Tuesday, November 18, 2014

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 380 #424)

Juke!!!

First off, Joe and Shoji are both back!!!

It was a beautiful thing to hear Shoji's guitar in B1 again and we're thrilled to have Joe back from his tour of Europe so he can take up the discussions around our Song of the Session, Juke!

We did a quick review for Joe last night of the Juke topics we've discussed thus far - its swing quality and songs that seemed to influence it plus our discussion of the head.

Joe emphasized that this recording was one of the first amplified harmonica tracks and in Walter's playing you get a strong sense of how the technology of blowing through a handheld microphone helped him play like a horn. As Joe says, this session date, covering both Juke and Can't Hold Out Much Longer represents the collision of John Lee Williamson and Louis Jordan and horn player styles in Little Walter. This is a session that shows both sides of Walter which Joe will cover more in coming discussions.

RickEy and Shoji touched a little last night too on the instrumentation of the song, discussing the drum style as well as the two guitar parts played by Muddy and Jimmy Rogers.

Class Notes
  • Joe and Shoji are back - group and private lessons as usual.
- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew