rubbed Jimmy the wrong way, and he never completely got over it.
 
This is all to provide some context to my contention that Jimmy was willfully wrong about Little Walter's alleged timing problems.  The recorded evidence simply doesn't bear it out - in fact, it proves just the opposite.  Before Muddy and Jimmy ever got together with Walter to "straighten out his timing", Walter recorded on six songs for the Ora Nelle label (two takes each of three different songs) in 1947.  His timing almost perfect on every one.  I've just listened again to refresh my memory, and the sole instance of jumped or flubbed time I can find anywhere is in the first harp solo in the alternate take of "Just Keep Loving Her", where he jumps to the IV one beat ahead of the guitarist.  Interestingly, two of these Ora Nelle recordings were made backing Jimmy Rogers himself - this is before Jimmy introduced Walter to Muddy - and both of them are dead-on perfect, timing-wise.  His harp is locked in with Jimmy's guitar like they'd been
 playing together for years.
 
In 1948, sometime around the time LW began playing with Muddy and Jimmy, he recorded two sides leading a band that included Sunnyland Slim for the Tempo Tone label.  His timing both vocally and on harp is faultless - he never jumps time by even a single beat at any point.
 
My point is that Walter may have had more than his share of faults, but bad or "country" timing was never a big problem.  His timing was actually a lot better than many of his contemporaries on the scene, including Muddy.
 
I think Jimmy may have overstated Walter's problems for a several reasons.  As mentioned above, I think he held some resentment for him professionally.  I also think it's possible that Jimmy thought Walter's early style, which had been influenced by some elements outside of Jimmy's scope of reference such as New Orleans jazz and Louisiana cajun and creole music, may have sounded "wrong" to Jimmy simply because he didn't recognize the slightly different rhythmic feel, or thought the differences didn't fit in with Jimmy's more orthodox Delta blues style.  Walter was also a much busier harp player as an accompanist than just about anyone before him, including John Lee Williamson (a hero to both Walter and Jimmy), and that may have sounded a bit 'off' to Jimmy's ears.  
 
By the way, none of this is meant as a put down to Jimmy Rogers.  He was one of my all time favorite bluesmen, who I saw dozens of times, had the pleasure of talking with many times, and sat in with quite a few times as well.  I'm only pointing out that his assessment of LW's skills may have less than totally objective and fact-based.  (Hey, we're all human.  No matter how great he may be, I can't stand Sugar Blue's music because he was jerk to me personally.)
 
About the other timing issue in Juke, you're right, there's definitely an extra beat or two in there in the third chorus, going into the V chord.  No excuses there - it sounds like he was just playing a phrase that went on a little longer than it should have.  But as someone very astutely pointed out elsewhere in this thread, I don't think that ANY of these minor timing irregularities were necessarily viewed as "mistakes" at the time - it was just how the blues was played by these guys back then.
 
Scott
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@...> wrote:
>
> I remember reading a long interview with Muddy Waters guitarist Jimmy Rogers in Living Blues, circa 1974. Rogers stated that when he first met Walter, Walter was a brilliant but wild kid with no proper sense of time (beats in a bar, bars on a blues verse) and that Rogers and Waters taught him to play in time.
> 
> Lacking a strict sense of meter or form was not uncommon in the rural south, especially among musicians who played without accompaniment. It could be that at certain moments in Juke, Walter was simply reverting to old habits.
> 
> I'm not where I can check, but it seems to me that there is one other place in Juke where the time departs from the norm. It's a few verses in, during the part of the tune where the chord has returned from the IV chord to the I chord, just before going to the the V chord. Walter adds 2 beats to the last measure of I just before playing the lick that launches the V chord.
> 
> Anyone else notice this?
> 
> Winslow
> 
> Winslow Yerxa
> 
> Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
> 
> --- On Fri, 1/23/09, Richard Hunter <turtlehill@...> wrote:
> From: Richard Hunter <turtlehill@...>
> Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Re: Juke
> To: harp-l@...
> Date: Friday, January 23, 2009, 2:40 PM
> 
>   
> billrossoll@... wrote:
> The  story I have heard/read about Juke is that it was simply a jam that 
> <the  band used as a break lead-in. Little Walter originally called it 
> <something  like "Your Cat Will Play". He reportedly got the theme
> from 
> <something that  Sunnyland Slim was doing. The rhythm
> "irregularities" are 
> <simply  mistakes.
> 
> I heard that Walter heard Junior Wells play the tune in a club one night, and
> made sure to record it as soon as possible after.  But whatever.   
> 
> Walter came out of the rural blues tradition, and changes to the meter of a bar
> or the structure of a 12-bar chorus weren't unusual in that tradition. 
> Apparently what mattered most was a strong pulse, not the number of bars in a
> chorus.  Listen to the live recording of pianist Champion Jack Dupree at the
> Montreaux jazz festival--his sidemen, great musicians all, are constantly
> surprised by what he's doing to the form.
> 
> We hear that stuff as a rhythmic irregularity or a mistake.  I'm sure that
> to Walter and his bandmates in late forties/early fifties Chicago, it was just
> the way the music was played.  
> 
> Regards, Richard Hunter
> latest mp3s and harmonica blog at http://myspace.com/richardhunterharp
> 
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