lunes, 2 de noviembre de 2009

Big John WRENCHER - Big John's Boogie Plus 2003


Big John WRENCHER - Big John's Boogie Plus 2003

Blues

Reissue of the Mississippi-born singer/harp players original 1974 album recorded in London and backed by Eddie 'Playboy' Taylor & The Blueshounds, available for the first time on CD, plus 2 bonus tracks 'Big John's Boogie' & 'I'm A Root Man.' Castle. 2003.
**
This review is from: Big John's Boogie Plus (Audio CD)
Man, I just know you need a little mo' Chicago blues. Can I hear an amen ??? On Sanctuary Blues Masters (Big Bear) the seldom recorded BIG JOHN WRENCHER BIG JOHN'S BOOGIE PLUS. John Wrencher on harp & vocals backed by Eddie Taylor & the Blueshounds. Born in Sunflower Mississippi , he was raised on the Davis Plantation & stayed til age 23 when rambling took hold of John. Learned to play harp in Mississippi jukes listening to SBW, Robert Lockwood, Robert Nighthawk, and Peck Curtis who performed @ Henry Hill's on Highway 6, near Lyon. Lost his left arm in a car accident visiting Mississippi to see his father. Played at Maxwell Street for years and recorded this CD in London in 1974. Good solid harp player in ChiTown style. Good vocals, good tunes, just a rock solid effort by a true bluesman.
By  Stephen McClaning.
**
This set by the obscure yet legendary one-armed harmonica player and singer Big John Wrencher is one of the great overlooked blues classics of the 1970s. Recorded in England in 1975 (with two bonus tracks from 1974) with Eddie "Playboy" Taylor's band, the Blueshounds, it is the only recording in Wrencher's small catalog that begins to capture the intensity, soulfulness, and elegance of his live performances. Wrencher was a composer as well as an interpreter and arranger of great blues and R&B classics. The set begins with an amazing read of "Honeydripper" by Joe Liggins. Began as a simple blues shuffle, Wrencher's harmonica solo before the tune's main groove kicks in turns it into something else entirely -- a spine-loosening groover of the highest order. When he begins to sing in his clear, smooth baritone, the seams begin to split and the track bleeds blue all over the stereo. His arrangement of the traditional blues tune "Third Degree" is a nearly Famous Flames-styled funk tune with its choogling riff and pumped-up bass in the front of the mix. Wrencher's voice makes it really growl and shake, however. He doesn't ask questions when he sings; he shouts what he knows. Wrencher's own "Lonesome in My Cabin" is a spooky, minor-key blues that has the author's moaning, groaning vocal at its heart, and a repetitive piano riff shadowed by the electric guitar filling space along with Wrencher's harmonica. The four-to-the-floor boogie of "Come On Over," another Wrencher original, rolls, twists, and turns on his harmonica's woven lines, his huge, ringing voice moving into a guttural groove colored by Taylor's lead guitar. This is a Joe Turner-styled shouter, but Wrencher's voice makes it so immediate, so full of cracks and splinters, it's virtually alive. The bonus material recorded a year earlier is far from filler. While not recorded quite as wonderfully as the album, it has even more immediacy, feeling more like a live date -- hopefully there's more where this came from -- and it's all muddy, greasy, and funky. The album's final track, "I'm a Root Man," one of Wrencher's own, is a slow to mid-tempo blues with a call-and-response line that acts as nothing but a vehicle for the author's storytelling way of singing. It is sensual, raw, and full of the kind of otherworldly life listeners seldom hear in blues records anymore. This set is a treasure. Period.
By Thom Jurek, All Music Guide.
**
The Maxwell Street open air market was a seven- to ten-block area in Chicago that from the 1920s to the middle '60s played host to various blues musicians -- both professional and amateur -- who performed right on the street for tips from passerbys. Most of them who started their careers there (like Little Walter, Earl Hooker, Hound Dog Taylor and others) moved up to the more comfortable confines of club work. But one who stayed and became a most recognizable fixture of the area was a marvelous harmonica player and singer named One-Arm or Big John Wrencher.

Wrencher was born in Sunflower County, MS, in 1924 on a plantation. His youthful interest in music -- particularly the harmonica -- kept him on the move as a traveling musician, playing throughout Tennessee and neighboring Arkansas from the late '40s to the early '50s. In 1958, Big John lost his left arm in a car crash in Memphis. By the early '60s, he had moved North to Chicago and quickly became a regular fixture on Maxwell Street, always working on Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to nearly 3:00 in the afternnon virtually non-stop, as Sundays were the big payday for most busking musicians working the area.

Although cupping both harmonica and bulky microphone in one hand (which he also sang through), Wrencher's physical challenge seemingly did little to alter the hugeness of his sound or the slurring attack he brought to the instrument. Usually backed by nothing more than an electric guitar and a drummer, Big John's sound and style was country juke joint blues brought to the city and amplified to the maximum. A flamboyant showman, he'd put on quite a show for the people on the street, moving and dancing constantly while the cigar box was passed around for tips. By all accounts, no one was ever disappointed by the show or the music.

But despite his enormous playing and performing talents, the discography on Wrencher, unfortunately, remains woefully thin. He appears to have played on a session with Detroit bluesman Baby Boy Warren in the '50s, but this tape appears to be lost to the ravages of time. His first official recordings surfaced on a pair of Testament albums from the '60s, featuring Big John in a sideman role behind slide legend Robert Nighthawk. His only full album of material surfaced in the early '70s on the Barrelhouse label. Producer George Paulus also used him as a backing musician behind slide guitarist but these sides laid unissued until recently, showing up piecemeal on various compilations.

After years of vacillating between his regular Maxwell Street gig and a few appearances on European blues festivals, Wrencher decided to go back to Mississippi to visit family and old friends in July of 1977. While swapping stories of his travels with some buddies at bluesman Wade Walton's barber shop in Clarksdale, he suddenly dropped dead from a heart attack at the age of 54. As a heartfelt (and somewhat surreal) memorial to his old pal, Big John's final bottle of whiskey is permanently ensconced on a shelf at Walton's barbershop.
By Cub Koda, All Music Guide.
**
Eddie Taylor- (Guitar),
Bob Hall- (Piano),
Erwin Helfer- (Piano),
Big John Wrencher- (Harmonica,Vocals),
Snooky Pryor- (Harmonica),
Bob Brunning- (Bass),
Pete York- (Drums).
**
01. Honeydripper 2:19
02. Third Degree 4:35
03. Now Darling 3:36
04. Where Did You Stay Last Night? 3:52
05. Trouble Makin' Woman 4:12
06. Lonesome in My Cabin 4:07
07. How Many More Years? 4:21
08. Come on Over 3:15
09. Telephone Blues 6:37
10. Runnin' Wild 3:55
11. Big John's Boogie 2:42
12. I'm a Root Man 4:04
**
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