The Rolling Stones, one of the greatest, and certainly most enduring, Rock Bands in history, started out as a Blues band - maybe Rhythm and Blues would be a better description.
Their eponymous first Album, unusually for the time having no trace of the band's name on the front sleeve, contains a number of very passable covers of existing blues songs of the day. Keith Richard's guitar playing stands out for his sheer adaptability of style - Bo Diddley, easy. Chuck Berry, no problem. For me, the best track is the original Jagger/Richard composition 'Tell Me'.
Elsewhere, Mick gamely attempts the Louisiana intonations of Slim Harpo on the latter's hit 'I'm a King Bee', and kind of pulls it off, I think.
The Stones long acknowledged the stylistic influence of great Blues men like Howlin' Wolf - probably the most famous crossover song is 'Little Red Rooster', penned by the great Willie Dixon, that also appears on Howlin' Wolf's 'Rocking Chair' album.
In the photo, you can see that some chump paid £40 for an early pressing of the Stones album. Friends, that chump was me. Subsequent detailed research revealed that it certainly is an early copy, but not one of the very first to be issued. Clues are in the surprisingly numerous typographical errors on the cover and record labels.
Chester Burnett sounds like the name of a mild-mannered bank clerk, but a quick change into 'The Howlin' Wolf' reveals him to be one of the greatest and most powerful exponents of mid-20th century Chicago Blues music.
Two things surprised me when I recently heard Howlin' Wolf's 'Rocking Chair' album for the first time. Mainly, how similar the Rolling Stones' sound was to his. Not a literal copy, but, to my tin ear, Mick Jagger's cadences in their early work sound very similar to those of Howlin' Wolf.
Howlin' Wolf was a big man in every sense, around 6 feet 3 inches tall and with a loud, booming voice. He is regarded as one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, and was at the forefront of the transition of blues music from acoustic to electric guitar.
Although a competent guitar player who accompanied himself in live performances, on his albums, the instrument was taken by the supremely excellent Hubert Sumlin - one of those great session musicians who went by largely unrecognised.
The album pictured is just called 'Howlin' Wolf' but is generally known as 'The Rocking Chair' album after the front cover picture. I am showing the back as it contains a picture of the man himself, and the track listing. I'll leave you to imagine what the front cover looks like!
The second thing that surprised me about Howlin' Wolf's album was to read a review that claimed that the songs, mostly written by Willie Dixon, were all about sex! Surely not, I thought, - they don't sound like sexy songs. Then I read the track listing with that idea in mind... and well, they're in the picture, so see what you think!
Final point of interest is that the record label of Howlin' Wolf's record has the words 'High Fidelity' and 'Unbreakable' prominently shown. Originally issued in 1962, vinyl records had been around for over a decade, and record companies were keen to encourage record buyers to move away from buying (much cheaper) shellac 78s, and the 'unbreakable' nature of vinyl was one of its main advantages, as well as its greatly improved audio quality - hence the valuable label real-estate being given over to extolling the virtues of the medium, rather than its contents.
youtu.be/6Vr-DR5HdKw?list=RD6Vr-DR5HdKw
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The strange case of the two Sonny Boy Williamsons.
John Lee 'Sonny Boy' Williamson, born in 1914, was an immensely talented harmonica player, who was quite a star of the Blues genre, recording around 120 tunes. Sadly, he died following a violent mugging in 1948 at the age of only 34.
Another, arguably even more talented, harmonica player, Alex 'Rice' Miller also performed under the name Sonny Boy Williamson, a name he adopted after the first Sonny Boy Williamson was already well known. Later biographers have tried to claim Miller started using the 'Sonny Boy' sobriquet as a tribute to the original following his death, but it seems clear that he was calling himself by that name as early as 1941 when the original Sonny Boy Williamson was still very much alive and performing.
There are a number of strange matters with regard to the two Sonny Boys Williamson. Miller (SBW #2), was in fact the older man; his exact birth date is unclear, but no later than 1912. As he got older, he advanced his age, eventually claiming to be 'an 1800s man', possibly in an attempt to assert and underline his being the 'Original'. He did call himself 'the ONLY Sonny Boy Williamson', something that was certainly true after the first man was murdered. (And there is absolutely no suggestion that Miller was in any way involved in Williamson's death.)
SO, of the two records in the picture above, the one entitled 'The Original Sonny Boy Williamson' is most definitely NOT by the Original, but by Alex (or Aleck) Miller - which is made clear in the notes on the reverse. The naming of the record is very curious, as the same record label, had already issued the real original Sonny Boy Williamson's Record, pictured below. The sleeve notes on that latter album were very carelessly compiled, as they state that 'John Lee Williamson was born in 1921 and was murdered in 1948 at the age of 34' which just doesn't add up!
Miller is almost always referred to as 'Sonny Boy Williamson II'. As it happened, he became the far bigger star - achieving great fame and success, before he died in 1965. He toured widely, including in Europe and the UK, making tv appearances, playing with big R&B bands of the day, such as The Animals and The Yardbirds. He had a powerful stage presence, even eclipsing the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, with whom he toured. A real star in every sense.
Quite a character, he took to dressing in an expensively tailored British-made suit, complete with bowler hat and furled umbrella - even when performing! (see the link below). It is sad that he is so little remembered now, and even sadder that his younger namesake is hardly known at all.
Sonny Boy Williamson II made many great records; his 1959 album 'Down and Out Blues' is still widely available and well worth a listen. Sonny Boy Williamson I's records are far harder to come by - indeed, I ordered 'The Original Sonny Boy Williamson' record thinking it was by SBW #1, it was only when I got it, I realised it was by SBW #2.
youtu.be/QyCwO18qybk?list=RDQyCwO18qybk&t=14
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This record album was issued in 1950.
If you're at all familiar with vinyl record albums, the first thing you'll notice about this one, is that instead of a single, long-playing 12-inch or 10-inch diameter disc, this album came on two 'EP' Extended Play 7-inch diameter records, with two songs on each of the four sides.
The long playing vinyl 'microgroove' record was introduced in 1948 by Columbia Records, and it was followed by RCA's competing 7-inch format the following year.
In this early 'format war', the two record types played at different speeds; Columbia's at 33⅓ rpm, RCA's at 45rpm, and had different diameter spindle holes.
Both formats had a significant advantage over the pre-existing shellac discs, in that they were virtually unbreakable, and were far more resistant to developing the surface hiss that is so often associated with old 78rpm records.
As an aside, shellac records were not referred to as '78s' until records of other playback speeds became available - you won't find '78rpm' printed on pre-1948 record labels. The playback speed was said to be 'about 78rpm', and most record players had a variable speed control, so the playback speed could be adjusted, such that the pitch of the recording sounded right to the listener. Quite where the 78rpm speed came from in the first place is something of a mystery; there are various explanations to be found on-line involving the types of electric motors and reduction gearing commonly available in the early 20th century, but I don't find them convincing.
Columbia had chosen the size and playback speed of their vinyl records to accommodate the longest movements of classical music compositions then known - up to about 20 minutes each side. Short playback duration had been a major issue with the shellac records and numerous discs were needed to contain a complete symphony or opera, and they were often sold with their paper sleeves bound into a book-like format - hence the term 'record album'.
The RCA 7-inch 45rpm offering was more suited to collections of individual, shorter works, up to about 5 minutes duration, and RCA challenged the convenience of Columbia's long playing records by selling their own record players with very fast action auto-changers. Auto-changers had existed for many years for shellac records, but RCA's new players for the more robust vinyl discs were particularly quick. Also, the first long-playing records had longer gaps between the tracks than subsequently became the norm, so the time gap between one track ending and the next starting was virtually the same across both formats. In the early years of vinyl records, it was not uncommon for a record album to be issued on both a single, long-playing, 33⅓ rpm disc, and an 'album' containing several 7-inch 45rpm discs.
The 1950 example in my picture is a very early one - it must have been issued within the first year or so of 7-inch 45rpm records being available. A 10-inch diameter long-playing 33⅓ rpm record with the same eight tracks was also available.
As to Julia Bell; she was well known for performing somewhat risqué songs, as might be gathered from the titles on this collection, although I doubt they would barely raise an eyebrow, let alone a titter, from modern listeners.
This 'EP Album' is so rare that it is not even listed by Discogs, the on-line marketplace for second-hand records. Is it valuable, then? Sadly not - for a record to be valuable, it must be both rare AND sought after, and poor Julia's album only meets one of those criteria.
Tags: Record 45 rpm record Vinyl Julia Bell EP Album Capitol Records
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