JIMMY WITHERSPOON'S 1959 BLUE NOTE CLASSIC WILL ALWAYS BE THE BEST DAMN KANSAS CITY BLUES THERE IS
Then again I might been getting Jimmy Witherspoon confused with a fella named Jimmy Rushing. Anyway, it doesn't really matter does it?
I like both these guys so much, I should listen
to their blues shouter style of jump blues, with a massive dose of straight out be-bop jazz, a lot more often.
to their blues shouter style of jump blues, with a massive dose of straight out be-bop jazz, a lot more often.
Jimmy Witherspoon made a lot of albums in his career, I probably have listened to around 5 out of them, so I cant make any grand statement to say what is definitely his best album.
Even though Witherspoon and Rushing were both black men and were trying to carve out their career at a time in the United States when racism was still common right across
the country, they still managed to earn a lot of respect from white crooners and record executives, enough to get them past the goalpost of obscurity.
Even though Witherspoon and Rushing were both black men and were trying to carve out their career at a time in the United States when racism was still common right across
the country, they still managed to earn a lot of respect from white crooners and record executives, enough to get them past the goalpost of obscurity.
Certainly the racial barriers which other famous black artists such as Miles Davis and Charlie Parker had already broken down in the tolerant pure jazz utopia of New York helped no end to allow a number of African Americans to be able to have a long and very fulfilling career.
It wasn't always so for many bluesmen
who escaped Louisiana and Mississippi to escape the KKK and a music scene that didn't
allow for anything bar cajun music and the
delta form of the blues.
who escaped Louisiana and Mississippi to escape the KKK and a music scene that didn't
allow for anything bar cajun music and the
delta form of the blues.
Most of them ended up in Chicago but only guys like Muddy Waters and a few others hit the big time.
Jimmy Witherspoon and Jimmy Rushing were considered to be practitioners of a blues style commonly referred to as Kansas City blues.
Jimmy Witherspoon and Jimmy Rushing were considered to be practitioners of a blues style commonly referred to as Kansas City blues.
It's one of my favourite styles because it's a mixture of blues singing and jazz how it was supposed to be, long before acid and San Francisco sunshine and beatniks got into the mind of Miles Davis sometime during the mid 60`s with no offence meant whatsoever to his awesome late 50`s be-bop jazz.
Witherspoon as I did say earlier recorded enough albums to sink a battleship, the pick of the albums which I have listened to is his fourth one, all the way back to 1959, an absolute atmospheric gem with some warm and fuzzy production you would expect could easily have been derived out of Norman Petty's Clovis studio (he being Buddy Holly's man).
The album is called SINGIN' THE BLUES, just make very certain if you import the album or buy it on E-Bay that you're not ordering in an album called SINGS THE BLUES, I think, but I'm not totally sure, that Witherspoon did record another album by that almost identical name.
If memory serves me correctly it is one I have listened to and it's totally inferior to SINGIN'. If you like the blues, jazz and some boogie woogie, you would have to love Kansas City blues, and SINGIN' THE BLUES, released on Blue Note Records, is a gem.
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