Album Reviews

This Memphis Slim record is special because it was an impromptu session, occurring at the end of his first “scripted” Candid date. As the tunes rolled out, it became clear to producer Nat Hentoff that Memphis’s playlist was comprised of “Traveling Music.” The blues great suggested the album title. I learned all of this from the liner notes.

What I learned from listening was the spontaneity and fun the three men had recording this “off-road” session. Arbee Stidham’s guitar goes wildly out of tune, Memphis misses some piano keys sliding up and down the scales (of a piano that he may have pounded out of tune during the previous session) at breakneck speed and pops some horrendous “P”s singing with gusto and abandon and not only don’t all of those “imperfections” matter, they give the record an honesty and humanity sometimes missing from formal sessions.

Memphis takes “Red Haired Boogie” at a daring boogie -woogie tempo—one I doubt the trio would have attempted had this been one of the “contract” tracks. Jazz Gillum sings a pithy edition of the now-familiar “New Key To The Highway,” popularized (for the hippie generation) by The Allman Brothers almost a decade after this session was cut. According to the notes, Memphis went looking for the veteran bluesman a few years before this session was recorded (so figure mid to late 1950s) and found him selling rags on the southside of Chicago.

There’s pain, joy and all emotions in between on the album’s 14 tracks, propelled by Memphis’s pulsing boogie-woogie keyboard. Side two begins with the rollicking train song “El Capitan,”—an ode to the joys of being on the road— and then derails next track with the mournful “I Just Landed In Your Town.”

The recording is extraordinary (despite numerous imperfections, technical and musical) and Nat Hentoff doesn’t exaggerate when he says that engineer Bob D’Orleans “…has caught the full sonic impact of Slim more accurately than on any previous recordings by the Chicago-based wanderer.” At least that I have heard. In fact, the engineer has managed to make this studio set sound like a field recording. It sounds outdoors, which only adds to the authenticity of the album’s feel.

Truth be told, I didn’t think I was ready for another dark blues album. This one isn’t dark. Even the slow, mournful tunes have a vivacious, liberating quality to them, probably because these three veterans, Memphis Slim, Jazz Gillum and Arbee Stidham know that even at their lowest moment, there’s something good awaiting them just down the road.

A rough-cut gem that’s easy to recommend. It’ll take you there!