About 25 years
ago, I was thumbing through a music catalog for
Shanachie Records. Shanachie sold albums from
their own label and pre-war recordings via their
subsidiary, Yazoo Records. They also sold albums
from other labels, and sometimes you could find
a nice album in their catalog that was hard to
find anywhere else (so help me, I miss music
catalogs almost as much as I do record stores).
In the particular catalog I was scanning, I
stumbled onto a Jimmy Witherspoon
recording called Evenin’ Blues, on the
Prestige label.
A few years earlier, I had
purchased a collection of Witherspoon’s Chess recordings that
had recently been reissued, and had heard random tracks on a
couple of anthology sets I’d bought. I liked his voice enough to
consider this particular release, but what finally sold was
within the description of the recording in the catalog, which
mentioned that T-Bone Walker played guitar on the set. Now, I
was a big fan of T-Bone Walker, but it was next to impossible to
find any of his recordings back then. A couple of years later,
the stores were inundated with T-Bone Walker collections, but at
the time, I pretty much owned one T-Bone Walker cassette that
someone had recorded for me.
Witherspoon began recording in
the late ’30s, and with his smooth, warm, and mellow vocal style
he was a perfect fit in the blues genre, the jazz genre, and the
R&B genre. He recorded with a number of labels in the ’50s,
including those aforementioned Chess recordings, and was
prolific into the early ’60s. Evenin’ Blues was recorded
in 1963 and released in early 1964, and in addition to Walker
the list of side men included Clifford Scott on tenor sax, alto
sax, and flute. Scott played sax on Bill Doggett’s hit “Honky
Tonk” and he is just awesome throughout.
One of Witherspoon’s favorite
songs was his upbeat “Money’s Getting’ Cheaper,” and that tune
opens the disc, featuring a nice Walker solo, sax from Scott,
and organ from Bert Kendrix. “Grab Me A Freight” is a slow blues
that really showcases Walker and Scott, and Witherspoon nails it
as well. Next is a swinging read of the Roy Hamilton hit, “Don’t
Let Go!,” that’s every bit the equal, maybe better, than the hit
version.
Washboard Sam’s “I’ve Been
Treated Wrong” is another smoky ballad that’s putty in the hands
of Witherspoon and Walker, while on the title track, a lovely
after-hours jazz piece, Scott plays flute and Witherspoon really
makes this one his own.
“Cane River” is a downhome
blues romp penned by Witherspoon with nice instrumental work
from Walker, Kendrix, and Scott,. A languid take of Leroy Carr’s
“How Long Blues” is the first of three cover tunes, followed by
a classy version of Roy Brown’s “Good Rockin’ Tonight” and a
raucous reading of “Kansas City” that really rocks.
The original album closes with
another Witherspoon original, the lively “Drinking Beer.” The CD
release included four alternate takes of “Don’t Let Go!,” “I’ve
Been Treated Wrong,” “Evenin’,” and “Cane River” that all
measure up well to the takes that made the final album cut.
Evenin’ Blues is
probably Jimmy Witherspoon’s best blues-oriented album. As
stated above, he was comfortable in a number of genres, but this
effort focuses more on the blues than many of his other
releases, and the presence of Walker and Scott definitely lifts
this set above standard blues fare.
Witherspoon continued to
record frequently, though he battled throat cancer and its
effects from the ’80s on before passing away in 1997, leaving
behind an impressive body of work. Fans of traditional urban
blues are advised to check out Evenin’ Blues. Iit is well
worth the search.