You’ve probably noticed a rush of lists lately, not only here at Thought On Tracks, but from every other music outlet. It’s that time of year, the output of new tracks slows and the critics begin to look back, not forward, as the calendar reaches its last page. We’ve seen the release of some brilliant new music this year, adeptly and diligently covered by our very talented authors, but as most of you may know, the eye of this piece looks not on the new, and this author’s sensibilities are dated and dusty. No release can better purse its lips and release one’s taste from the grime of age than the reissue.

Cleaned up, remastered, rediscovered, retooled, reordered, repackaged, revamped, the reissue is the music industry’s key weapon in the fight against time. Tastes change. Technology advances. Production slows and so does the heart. It is for all these reasons a reissue is necessary, to keep us from forgetting history in a society that is constantly looking forward, behaving as if it has none. Reissues, like Proust’s madeleine cake, re-invigorate a love that feels both lost and everlasting, tied to a period of life into which we are wholly thrust, through the channel of that love, and are allowed to somehow, indirectly, experience again. It is in this spirit that the best reissues are created: thoughtful, reverent, and comprehensive. It is in this same spirit that I present, in no particular order, for each is immortal in its own right, the 10 best reissues of 2011.

Brian Wilson – The Smile Sessions Box Set

What is there to say about an album that is at once completely incoherent and absolutely brilliant? Borne of utter insanity, Smile and its ancillary recordings are, not surprisingly, in large part utterly insane. Began by The Beach Boys in 1966 as an American answer to Sgt. Pepper’s, Smile held a reputation as one of the greatest and most fabled unfinished projects in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. The Smile Sessions Box Set collects all the tape from the definitive Smile sessions, recorded with The Beach Boys in 1966-1967.

Inextricably tied to its mastermind, Brian Wilson’s, mythical antics, deteriorating emotional condition, abuse of LSD and general erraticism, Smile, Wilson’s “teenage anthem to God”, was widely believed to be dead, forever lost to the annals of rock lore, but with the help of original lyricist Van Dyke Parks and musician and composer Darian Sahanaja, Wilson was able to finally complete the album, rerecording it in its entirety and releasing it in 2004.

John Fahey – Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You: The Fonotone Years (1958-1965)

Many will not have heard of John Fahey, but if you like M. Ward, you like John Fahey. Ward admittedly built the bulk of his guitar style on Fahey’s brand of minimalist folk fingerpicking, often crediting with spawning its own genre, American Primitive Guitar. Borrowing from a number of American music traditions, Fahey yoked traditional musical strands of American roots together with world and the avant-garde to create something familiar, yet entirely unique.

Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You: The Fonotone Years (1958-1965) chronicles what one might call Fahey’s early nativist period, before he ventured deeper into the avant-garde. The collection is full of faithful interpretations of American music, from old Delta blues to Appalachian string ballads, western rumbles and stomps and beautiful, soul-stirring folk gospel. It is Fahey at his most natural, connecting with the music that, like his blood, sits just beneath the surface of his skin, waiting to leap from it like Whitman’s yawp. It is American musicology, and an American education, in a box.

Junior Wells’ Chicago Blues Band – Hoodoo Man Blues [Expanded Edition]

This selection should come as no surprise. Subject of the 6^th In The Dust, Hoodoo Man Blues, by Junior Wells’ Chicago Blues Band, is long an author’s favorite. Widely regarded as one of the greatest blues records ever recorded, the 2011 reissue of Hoodoo Man Blues includes one unreleased song, “I Ain’t Stranded”, and loads of studio chatter and alternate takes, giving you a direct look inside the “blues bar band” world of Chicago’s Southside. For more, please see In The Dust #6: Junior Wells’ Chicago Blues Band – Hoodoo Man Blues.

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On [40th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition]

In March of 1970, Tammi Terrell, Gaye’s long-time singing partner, died six weeks before her 25^th birthday of a malignant brain tumor. Gaye was devastated. He felt responsible for her illness and death. Refusing to perform or record, he withdrew from music altogether and tried out for the Detroit Lions, hoping to begin a career as a professional football player. He was unsuccessful, but this tangent lead to working with songwriters Al Cleveland and The Four Tops’ Obie Benson on a track called, “What’s Going On”, co-written for The Originals. Cleveland and Benson convinced Gaye to record the song himself, eschewing in a newly social, political and further spiritually conscious period in Gaye’s music.

Now, Marvin Gaye’s 11^th record, and arguably his most famous, gets the super deluxe treatment. Rereleased with a whopping 28 bonus tracks, 16 of which have never seen the light of day, including a stripped down test mix of “What’s Going On”, original mono mixes of the album’s singles, and a ton of spare parts, alternate mixes and jams, this is a bevy of information on a truly significant American artist at the crux of his career.

Miles Davis – Live In Europe 1967:Best Of The Bootleg Vol.1

Bop. Live. In Europe.

As if that isn’t enough, this recording of Miles Davis’s Second Great Quintet, the first in an intended series, features not only Miles Davis, the original cool cat, heir to Armstrong and Bechet’s thrones as king of the trumpet, it also boasts Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, all of whom are fully-realized legends with storied and celebrated careers. This was at the time, and is today, one of the greatest bands ever assembled, and here they are raw, off-the-cuff, unfettered and uninhibited, playing the way the best bands play, fearlessly, dangerously, and in the best of all conditions for jazz: live.

The Smiths – The Smiths Complete

First thing’s first, this is not technically “complete”, so this is not the end of the road for those who want to own everything. They did leave some things out, but this is almost everything: the four studio albums remastered, three compilations of the singles and one-offs and a live record.

For those who know The Smiths, this is a condensed representation of the long and tumultuous career of one of the best bands of all-time. For those who don’t know The Smiths, this is a dense, cavernous route to the essence of a legendarily depressive and hopelessly romantic Manchester alternative rock band, Johnny Marr, its innovative guitarist, and Morrissey, its lead singer, one of the most notorious and iconic frontmen ever, master of tragic beauty:

And if a double-decker bus / Crashes into us / To die by your side / Is such a heavenly way to die / And if a ten-ton truck / Kills the both of us / To die by your side / Well, the pleasure – the privilege is mine

“There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” – The Smiths, The Queen Is Dead

In the words of another poet, the French Dramatist, Jean Racine, “a tragedy need not have blood and death; it’s enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy”.

The Rolling Stones – Some Girls [Deluxe Edition]

In a lot of ways an oddball in The Stones’ oeuvre, Some Girls attempts to bridge The Stones’ trademark roughness and modern pop trends. The result is weird, commercial and excellent. The group tackles disco, very faithful country and several strange, punkish brands of western, echoing, as does its cover art, the rising punk movement in the U.S. and their native Britain.

Much more polished than their previous work, and unabashedly more commercially ambitious, Some Girls shows The Stones at a point of portage: crossover into the rage and the popular, or turn around and go the way they came. What resulted is the last great record they ever made. This reissue includes an entire bonus disc of unreleased recordings made during the Some Girls sessions, further document of a band in flux.

Lee “Scratch” Perry – Return of Pipecock Jackxon

Credited by some as the originator of “dub”, Lee “Scratch” Perry is a reggae legend, instrumental in the growth of reggae and its acceptance across the world. His production techniques are a thing of wonder, widely influential and totally innovative, but his personal life is truly stranger than all. Known to defecate in champagne flutes as an illustration of man’s primitive and animalistic nature and secret them around his house for his wife to later find, Perry’s insanity runs very, very deep, and on Return of Pipecock Jackxon he wears it on his sleeve.

The final album to emerge from Perry’s infamous Black Ark studio in Jamaica before burning it down in a fit of rage to “cleanse himself of his sins”, Perry recorded Pipecock Jackxon during a period in which he frequented Amsterdam and took LSD in bulk. This string of various “escapes” from mounting social tension and personal stress produced what many see as Perry’s darkhorse masterwork, a rich opus expanding on the themes of his past work, while also hinting at a strange and promising future for reggae, dub, and even soul and R&B to come.

Ray Charles – Singular Genius: The Complete ABC Singles

106 songs and each better than the last, such is Ray Charles’s radical contribution to ABC Records during his 13-year tenure there. Recorded during what is known as Ray’s “crossover” years, the ABC singles are famous for racially integrating country and pop music, and for Ray’s legendary contract, one including several noteworthy stipulations like ownership of his masters, which virtually no one in the industry had ever received, much less a black artist. During this period Ray also realized his power as interpreter rather than author, ceasing to write new material and growing into the iconoclastic and idiosyncratic master of the popular standards for which he was famous in his later years. For fanatics, the set includes both the A and B sides of all 53 singles, 30 previously unreleased songs, and 21 receiving, for the first time, the digital treatment.

Louis Armstrong – Satchmo: Ambassador of Jazz

OK. Many of you are probably saying that this is cheating. Satchmo: Ambassador of Jazz will not be released in the U.S. for another three and a half weeks, but it’s Louis Armstrong. The rules do not apply.

Armstrong’s influence on music and the world is incalculable. Pioneer of “hot jazz”, scat singing and the trumpet as a solo instrument, Armstrong was truly a visionary, one-of-a-kind, and one the first black performers to completely “cross over”. As a musician he was second-to-none, and as a personality, he was irresistible. His importance, his grandeur, cannot, by any stretch, be overestimated and, honestly, it makes this author’s heart ache to even think about it.

This collection streamlines the former 10-CD Armstrong retrospective into a 4-CD set. Most will probably never need the 10 CDs containing virtually everything he’s ever done, but all should have it. At the very least, all should have this, for it is the gospel, the Bible of music, a love letter to and a symbol of all things indispensable.

As is the nature of a limited list, some things get left out. Honorable mention for the best reissues of 2011 goes to:

Pink Floyd – Discovery Box Set: The Complete Studio Recordings of Pink Floyd

Nirvana – Nevermind [Deluxe Edition]

Jesus & Mary Chain – Psychocandy [Expanded Edition]

And, last but not least:

Iggy Pop & James Williamson – Kill City (Restored, Remixed, Remastered)

All are immortal albums and all require space in everyone’s collection.

Written by Ben Brundage

10. Alligator

Still going strong, it’s the home [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]James Cotton[/lastfm] and harp genius [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Charlie Musselwhite[/lastfm].

9. Cobra

Cobra operated on the city’s West Side from 1956 through 1959. Among the luminaries who launched their careers on Cobra were [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Otis Rush[/lastfm] and [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Magic Sam[/lastfm].

8. Artistic

A subsidiary of Cobra, Artistic was where [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Buddy Guy[/lastfm] got his start. The label released just ten sides in 1958 and 1959, including Guy’s “Sit and Cry (The Blues).”

7. United

From 1951 through 1957, United released released 116 singles and two 10″ albums, including cuts by seminal Chicago blues artists [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Roosevelt Sykes [/lastfm]and [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Memphis Slim[/lastfm].

6. States

States was a United subsidiary founded the year following its parent’s launch. Sixty-four singles came from States including sides by [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Robert Nighthawk[/lastfm], [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Big Walter Horton[/lastfm] and [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Junior Wells[/lastfm].

5. Parrot

Not to be confused with the pop label of the same name, the blues Parrot was founded in ’52 by DJ Al Benson. Over the course of little more than three years, Parrot dropped sides by [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Lowell Fulson[/lastfm] and [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Coleman Hawkins[/lastfm], along with [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Willie Mabon[/lastfm]‘s “I Don’t Know” (later made famous by the [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Blues Brothers[/lastfm]).

4. Vee-Jay

Though it was born in Gary, Indiana and is well-known for its success releasing records by the [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Four Seasons[/lastfm], Vee-jay was also a successful R&B label that is synonymous with Chicago blues. That’s probably because [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Memphis Slim[/lastfm] and [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]John Lee Hooker[/lastfm] were among those who track sides for Vee-Jay.

He recorded “Boom Boom” for Vee-Jay in 1961.

3. Aristocrat

Aristocrat was founded in 1947. By 1950, investor Leonard Chess had bought out the company, which he ran until 1951. The label recorded 183 songs during its lifetime, including early [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Muddy Waters[/lastfm] cuts like “Gypsy Woman” and “I Can’t Be Satisfied.”

2. Checker

After founding Chess in 1950, Leonard Chess and his brother, Phil, opened Checker in 1952 and spent the next 17 years recording the likes of [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Aretha Franklin[/lastfm] and [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Sonny Boy Willliamson II[/lastfm], who recorded “Don’t Start Me Talkin’” there in 1955.

1. Chess

The granddaddy of all Chicago blues, Chess operated from 1950 through 1975, it’s most famouos location immortalized by the [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Rolling Stones[/lastfm] with their song “2120 South Michigan Avenue.” [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Jackie Breston[/lastfm]‘s “Rocket 88,” considered by some to be the first rock and roll record, was recorded by Sam Phillips at Sun and released by Chess.

More of Michael’s Top 10 picks can be found here …

signifying (verb): a good-natured needling or goading especially among urban blacks by means of indirect gibes and clever often preposterous put-downs

-Webster’s Dictionary

Ricky Allen recorded the booming groover “I Can’t Stand No Signifying” on Jack Daniels’ West Side-based Four Brothers label round about 1966. Both Jack Daniels and Johnny Moore (the co-writer on this track) created blues-soaked soul cuts for a number of artists, including Junior Wells, throughout the late 1960s.

Ricky Allen, a native Nashvillian, came to Chicago in 1958, and was very popular on the blues club circuit in the 1960s. One of his songs, Mel London’s “Cut You A-Loose” charted on the R&B Charts in 1963, and even got heavy airplay on Top 40 pop station WLS. Allen recounted in a 1993 Chicago Tribune interview with Bill Dahl:

“I got back, man, WLS – they didn’t play no blues. (But) Every time you turned on the station, it was on.”

“Signifying” has got exactly the sock it to me-slash-somebody’s ’bout to get cut vibe I love.  To me, this gritty music is the link between the blues brought North in a satchel during the Great Migration and the glossier Chicago Soul (complete with lush strings and horns) that came later. Gotta love that piano riff at the top. Jive on.

Ricky Allen, “No Better Time Than Now” (One-Way 1974)
Light: On The South Side (Numero 2009)

Yeah, that’s Junior Wells at 1:08.

Once a week In The Dust rolls up its sleeves and digs to the back of the rack to find that record, the one you never knew you always wanted, the one that’s lost, but not forgotten.

hoo·doo

noun

1. Magic healing and control, especially in African-based folk medicine in the United States and the Caribbean. Also called conjure.

2. a. Bad luck.

     b. One that brings bad luck.

verb

1. bewitch

Almost mystically so, Hoodoo Man Blues, Junior Wells’ first full-length record as a bandleader, began with a feeling.

Bob Koester, a Record Producer and founder and Chicago label Delmark record, had heard Don Kent, of Yazoo Records, and others whisper about a kid who played the harp. They said he’d been playing since the age of seven. They said he learned it from Sonny Boy Williamson II. They said he was good, so good, in fact, that he replaced Little Walter to blow for Muddy at 18. Koester knew he had to find this kid. He remembers his first encounter with Junior well:

I first heard Junior Wells on the States 78′s of “Hoodoo Man“, etc. during my days in St. Louis. I later heard the Muddy Waters band on a trip to Chicago, at the Club Zanzibar c.1957 and was perturbed that Little Walter had left and a new guy had taken his place but when I requested Key To The Highway and Muddy said, “I think Junior Wells does that better than I do.” Junior certainly cut Walter in the vocal department.

By the time Koester found him, Wells had stirred more than just a whisper, but had yet to record a full record. He had already made a name for himself within the Chicago bluesman scene, blowing for The Aces, Muddy Waters and solo for labels such as States, Profile and Chief, where his single, “Little By Little” rose to #23 on the Billboard R&B charts, but he was still relatively unknown outside of those who played the blues on Chicago’s South Westside.

Wells had a few scattered singles under his belt but nothing in which Koester could find the confidence to give him his own record. Wells was only 21. Koester was not sure if Wells could carry 2 sides, 30+ minutes, 10+ tracks. He also doubted that Wells’ music would find the audience necessary to fund the expense of sidemen and ample recording time, given their unusually crisp, urban style, one that featured band uniforms and synchronized movement, which was, of course, a world away from blues, bordering more closely on Motown.

But Koester had a feeling about Wells, one he kept with him since the first moment he saw him blow with Waters in ‘57. Wells’ voice, musicianship, and sense of movement made him a naturally infectious performer, and Koester liked it too much to resist.

He gave Wells the record, and even allowed Wells’ to choose his own band and his track list, without restrictions. The sessions followed resulted in what is one of the greatest blues records ever made, and one of the most genuine, accurate documents of the Chicago blues sound in existence today.

The track list Wells selected is about half original and half blues standards, of which it featured “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl,” a song written by his mentor, Sonny Boy Williamson II, “Hound Dog,” by Leiber and Stoller, “Early In The Morning,” a traditional, and “Yonder Wall,” by fellow Chicago axe-man and “King of the Slide Guitar,” Elmore James.

Perhaps the most noteworthy decision of the entire session, Wells’ invited a 29-year old Buddy Guy to play guitar. This, as it was for the 21-year old Wells, Guy’s first crack at a full studio album. Wells’ rounded out the rest of the group with top-notch session men and Southside bar bluesmen.

The pair of Wells and Guy proved to be an unstoppably ebullient and explosive combination. From the first hit of the first track, “Snatch It Back And Hold It”, the pure force their relationship is palpable. The guitar, drums and bass play in unison a fanfare of a single note, but in this single note is more confidence, attitude and pure ferocity than many whole records of the time. This cocky snarl is accentuated by Koester’s, and all of the Delmark people’s, urge to bring the purely carnivorous Chicago blues sound out the bar and into the perfect acoustics of a recording studio, while leaving its spirit unadulterated. The sound is so raw, so live, so pure, allowing Wells’ natural charisma and masterful harp, Guy’s guitar and the innate infectiousness of their particular blend of Chicago blues-funk-soul to carry itself. “Somebody help me! / I can’t help myself,” Wells screams, as if under his own spell. As with classic blues lore, Wells must seek a way to shake off his hoodoo. The band is just too nasty, the music has a mind of it’s own, and Wells is caught in the undertow. The only way he can release himself is to wail and blow it out until the tidal wave spits him out.

“Hound Dog,” the Leiber and Stoller classic that launched the careers of, first, Big Mama Thornton and, later, Elvis Presley, is re-imagined as a crisp, frenetic sweat-storm and platform for Wells’ electrified harp lines and Guy’s masterful picking. Clocking in at an astonishingly lean 2:11, it is more a display of Wells’ Chicago Blues Band’s mastery of their craft than homage to the blues itself. In the energy of “Hound Dog” and the dogged efforts of his drummer Bill Warren, there is a certain trance-like quality, which is echoed by Guy’s repetitive complimentary guitar, peaking the album’s energy, solidifying that the listener is under his hoodoo, before it brings it back down in preparation for the record’s slowest, smoothest number, “In The Wee Hours.”

Bring with it the sizzling, sultry swing of the Southside Chicago barroom, “In The Wee Hours,” is the finer of Wells two attempts at slow-groove on the record. Following the frantic intensity of “Hound Dog,” “In The Wee Hours,” functions as a sleepy, hypnotic lobotomy, slicing the crown from the listeners head and slowly sinking its long, dark fingers deep inside to slice and tweak and toy, destroying in the process any previous conceptions of how profound a sub-four minute song can be, how good Chicago blues can be and how indescribably hot Junior Wells and his Chicago blues band can serve it up. Wells’ harp wafts lightly over the steamy, clean lines of Guy’s sensual and cryptically suggestive guitar. The delicate, light touch of Warren’s drums and Jack Myers’ subtle, driving bass add indispensible accoutrement to the midnight-moonlight atmosphere in which Guy and Wells are free move. Almost completely devoid of lyrics, the song has Junior, as in “Snatch It Back And Hold It,” pleading for help. He sings “I just need somebody / Somebody got to help me / Oh, Lord, to sing these blues / Lookie here, Lookie here, baby,” before embarking on a mournful, ethereal harp solo. Guy lends as much help as he can muster, summoning a lean, choppy solo that stands as one of his finest licks on the record, but the tone Wells’ harp is so lost, forlorn, spectral it is clear that Wells is still hopelessly under the spell, beyond assistance, hoodoo’d by the blues and desperately trying to play his way out.

The album’s title track comes soon after, leading off side A with another fanfare, a classic blues turn around in which the band bangs out together, compounding the swinging 4/4 blues rhythm to create a rambling, tumbling feeling that propels the listener into the center of the groove, where it is instantly apparently that Buddy Guy’s guitar sounds remarkably different. Guy’s amplifier stopped working part way through the Hoodoo Man Blues sessions, and so they chose to wire his guitar through the Leslie speaker of a Hammond B-3 organ, the effect of which is distinctive and has since inspired guitarist for generations. It adds a welcomed mystically to the track, in line with the spirit of hoodoo, and a poignant juxtaposition to Wells’ lyrics. Wells’ past pleads for assistance have fallen on deaf ears, and in “Hoodoo Man Blues,” he is determined to explain his case to, hopefully, sympathetic and potentially loving ears:

“Lord, I wonder, what’s exactly the matter / Child you know the time / It seemed like hours / Everything had changed / But I hold up my hand / Lord, I’m trying to make you understand / Lord, now, everybody tell me / Somebody done hoodoo’d the hoodoo man”

Wells is reaching out, as the hoodoo has consumed his life and he can no longer keep it to himself. The blues has grown to rule him and distort his sense of time, state of being and relationships. Somebody truly done hoodoo’d the hoodoo man.

Wells is truly afflicted, as is Guy, Wells’ band and Koester. Hoodoo Man Blues stands as, until recently, Delmark’s best-selling release of all-time, inflicting with the hoodoo man blues Bonnie Raitt, The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, the author and many more.

In the remainder of the record, Wells never does relieve himself of the hoodoo, though he still tries. Perhaps this is the perfect sentiment for the debut record of an artist who would spend a lifetime under its spell: a hoodoo man chasing the blues.

Written by Ben Brundage

Junior Wells was born in West Memphis, Arkansas, but will forever be associated with the Chicago blues style for which he is known. A cousin of Junior Parker, his career began in the late 1940’s, but he came to prominence playing with Muddy Waters. When he formed his own band, the Aces, consisting of brother Louis and Dave Myers and drummer Fred Below, his style became more modern, infused with soul. By the time this live gig was recorded in Boston in 1966, Wells was one of the foremost Chicago blues performers, and the recording shows both his good-natured banter and the crowd’s enthusiasm. The set list reads like a list of blues’ best-known songs, but Wells approaches each of them with a master’s sense of craftsmanship. “Feelin’ Good”, “Man Downstairs”, “That’s All Right”, “Got My Mojo Workin” and “Look On Yonder’s Wall” are all there, as well as Wells’ signature hit “Messin’ With The Kid” and several Wells originals, including “Junior’s Whoop”, “If You’re Gonna Leave Me” and “I Don’t Know.” Between the tracks are Wells’ jokes, stories and friendly give-and-take with his audience. It is surprising that Live in Boston didn’t see release at the time, but its appearance now gives us the opportunity to hear Junior Wells at possibly the highest peak of his lengthy career. 

Click here to download the podcast.

Them/Baby please don’t go
Robert Johnson/Crossroad Blues
George Thorogood/Killers Blues
Twisters/Fulla Hot Air
Fathead/Number Nine Train
Sunhouse/Death Letter Blues
Raygun Cowboys/Since you’ve been mine
Eric Clapton/Reptile
Brent Parkin/Woke up this morning
Muddy Waters/Let’s spend the night together
Reverend Horton Heat/Where in the hell did you go with my toothbrush?
Dr. John/You call that a buddy?
Howlin’ Wolf/How many more years?
Cousin Harley aka Paul Pidget/It’s a sin
Memphis Minnie/Drunken Barrelhouse Blues
Cab Calloway/Minnie the Moocher
Koko Taylor/Evil
Demented are Go!/Transvestite Blues
Avery Brothers/Preacher man
Morgan Davis/Wafflehouse Blues
Dave Babcock and the Nightkeepers/You’ll get yours and I’ll get mine
Junior Wells/Hoodooman Blues
Lee Rocker/Black Cat Bone
Eve Hell and the Razors/Love and a 45
Hillbilly Casino/Devil come to town
John Lee Hooker/Crawling King Snake

This song is a little rough — Butler sings the second verse twice — and even the album credits are confusing. On the first Def American pressings, the song is called “Cut That Out” and attributed to Junior Wells, whose version obviously inspired the Devils. Subsequent American Recordings versions call it “Better Cut That Out,” with credit going to Sonny Boy Williamson (likely No. 1, John Lee Williamson), which is a much more accurate designation.

The lyric that causes the most trouble is the second line in the first verse. Butler sings the cuplet,

Yeah when you get drunk you wanna fuss and cut
Sure to get drunk you know a rock and roll hearse

OK, that doesn’t make much sense. Junior Wells, on the Delmark record “Blues Hit Big Town,” sings (at 40 seconds),

Now when you get drunk you wanna fuss and cuss
When you get drunk you throw a rock in a hearse

It sounds mushy, almost like “throw a rock and roll hearse,” but then listen clearly to the John Lee Williamson version (at 38 seconds):

Now when you get high you know you will get worse
When you get drunk you throw a rock in a hearse

It’s easy to hear how this line could get further and further away from the source meaning; by the time Butler got to it, we’re just talking about rhyming sounds, essentially.

From the book “Mother Wit From the Laughing Barrel: Readings in the Interpretation of Afro-American Folklore,” Alan Dundes captures this blues line from Doc Clayton:

So doggone evil, you’d throw a rock in a hearse (2)
When you tell me those lies, that’s when it really hurts

The context of a woman so evil she’d “throw a rock in a hearse” makes much more sense in “Better Cut That Out” — someone that drunk probably would fuss, cuss, cut and throw something at a funeral procession!

We are presenting these lyrics as Butler sang them on the night the recording was made; it’s likely he sang that line differently at other times.

But, it’s the blues: There are different words to choose as the mood strikes the singer.

“Better Cut That Out” (Sonny Boy Williamson), from “King King”

(Spoken) All right, a little blues yeah!

Yeah when you get drunk you wanna fuss and cut
Sure to get drunk you know a rock and roll hearse

You throw a rock in a hearse

You got to cut that out
Yeah baby cut it out
You got to cut it out little woman
‘Fore it be too late

Yeah went away this morning
And you wouldn’t stay long
Next time I saw you in another man’s arm
You’ve gotta cut that out
Yeah baby cut it out
Cut it out little woman
‘Fore it be too late

(Harp solo)

Yeah went away this morning
And you wouldn’t stay long
Next time I saw you in another man’s arm
You’ve gotta cut that out
Yeah baby cut it out
Cut it out little woman
‘Fore it be too late

(Guitar solo)

Yeah you take my money
Now you wear my clothes
You better cut that out
I bust you in your nose
You’ve gotta cut that out
Yeah baby cut it out
You’ve got to cut it out little woman
‘Fore it be too late

(Harp solo out)

Transcribed by nofightin.com. More “King King” lyrics here.

A decade of Breaking Benjamin is collected on this new compilation, available in both standard and deluxe editions.  The deluxe edition offers an additional disc of rare and unreleased bonus material. (Amazon)

Dazz Band, Hot Spot: Expanded Edition (Funkytowngrooves)

The Dazz Band’s 1985 swan song on Motown Records is expanded with five remixes. (Amazon)

Nick Heyward, Tangled and The Apple Bed (Cherry Red)

Heyward’s 1995 and 1998 albums get the deluxe treatment from Cherry Red.  Tangled adds a brace of bonus tracks including an EP of Beatles covers, while The Apple Bed adds B-sides and one previously unreleased cut. (Official site)

The Jones Girls, On Target: Expanded Edition (Funkytowngrooves)

In 1983, the Detroit-born Jones Girls – Brenda, Valorie and Shirley – decamped from Philadelphia International to RCA for this album, which has been expanded with three instrumentals and remixes. (Amazon)

Junior Wells’ Chicago Blues Band, Hoodoo Man Blues (Delmark)

This 1965 studio album finds Junior Wells joined by Buddy Guy for 12 smoking blues workouts.  Delmark expands the original album with three previously-available alternate takes and two never-before-released performances. (Amazon)

Various Artists, Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl (Verve Select)

Norman Granz brought his all-star Verve roster to the Hollywood Bowl in 1956 where this classic album was recorded.  Louis, Ella, Art, Oscar and co. all appear, and eleven Armstrong tracks premiere on American CD on this deluxe edition. Read the full story here. (Amazon)

There’s an Apple Mac under a pile of paper somewhere round here…

The label was formed in St Louis in 1953 and moved to Chicago in 1958 where it still resides. He recorded great records by Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Bud Powell etc and is still putting out records and DVD’s today. He also continues to run Chicago’s Jazz Record Mart.

Great Logo

Bob at the controls in the studio

Bob, right, helping a customer at the Jazz Record Mart

Bob Koester, Sound Of The Hound salutes you for your contribution to the history of recorded music. Three woofs!!!

Enough said.