The passing of Bo Diddley got me on a hardcore listening jag. Doesn’t take much to get me back on Bo, and there are several other blues and quasi-blues dudes — Elmore James, ZZ Top, Buddy Guy, Chuck Berry, Professor Longhair, James Booker — that I go back to whenever I need to reset my compass, or blow out the mucus that builds up in my musical system after I’ve been subjected to too much Top 40 or MTV crapola.

If you’re in need of such a cold shot yourself, grab an original recording of “Before You Accuse Me,” one of the blues standards Bo Diddley wrote. It underscores how he was a cross-genre superstar, equally facile at blues, rock, R&B, pop, and, later in life, soul.

The mark of a classic blues song is its ability to translate its power when other artists cover it. This is a topic best brought up in a separate post, but I’ll risk getting pounded in the comments by saying I’m not much of a Clapton fan; he can de-blues even the bluesiest, foolproof song when he sets his mind to it. But even he can’t screw up “Before You Accuse Me” (I’m denying his Unplugged version exists for the purposes of this discussion).

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“Johnny Cash, he’s scared of me,” Paul “Wine” Jones said to me in one of the most endearing moments of my blues fandom, which came circa spring, 2002. “I played with him once, and I scared him.”

At the time, standing in a pink satin suit on the floor of the House of Blues in Cambridge, Mass., Wine looked like a fish out of water, but perfectly comfortable in his own skin. Fat Possum had sent artists T-Model Ford, Wine, and one of their other label-mates–can’t remember which, and I can’t Google it for the life of me–to do a gig in Harvard’s backyard, and the crowd of upscale-yuppie suits, yuppies-to-be Cambridge students, and old-guard east-coast liberals didn’t really know what to make of the Fat Possum style of blues.

And the Fat Possum guys were so insular, they didn’t take offense at the lack of comprehension and appreciation of their art.

I was there with a couple other writers and blues nuts, and we bought Wine a couple adult beverages, and chatted with him between sets as T-Model did his thing on stage. It was a surreal night, but we were so glad they took the time and effort to come up to our neck of the woods and play their Hill Country noise for us. Wine played his “hit” at the time, “Pucker Up Buttercup,” from his CD of the same name at least twice, but we didn’t mind.

No, we couldn’t ever get him to elaborate on what about him scared The Man in Black, who’s seen a lot of scary things in his live and didn’t think twice about them.

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Originally, this fine blog entry was crafted exclusively for the awesome Popdose Statutory Rock List, but alas, as I am wont to do — such as right here in the far-too-long opener to this week’s Cold Shot, special Statutory Rock Edition — I ran at the keyboard wa-a-a-y too long and we decided to put it in the refrigerator for a few days and save it for this space.

Today, Cold Shot hashes the lyrics of “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” covered by three different acts: Big Joe Turner (1954), Elvis Presley (1955), and Bill Haley & the Comets (1954), which for my money, is one of the dirtiest songs of all time — but since most people equate Bill Haley and early Elvis with quaint old country-billy and the Donna Reed era of pre-acid sock hops and ‘57 Chevys, these horndogs get a free pass.

In the 1950s, teen ‘tang wasn’t just the purview of grizzled old rock stars. It was an uplifting cultural phenomenon that helped break down the color barrier. In fact, one might say it “inspired” some crucial, er, “events” that made America the celebrated ethnic melting pot it is today.

Case in point: Generally considered a lyric that discusses the deflowering of a young virgin, Big Joe sings “I’m like a one-eyed cat, peepin’ in a seafood store/I’m gonna look at you,’till you ain’t no child no more.”

Elvis covered it verbatim in the Sun Records rockabilly style. Together, the most influential black and white singers of the mid-1950s brought together audiences from all walks of life. Note: The original Elvis Sun recording of this cut didn’t make it to commercial release until the 1990s, but he did sing it on TV back in the day coupled with the hastily written copycat followup “Flip, Flop and Fly.” There is no doubt The Pelvis was singing this song at live gigs and getting those gals all wound up. For good measure, Sam Cooke later covered it with the skeeve intact (and we’re not even drilling down deeper into the lyrics, such as the see-through dress issues and just exactly what were they doing in bed before Big Joe et al demands some breakfast).

We will, however, bring up this little gem of a lyric from later on in the cut: “I get over the hill and way down underneath/You make me roll my eyes, even make me grit my teeth.” (more…)

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The Meters, generally known for bringing some of the hottest funk in the 1970s, remain one of the “least underground” underground bands of all time. One of those bands you’ve heard of but you can’t name any of their songs, and if you can — I bet it’s “Cissy Strut” — then you still can’t hum a bar to save your life if you were born outside of the Crescent City. We here at Popdose hope to change that.

Part of why the Meters’ funk was so delectable — as much as, say, the locals will tell you the softshell crab at Brightsen’s is, even though you have to get off your lazy tourist bum and get out of the Quarter to taste you some — was because Art Neville and his funky colleagues built the band’s sound upon a beautiful blues/R&B foundation: the chords, the rhythms, the feel. While other funk bands were innovating, and in the case of Funkadelic getting downright experimental, the Meters pumped out solid retro sounds with the at-the-time wild new funk beats laid down by George Porter Jr., not a household name to the average fan, but to bass players a Mount Rushmore figure.

This back-to-the-future approach suits the New Orleans musi-cultural approach to everything, mingling the old junk with the new style. Whether it’s politics, architecture, outsider art, or “Cabbage Alley,” a Meters cut built on a couple slowed-down musical phrases from Professor Longhair’s famous hit “Tipitina” (so famous they named a bar after it), there’s no separating the influences. Damn, it’s good, like some sort of Creole stew that’s simmered just right. If you’re new to the Meters — who kind of morphed into the world-music-y pop group the Neville Brothers at some point, when Aaron and a couple other cats joined forces — there’s no finer place to start than Rhino’s The Very Best of the Meters, which includes this song.

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This is a “just listen” day. In other words, if you really are interested in the backstory on this cat, open a new window and google it. I’m just providing you with sonic wallpaper for your quest.

For some reason, harmonica giant Billy Boy Arnold’s best tune, the original single version of “Rockinitis,” is available only in used-CD bins or as a download from the 1993 multi-artist Vee Jay sampler A Taste of the Blues, Volume One. Blues fans deserve better — like a whole Billy Boy compilation from the late ’50s to early ’60s. (”Rockinitis” was issued in 1957 as Vee Jay 260.) What a rockin’ young harp buck this guy was.

Sigh. Of course, Vee Jay made a bunch of dumb mistakes (like dropping that crappy group the Beatles from their lineup before they were famous), so what do you expect?

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Chuck Berry made rock and roll what it is today. This critic would fight — and win — a cage match with any other writer who’d take Elvis as the more significant contributor.

Elvis was a Mount Rushmore figure, for sure, but come on: Berry’s style (oh, and that writing-about-cars-and-girls-thing, which he didn’t invent but made a trademark) launched a million bands and can be heard everywhere from the Beatles to the MC5, from the Dead to the Stones and everyone since.

Ever the ironic bastards, us rock fans gave Berry his first and only #1 hit with “My Ding-A-Ling,” a gawd-awful novelty record. What an embarrassment to the legacy of a player who contributed as much to rock as Monet did to painting.

Which leaves blogs like Popdose to set the record straight, and we’re doing it right here. Not only did Chuck Berry show us how to rock, he was one mean blues slide player, too. Biggest proof of that lies in “Deep Feeling,” here from Rhino’s phenomenal anthology Blues Masters, Vol. 15: Slide Guitar Classics. Subtle, expressive, beautiful. If you can’t dig this — regardless of whether blues turns you on or not — you have no soul. Period.

Musicians who appreciate rock history appreciate Chuck Berry. Stud guitarists Arlen Roth and Sonny Landreth recorded “Deep Feeling” together for Roth’s new record, Toolin’ Around Woodstock with Levon Helm. In the process they lay down their own tribute to Berry and that groove on this YouTube video (we’re not allowed to embed this particular one — apparently Arlen’s worried what kooks like us are gonna do with it — so you’ll have to click and not whine about it, you lazy bum).

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Innovation in the blues milieu can be tough: Old-skool fans like old-skool sounds and themes, and if you change it up too much, they get a little uncomfortable. Like if you pass a Winston off to an old-guard Pall Mall smoker. Just ain’t cool.

Yet if you play the same old stuff and don’t add your own interesting spin to, say, the Muddy Waters style songs, it just sounds tired or worse yet, faker than fake.

Smokin’ Joe Kubek and Bnois King strike the perfect balance: Kubek is a hard-line Stevie Ray-style screaming guitarist. He’s the real deal, not some cardboard-cutout wannabe pretty boy the major labels like to prop up every couple years—and bilk the next generation of record buyers out of their paper route money. His bandmate and singer-guitarist Bnois King, however, brings a smoother jazz side to contrast Kubek’s rough-and-tumble Texas git-ar. Together they make searing blues with sophisticated style.

Best part about them is King’s lyrical commentary on present-day life. You’d never have caught Willa Mae “Big Mama” Thornton singing about road rage (even though she was the driver for her band and legend has it she could get up a good head of steam in the road-rage department) back in simpler times, when it hadn’t been defined as a social phenomenon.

But King does. “Damn Traffic” from Take Your Best Shot is one of my favorite cuts Kubek and King have done in their nearly 20-year run. In its quick blues-verse poetry the song encapsulates the traffic jam — with Kubek’s slashing guitar as a backdrop, the lyrics capture the grind of commuter life. And that’s how they put a current spin on the blues.

The duo have a new album, Blood Brothers, out on Alligator that’s well worth investigating. Here’s a little shot of Kubek and King live from earlier this year, performing “Blues Feeling”:

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You can’t get away from Professor Longhair, a.k.a. ‘Fess. Piano freaks who appreciate all players and who don’t just specialize in jazz or classical will tell you it’s a dead heat between him, Ray Charles, and Booker T. Jones for the title of Greatest American Keyboard Player of All Time — and by “greatest” I mean possessing that trifecta of skill, entertainment value, and influence on future players. (Patented Mojo Aside®: Gershwin and Liberace fans, you heard me right. You too, Chick Corea, Bernie Worrell, and Alicia Keys freakazoids. And it really pains me to leave Herbie Hancock, Memphis Slim, and James Booker off that list. Anyone who wants to pound me in the comments section for it, you’re justified. In fact, if the comments for this post become a “Who is the greatest American piano player and why?” free-for-all, I’ll enjoy participating.)

The Professor’s “Big Chief (Part 2)” is especially ubiquitous thanks to Lily Allen’s appropriation of its riff on “Knock ‘Em Out,” thus opening the ears of a whole ‘nother musical generation. There’s a little bit of a debate on who deserves the credit for this song — sometimes it’s Earl King, sometimes ‘Fess, and sometimes both. I’m on the ‘Fess side of the fence, because if there’s no deadly right-hand groove with that rock-solid left hand, there’s no legendary cut. He just plays it over and over and over and over, and at the end of a couple good minutes you’re under its spell. That, and the whistling. Who the hell does that? Yet here the whistling’s perfect. And the piano riff!

Part 2 is more commonly known than Part 1, I think; a lot of people who know “Big Chief” know just the second half because it’s the half with lyrics. Part 1 is the instrumental half, which I don’t yet have in my MP3 archives. However, a YouTuber posted it. Give it a spin …

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Semi-obscure guitarist Brewer Phillips died in 1999. His playing was a key element of Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers, the legendary band that launched Alligator Records, one of the key forces keeping blues alive.

The classic Chicago groove “Hen House Boogie” — which Phillips helped perfect in his time playing with Memphis Slim, Roosevelt Sykes, and Taylor — comes from Brewer’s 1996 solo album Homebrew, which has one of the all-time great blues CD covers: Phillips walking through his (or his woman’s, or his woman’s other lover’s) house with a hammer. One would presume he’s planning to hang up a certificate of commendation of some sort on the wall, but the look on his face says it’s possible he’s planning to cave someone’s head in.

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The blues, sometimes, is about how big my schlong is. Or, other times, how long me and my monstrous schlong can go in the sack before we blow our top. Or, still other times, how good I am when we do, finally, get down to bed for that protracted session with my big schlong. Some songs, also, give specific instructions to the wimmen, like when Joe Turner says “Get outta that bed…get into the kitchen, make some noise with the pots and pans.” Put another way: making sure you got yours from me and my big schlong can make for a hungry man.

Is it any wonder, hanging out with these guys, the wimmen rebel? That typically leads to another classic type of blues: The lament. “37 Years Old,” by Rochester, NY resident Joe Beard, is a particularly tasty groove off his record For Real, with Beard and well-known sidemen Duke Robillard on the guitar, Jerry Portnoy (harmonica), and Bruce Katz (Hammond B-3).

Beard learned guitar at the side of Son House, who taught Muddy Waters the blues way back when, and also influenced Robert Johnson. Unaware that his early recordings were considered national treasures, House lived in obscurity in Rochester, N.Y. until, late in life during the 1960s, he was rediscovered. Beard just thought the neighborhood blues guy played some mean slide; he was just as stunned as anyone to realize he’d learned to play with one of the all-time legends of the blues.

We’re stunned at the beautiful sound these seasoned musicians make together. Bon appetit!

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