Gillian's Found Photo #50

Fang's back with her 50th found photo, and it's a classic. This young lady not only got her trip to Vegas complete with tickets for Elvis himself, she got to meet the man. Date: February 18, 1970 and Elvis was lookin' good. Dig that belt! I wonder what the paper back book she's showing Elivs is? Anyone want to guess? Found photo fans keep an eye on this spot for our first delve into the world of vanity publishing.

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Otis Rush

Otis Rush, southpaw.

Otis Rush's recording debut.

Another good 'un, the horns seem be laughing at him.

Otis Rush's masterpiece, with Ike Turner on 2nd guitar.

Otis Rush, a conk and shades.



Circa '66, wailin'.

Otis Rush (born April 29, 1935 in Philadelphia, Mississippi) was one of the last truly original blues guitarists, and one of the triumvirate of players (along with Magic Sam and Buddy Guy) who recorded for Cobra Records in the 50's that would became known as the masters of the West Side Sound, even though they sounded nothing like each other. There was no West Side Sound, just a bunch of guys who mostly played clubs in Chicago's west side.

Rush's family moved to Chicago when he was in his early teens and by his early 20's he was playing all over the south and west side making a name for himself. It was the sides he cut from 1956-58 for the Cobra label that remain his finest studio recordings and the basis for his reputation as one of the greats. A left handed, upside down guitarist, his style is as unique as it was stunning. He could summon up a nasty, dirty, bad feeling like no one I've ever heard. Lester Bangs wrote in one of his last articles that it was the sound of "being mugged by an iceberg".

Which is fairly accurate. I'll never understand why, in a world where there are so many guitarists who can play their instrument really well, they mostly sound exactly the same in terms of tonality, phrasing, etc. Anyway, Rush began recording for Cobra in July of '56 and his debut disc-- I Can't Quit You Baby b/w Sit Down Baby (Cobra 5000), was a minor hit that would become something of a standard. Sit Down is a version of Willie Dixon's (who produced and played bass) Little Red Rooster, later a hit for Howlin' Wolf and the Rolling Stones. Here's an interesting alternate take. Wayne Bennett is on second guitar and Big Walter Horton is playing the harmonica. He returned to the studio that fall to record the awful (despite the promising title) Dixon tune Violent Love and a b-side My Love Will Never Die, issued as Cobra 5005. In early 1957 Cobra brought him back in the studio to wax Groaning The Blues and If You Were Mine (Cobra 5010) in a session with Little Walter on harmonica and young Jody Williams on second guitar. A few months later he was again recording, with Love That Woman and Jump Sister Bessie issued as Cobra 5015, and again Little Walter is present along with Louie Myers from Walter's band on guitar. Rush closed out the year with his fourth single for Cobra-- Three Times A Fool b/w She's A Good 'Un. Otis Rush's first single in 1958 was It Takes Time b/w Checking On My Baby (Cobra 5027) on which he is supported by Little Brother Montgomery on piano, and the great Freddie Below who gave Muddy Waters' Live At Newport it's propulsion on drums. I love the way the horns seem to be laughing at Rush on Checking On My Baby, as though they're part of fate's evil plan for him. These discs didn't sell very well and until recently were fairly easy to find on 45 or 78 RPM, I found copies of all his discs at both speeds for less than a dollar in Boston in the early 80's.

Otis Rush's greatest moment in the studio came at some point in mid-58 when he waxed Double Trouble and Keep Lovin' Me Baby (Cobra 5030) along with All Your Love and My Baby's A Good 'Un (Cobra 5032). The all star band behind Rush on these two discs was made up of members of Ike Turner's Kings Of Rhythm (Ike Turner-guitar, Jackie Breston- baritone sax, Carlson Oliver- tenor sax, Eddie Jones- tenor sax) along with Willie Dixon on bass, Odie Payne on drums, and Little Brother Montgomery on piano. Now that's a band! There's a question as to who's playing the solo on Double Trouble, some think it's Ike, but after many careful listens, I think it's Rush. Here's an alternate take of Double Trouble. The way that Rush and Ike Turner's guitars mesh set a truly bad vibe for the song, it's one of the most bleak and unrelenting performances in the entire blues canon. It sounds like Rush's whole world is caving in on him, only Percy Mayfield would make greater records of such a depressing nature. This session would also be the end of his tenure at Cobra, which soon went out of business, but Rush and Cobra went out with a bang, if not many record sales.

Otis Rush wouldn't record again for two years when he signed to Chess who recorded him in two rather lacklustre (compared to the Cobra sides) sessions, the best tune being So Many Roads, So Many Trains, which Chess issued in 1960 to little notice. Another two years would go by until his next session, this time for Duke he waxed the amazing soul pumpin' Homework b/w I Have To Laugh, using a large horn driven studio band that included Lafeyette Leake on organ and Lefty Bates on guitar. Homework was a regional hit, but he never recorded for Duke again, and whatever momentum he had built up in his recording career was lost.

From there on, Rush would record for strictly for the white blues market. There are a few decent tunes and perfomances on the Vanguard Chicago-The BluesToday! Vol. 2 LP (the instrumental Rock is particularly good), but from there his discs would get progressively duller.

Mourning In The Morning (Cotillion) in 1969 was the album that was supposed to make Rush into the new Albert King, produced by some goofy San Francisco rock musicians whose names I can't remember, it's not much of a record. Some folks like his 1975 Cold Day In Hell (Delmark), but I find it quite stiff and lacking in the pathos of the Cobra sides.

In the late 80's and early 90's Otis Rush was a regular at the old Tramps on 17th Street (see my Esquerita posting on for more on that place), and his performances ran the gamut from painfully dull to stunningly brilliant, burning, searing, guitar workouts, although I think I saw more of the former than the later, on a good night, he could not be topped. Something of a misanthrope, he seemed to take pleasure in boring the audience to tears, then when the club was empty, start wailing away, playing amazingly to the empty seats.

Otis Rush really didn't start receiving the acolytes due to him until the late 90's when he won Grammy for "best traditional blues album", but by that point his skills had diminished quite a bit. He had a stroke in 2004 and has not been able to perform since. So somewhere, in some bed, sits Otis Rush, no longer able to support himself with music. What is is day like? Is he in pain? Does he have decent medical care? He is still alive, but few seem to care. It's a shame, because as one of the last authentic bluemen left, he could have finally made some real money.

I hope he has decent life and cable tv. He certainly earned them.

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Emmett Miller

Emmett Miller with F.E. Miller, the math bit would later be adopted by Abott & Costello, and later by Bernie Maddoff.

There is little I can add to the subject of Emmett Miller that hasn't already been covered by Nick Tosches in his definitive volume Where Dead Voices Gather (Little, Brown & Co. 2001)

or in early pieces he wrote in Country: America's Biggest Music (Stein & Day, 1977, reprinted as C0untry: The Twisted Roots of Rock'n'Roll by DeCapo, 1996) or the long history of Miler he wrote for the Journal Of Country Music (can't remember which issue or volume and am too lazy to dig through the cellar for it), except for the above clips of Mr. Miller himself, segments from very rare films.

Miller, for the un-inititated is best remembered for recording the original version of Lovesick Blues, the tune that catapulted Hank Williams to stardom . A white man who sang in blackface,

he was an anachronism even in the late 20's when his records where originally released by Okeh, a throw back to the Minstrel Shows that became popular after the civil war. Other singers who performed in black face at some point in their careers were Jimmie Rodgers,

Al Jolson, even blues singer Furry Lewis. Back then every major record company had a section

of their catalog devoted to "coon songs", and judging by how many of these things still turn up, they must have been very popular. One can argue that the Rolling Stones are nothing but an updated version of a Minstrel show. In 1996 Sony's Legacy division issued a twenty song selection of Emmett Miller & his Georgia Crackers (actually studio musicians including the Dorsey Brothers and Eddie Lang), it's still available and Miller's music, although it may be an acquired taste, is well worth hearing. It falls between the cracks of country, blues and jazz, but his voice, with it's weird yodel was a wondrous instrument, and the original version of Lovesick Blues is one of the greatest records ever recorded. You can also find the complete works of Emmett Miller here if you want to sample before you buy (BTW, did anyone notice on page 11 of the booklet to the Legacy edition that the liner note writer claims that no copies of Miller's first record have ever turned up, but on page two of the booklet is a picture of the record! No great fact checkers those Sony people....). I'm not going to argue the political incorrectness of blackface, you can read Nick's book for that, but Miller's music was important, unique and great. The above footage is of historical interest not because it's funny (it's not funny at all, which almost makes it funny) but simply because it's the only look we have at a great and mysterious musician, a name from the past thought to be lost to time. Ah, the wonders of the internet.

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Cockfighter (1974)

From Cockfighter, Monte Hellman's best movie.

I was quite surprised a few months ago while leafing through the New York Times Sunday Arts section, to see that director Monte Hellman was not only still alive, but at age 78 has a new movie coming out (called Road To Nowhere, it hasn't been released yet, if it gets a theatrical release it will be a minor miracle).

Hellman's career consists of twenty films of varying quality, and I must admit, I don't quite get what many consider his masterpiece-- Two Lane Blacktop (1971), a fairly dull, counter culture road movie in the style of Easy Rider that follows Dennis Wilson and James Taylor around in some hopped up muscle cars (the cars are the best part of the film). But Hellman made one of my favorite movies of the 70's, a peculiar thing called Cockfighter, based on the novel by Charles Willeford (who also wrote the screenplay), whose plot line it follows closely. Starring the always great Warren Oates, with a supporting cast led by Harry Dean Stanton, Laurie Bird, and in lesser roles Ed Begely Jr., Troy Donahue, Richard B. Shull, and even a cameo by Willeford himself, Cockfighter is a genre film without a genre. The story revolves around a professional game cock fighter who has just lost everything including his car, trailer and birds, and has vowed not to speak until he wins the coveted award for best cockfighter (there really was such a thing, probably still is in Puetro Rico and the Philippines where cockfighting is still legal).

It is one of Oates best performances, and the film captures the hidden world of pro cockfighting circa '74 in all its gory, southern white trash glory. Like very few other movies (I can think of Payday and Walking Tall, both covered in recent posts), it capture the south at a strange and pivotal time, when things were going from redneck to suburbia fast. I was a teenager in Florida at the time, and I can attest to the accuracy of the characters. The world it shows is long gone, put to death by Federal legislation that banned all cockfighting (it was still legal in parts of Louisiana and Arizona until the late 90's). All the extras and bit players look like real people, not actors, the settings are real, even the bird fights look real (and probably were, it's hard to get chickens to act).

While I'm not advocating that the laws against blood sports like cockfighting be rescinded (although some of the mixed Martial Arts you see on TV are almost as bloody), you can loathe the subject matter and still enjoy this movie for what it is. A look at a piece of the underside of Americana long gone. Cockfighter really is a great, forgotten movie. It deals with a man and his personal code of honor, and about living with and up to that code. And about keeping your mouth shut. I'm not sure who the producers of this film envisioned as their audience, but it is a riveting film. I first saw it at a drive in when it came out in '74, and re-watching it on DVD all these years later, it really holds up, in fact, it seems to have improved with age. Oates was one of the most under rated actors of his generation, he never gave a bad performance, but Cockfighter was one of his low budget best. Harry Dean Stanton, as his nemesis is equally great, and also quite believable in his role (as an aside, I wish they didn't kill off his character in the HBO polygamist soap opera Big Love, he was perfect as the old time Mormon prophet). You can rent Cockfighter from Netflix or buy it on DVD. I think it's Monte Hellman's real masterpiece.

Addendum: Check out this documentary on Screamin' Lord Sutch with some very rare footage of Joe Meek over at thee Bedazzled blog. It was made in the early 60's and I'd never heard of it before. Also, check out Ben Vaughn's interview with Jerry Blavant-- the Geater with the Heater, legendary Philadelphia DJ, and probably the last of the great old time motor mouth jocks still on the air (50 years!).

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Blind Willie Dunn (Eddie Lang and Lonnie Johnson)

Eddie Lang with Joe Venuti

Eddie Lang and Lonnie Johnson

Although he doesn't get a solo and the song is pretty lame, you can see Eddie Lang in the front right in the first shot of the band (Paul Whiteman's Orchestra). This passed for jazz with white folks back then. It may have been the first color movie ever filmed.

Eddie Lang (born Salvatore Massaro in Philadelphia, 1902) was the man who popularized the guitar in jazz and pop music. Before Lang most jazz bands had banjo players in the rhythm section. Guitar was popular with hillbillies, rural blues and Hawiian musicians, and was often heard in classical and flamenco music, it was not heard in jazz. It was probably for this reason that Eddie Lang never led a band outside of the recording studio in his lifetime. Although Lang recorded in many styles including classical (his main influence was Segovia), pop (especially with Bing Crosby) and various types of ethnic music, it was as a jazz musician that Lang made a name for himself. But Lang also loved blues, and as a session man had played behind Texas Alexander, Bessie Smith, Victoria Spivey and others. In 1928 and 1929 he cut a series of sessions which resulted in five 78's in tandem with blues guitarist Lonnie Johnson (also heard on some of these discs are King Oliver on trumpet, J.C. Johnson on piano) issued under the name of Blind Willie Dunn and his Gin Bottle Four that are among the greatest blues guitar recordings ever waxed. Lonnie Johnson, whose recording career lasted nearly fifty years considered them the highlights of his lifework. The tunes were issued as follows: Two Tone Stomp b/w Have To Change Keys To Play These Blues (Okeh 8637) Guitar Blues b/w Blue Guitars (Okeh 8711), A Handful of Riffs b/w Bullfrog Moan (Okeh 8695), Midnight Call Blues b/w Blue Room (Okeh 8818) and Hot Fingers b/w Deep Minor Rhythm Stomp (Okeh 8743).

Jazz fans don't think much of these sides, and most blues fans never heard of them. It's a shame, because in this age of guitar hero worship gone crazy they remain among the finest recordings ever made. They sure sound good together, it's hard to tell who's who. But they compliment each other as if they'd been playing together for years. Of course, times being what they were, they never performed live, but these sides must have had a following or Okeh wouldn't have called for three sessions. They're quite rare these days, although not really big money records.

They're easy enough to find on re-issue.

Eddie Lang would find high paying work in Paul Whiteman's Orchestra (where he played along side Bix Beiderbecke, Frankie Trumbuer and other big name white jazz players of the era), then considered the top jazz dance band in the land (although they are virtually unlistenable today, they were white and therefore Whiteman was able to claim the crown "King Of Jazz" while Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington struggled along to find an audience). Lang also cut some very influential records with violinist Joe Venuti (these sides would be a big influence on Django Rheinhart), and finally worked as Bing Crosby's band leader and musical director. In 1933, at age 31, Lang went for a routine tonsillectomy and died shortly after the operation. Within a a few years of his death virtually every big band had a guitar player and in the late 30's Charlie Christian would come along and take the jazz guitar solo to the next level via amplification.

But as a white bluesman, Lang beat Elvis, the Rolling Stones, and virtually every non-hillbilly guitarist to the punch by decades, and his playing still hasn't been matched.

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