One of my favorite JR numbers. I can play all the licks and I have worked up some rhythm stuff while playing along with the track, but the other day I was jamming with a buddy and I couldn't for the life of me explain what the chord changes were. Clearly not just a standard 12-bar blues.... or is it?
Can any of you theory guys help me out? How would you describe the form?
calvin: I am probably the least technical guy on this forum. I have no interest in it. Anyway, Jimmy Reed is one guy nobody can nail IMO. He is simply so simple and drags the beat but it still is exciting. Most players think they learn that stuff right out of the gate and then move on to more challenging stuff. In reality, his stuff is so simple it is complex because it is all his sound and very few can drag a beat and make it swing/exciting/powerful. Few artists can do that today. Most rely on playing a million notes to get excitement going. JImmy draged naturally. Most musicians push and are right on the beat naturally and when they try to drag it, it is very sterile sounding like the omar/vaughn/wilson stuff.
When I hear others covering his stuff it makes me cringe. No offense intended, but if people spent more time on the basic stuff they might do a better job. When I heard the omar and jimmie vaughn tribute to jimmy reed it was painful. It was way too stiff and tick tock on time. Jimmy Reed was so lose it would cause most musicians today to faint hanging with it. KIm wilsons harp stunk IMO-way overplayed and not at all near the JR sound. It was a statement in just how hard it is to keep it bone simple and yet inventive. Walter
compare the video to the original groove. It is just way too polished. Jimmy reed was raw all his days. Todays musicians are more about perfection and play raw on purpose for a change of pace but their need to fill notes into space always comes out before they are done. That is the main difference between the old cats like reed/hopkins and todays big names. Walter
here he is swinging to death IMO yet still dragging like the dickens.
sadly this about the only footage of such an influencal player.
>video of jimmy reed
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
The thing that makes Jimmy Reed records so great is what makes many of the records from that era so great. It's the groove. It's tight and at the same time very loose. Eddie Taylor and Earl Phillips were like human metronomes, but with a very loose feel and Jimmy was locked into them. The result is some of the best music to come out in the history of recordings. They didn't overplay. It came out perfect even when it wasn't. Hell, even on the records when you hear someone in rhe background sing the lyrics to Jimmy it sounded right.
Records in those days were recorded performances not engineered recordings. It was recording human interaction and interplay. Unless, people have worked together extensively or have a shared background,, you can't easily duplicate that feel.
Jimmy Reed, like Junior Wells is deceptively simple. You might get the right notes but it has to fit what everyone else is doing on stage or in the studio. ---------- The Blues Photo Gallery
Last Edited by on Nov 01, 2011 4:10 PM
Walter and Joe_L, I'm with you guys about the understated and inimitable brilliance of Jimmy (Also couldn't believe that that 70s TV spot was the only video I could find of him ANYWHERE! shame... ).
That said I can also appreciate the super-tight, super-slick thing the Fabulous Thunderbirds did/do at their best...
Anyway I'm not trying to painstakingly mimic JR's sound, or update it, OR really make it my own, for that matter. I'm just havin some fun. It might seem silly to ask for "theory" help in this situation, but I'm just wondering how to call the chord changes for a guitar player.
Calvin it seems to lurch from the I chord to the V chord, during Reed's harp solo switches to a 12 bar. Best to give your guitar player hand signals...it's probably what was going on in the studio :-)
I'd largely agree with what Joe says....except in the case of "Honest I Do", Reed & Taylor apparently couldn't settle & get the sound & groove they wanted, engineer Bill Putnam (who presided over many great Chess & V-J recordings) called in jazz guitar player (& multi instrumentalist) Remo Biondi who helped gel it all together, Biondi then featured on subsequent Universal sessions for Reed thru 57 & 58.
One thing that often gets overlooked with Jimmy Reed is the great harmonies with Mama Reed...to me that's where the most magical shared background & interplay is on Reed's recordings :-) ...not to take anything away from Eddie Taylor, of course...
---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
Last Edited by on Nov 01, 2011 6:10 PM
Indeed Walter, Puttnam's name should be much better known given his impact on 20th Century music. Great story. Yeah some Chess cuts really dropped off quality-wise for a bit during '54, sounds like they still nipped back to Puttnam every now & then until they got back on form at 2120 (which Puttnam consulted on)
Chess/Universal were familiar with overdubbing, DI'ing, cmulti-tracking, close mic'ing & many of today's accepted techniques ...I guess they did things differently depending on the day/options/results. 2120 always had a vocal booth, which as pretty standard even in those days. Les Paul explored overdubbing in the late 40's with "Lover When You're Near Me". ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
This is quite possibly one of my favorite (and truthful) things that I've read on this forum...
I purposely avoid theory and such. It makes you think and thinking leads to thinking and the old school blues wasn't about thinking
I remember reading an article somewhere with Chess engineers discussing their talent at cutting and splicing tape. Sure those techniques were around and used, but not to the extent they are now.
I will say that many of my favorite recordings tend to be captured like the first Little Ed albums. They mic stuff up and let them play with the tape rolling. That doesn't happen as much as it used to.
I know people that ship data files across country so they can record with their favorite artists without actually being in the same room.
5f6h: I am not that familiar with the chess studio set up. Luther was a very reserved guy and not one to spout off of his great place in blues history. Getting info from him was not easy so I didn't push him much.
Joe_L: Thanks. That is the truth for me and to be honest it is getting harder and harder to avoid it but I will till the day I die. To think and play sounds like living hell because most of life is about thinking and music for me is the great escape. I never practiced. I played. Even when I only knew 1 chord on the guitar I was totally happy with it for a year or so till I discovered another one. That is the way guys like jimmy reed learned from what I gathered in my days with them. I still find joy in playing one chord all day. The less one has to play the easier it is to have a real groove. I am really sort of jolted by all the practice and theory stuff I see in posts here. I think it may the way most people have always learned but I was never around it until I started on these internet forums. The old guys never talked about theory, gear, and such. They were much more interested in talking about cadillacs, jewelery, clothes, women, and such. That was much more interesting to me than when a guy came up and wanted to know what year my guitar was. I had no idea. It was just a guitar I happen to fall into and liked. Now it is more about the details of gear, and theory it seems. Whatever floats your boat I say. We are the minority here for sure. That is why I keep sharing the stuff I was around. Our generation is the last living link to the old guys.
The session I recorded with Omar Colman and Sean Carneys band was just set up and play. I doubt they will use it for anything because it doesn't have the studio template but instead has the live gig format to it with all the "mistakes" one finds at a live gig. Omar kept holding the mic way off the harp and playing when Sean would lead guitar. Live that is a common practice but never in the studio today. I didn't say anything because I would never want to direct a musician. That is their job, their art, and all I can do is hopefully capture it the way it sounded. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
The old guys never talked about theory, gear, and such. They were much more interested in talking about cadillacs, jewelery, clothes, women, and such.
It's not just the old guys from the past generation. It is very rare that I talk about harmonicas with anyone. Sometimes, I will talk about microphones and amps with Greg. Most of the time, if I am around other harp players, we are usually talking trash.
Joe_L: I hear you. I am not around musicians much at all anymore unless they come by my studio and or to visit while passing through town. We never talk gear. We talk life. There are a few young musicians like Omar and Sean that are also of that mold. My door is always open to guys like that. Funny story from that session- Seans uncle played the drums. He came in with a 6 pack of beer and when he left they were all neatly in the box. I figured he forgot about them. I don't drink and gave them to the guy that loaned us a bass for the session. He picked them up and looked strange. They all were empty! Some things never change- a musician will never forget his beer..... Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Aaah glad you could join the discussion TMF714, I don't recall saying Les Paul overdubbed first, just that he did it in the 40's...like Bechet.
Ha ha, better brush up on your multitrack recording history, it was Ross Snyder who invented the 8 track multitrack head for Ampex in '55, Paul used the machine which he bought for $10,000.
Best regards, Mark. ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
To get back to Calvin's question, here's how I hear the form:
Intro: 4 bar vamp on the I chord (kind of bounces between the I and IV)
First Verse: 8 bar vocal on the same vamp
Second Verse: just like the first :)
Chorus ("Ain't that Loving You..."): 8 bars thus: 1st bar on the IV, 2nd bar on the I, 3rd bar IV, 4th bar I, 5th bar IV, 6th bar I, back to the vamp for the last two bars ("But you don't even know my name").
Break: regular 12 bar I, IV, V for the harmonica solo.
Verse: just once this time
Chorus
Outro: vamp til fade.
Last Edited by on Nov 02, 2011 1:45 PM
Walter wrote: "The old guys never talked about theory, gear, and such. They were much more interested in talking about cadillacs, jewelery, clothes, women, and such."
Sure, back then they were using contemporary gear, not stuff designed at the turn of their century...playing, getting paid, getting known, perfecting their art were & still are the things to really focus on.
When guys were brought to Universal for Chess, or V-J, or JOB it was a paid days work...good pay too compared to record sales (writer's credit was a penny in the dollar, sidemen...forget about it, gigging & recording were the payers for most folk at that time). There were guys in the studio whose full time job it was to capture what was going on, today might be Howlin' Wolf, tomorrow Ahmad Jamal, or the studio might be recordig some classical music (or "legitimate" music as Malcolm Chisholm described it in his resume!)...the point being the musicians were in a lucky position having someone invest in them, they were there to perform & capturing it was the job of full time engineers (who were revolving from company to company in pretty short time), gear was also being developed at a pace...people wanted what was new, to give them an edge or replace deficient stuff from the past.
Forwardwind to today...because it's old technology, not that well documented (no one would expect anyone to be interested in last years console, they were looking forward) too much emphasis is put on finding that mic, desk etc...the performers "made" the sound the engineers captured it. The delays & reverbs made a significant contribution to the final sound (when/if used) but not necessarily in just the job of capturing it.
After the session, the producer/owner would decide what happened to the material, whether & when it would be released. Nowadays, bands expect to sit in during mixing, dictate this sound/that sound, all sorts of aspects of production...fair play, they're normally in small/niche market studios (nothing against them, there are some dynamite small/specialist studios around today, much cheaper rates than Universal charged) & paying their own buck...I would too. But back in Chess's heyday, session ended, performers went off back to daily life & might be pleasantly surprised to hear their track on the radio/jukebox, hopefully get some royalties. Listen to early Muddy tracks like My Little Geneva, there's often a bit of vocal popping "Muddy, sing into the side of the mic, like ya used to" - Leonard to Mud in a 60's session) but otherwise those tracks are pretty pristine. I've got Modern/Kent recordings from the 60's...superb quality.
There is a kind of revisionist movement today to try and backdate the process, without really appreciating the quality & achievements they made back then....yes some aspects were much more limited & certainly more time consuming & expensive, but they weren't trying to make "old" sounding records...though we all love to try.
In short, it's the source, the performance, that folks should really worry about.
I know you & Joe L know this Walter, I'm just venting! ;-)
I think they also hit the V and the IV in the 8th bar of the chorus -- a little turnaround before going back to the vamp.
Last Edited by on Nov 02, 2011 2:34 PM
