Tail Dragger
(Delmark)
You know you are listening to something special when you hear the first screaming notes from the Howlin' Wolf song "Louise" on Live at Rooster's Lounge, the latest CD by Tail Dragger, aka James Y Jones. This is deep blues Chicago style circa 1958-1965 characterized by the interplay of wailing full tone harp and slashing electric guitars. The world and music has changed a lot since those glory days of the postwar Chicago blues, but Tail Dragger has not. And that is a good thing. This album and the one he released before it, 2005's My Head is Bald - Live at Vern's Friendly Lounge are brilliant and authentic examples of the music that rocked the world. What's more, the music is just as fresh and vibrant now as it was back then.
The Chicago blues was the music of the great black diaspora from the American south to the cities of the north that started during World War II. Tail Dragger, born in 1940, didn't settle in Chicago for good until 1966. Like millions who arrived before him, he was working class. He made his living as a mechanic. But he also dug music and began hanging around in the small neighborhood bars and nightclubs on the African American West Side of the city. It was there that he met his musical mentor, the great Howlin' Wolf, who gave him his nickname. In those days, even as younger blacks were gravitating to Motown and James Brown, the audience in the West Side bars was the same color as the musicians, unlike today when what remains of the Chicago blues is played for white audiences, often consisting of a lot of tourists, by black musicians in decidedly safe parts of town.
But back in the glory day there were dozens of little dive bars in the South and West Side of Chicago with names like Theresa's and Stella's Lounge, places adorned with Christmas tree lights 12 months a year. And you could probably find a pistol somewhere near or in the cash box. Demark, which helped create the Chicago blues by issuing arguably the first blues LP, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy's Hoodoo Man Blues, made the brilliant decision to record Tail Dragger in two of the few remaining West Side blues bars. With the destruction of the American working class and downsizing of jobs overseas, what were once vibrant working class communities are now often neglected and bombed out neighborhoods with streets meaner now than there were half century ago. And in recording Tail Dragger, they recorded not only his music, but his talking to the audience between songs. In the glory days, performers in these clubs were not on a stage; they were often part of the audience and they would stray into the crowds, talking to folks, and even taking their music out into the streets at times. They'd go wherever the mike cord would let them.
The result is that Live at Rooster's Lounge has the feel of a historic recording but it was made just last year. On it, Tail Dragger covers two songs by Wolf, two by Little Walter, one each by Sonny boy Williamson, Big Joe Williams and John Lee Hooker, along with four of his own originals. And make no mistake this is the uncompromising blues. On his own song, the slow burning, "She's Worryin' Me", he sings in his gravelly voice: "Rocks in my pillow. Cold ground is my bed. Highway is my home. And I might as well be dead. I'm worried. And I don't have nowhere to go. This woman is worryin' me. And I don't know the reason why."
Tail Dragger is the real deal. And if you want an education on what the Chicago blues is, you will not go wrong with Live at Rooster's Lounge or My Head is Bald. Great job by both Tail Dragger and Delmark is keeping alive a crucial part of the blues tradition.
DOWNLOAD: "Louise" "She's Worryin' Me" "Wander" TOM CALLAHAN
