James Cotton was at the top of his creative powers during the mid 1970's when I first saw him. His live shows were legendary but he also had a number of fine albums like Cut You Loose and Taking Care of Business. His best album "100% Cotton" was at the time, the embodiment of Modern Blues Harmonica. c/s
What's the point(motive/agenda?) in disrespecting the dead? James Cotton kept food on the table and a roof over his head for 60 years playing harmonica. Whether you like it or not..,
The point of disrespecting Cotton on this board is for someone to bring attention to himself/herself. It's one thing to not care for Cotton's playing and describe your reservations at some length, and another to cavalierly dismiss him implying that there was nothing there and then end your sentence with "lmao". This is trollish behavior.The sensationalist topic head suggests . Admins should considering locking this thread, perhaps deleting it altogether, and reconsidering this member's status ---------- http:www.ted-burke.com
This seemed like an idiotic post topic but thinking about , if you believe great harp layers are defined by pedal boards, speed, and playing a lot of superfluous notes, and if you were born after 1975 and never saw him in his prime, then maybe Cotton isn't in your top 10.
Cotton was at the forefront of a blues revival that brought Chicago blues to white teenage rock audiences in the late '60's (long before SRV) - without selling out; he was the real deal link to the past - to Walter & Sonny Boy; and relied on experience, great chops, monster tone, and a variety of 300 songs including blues, soul, and jazz to delight audiences. He was a master showman - down on one knee with a cape on his shoulders belting out James Brown's "Please, Please, Please", the big guy somersaulting across the stage playing harp (long before the Blues Brothers), and the player who amazed young, aspiring harp players worldwide pumping out "The Creeper" through his Shure 585A, Bassman head, and two 610 cabinets. His time with Muddy, Wolf, Jr. Parker, and SBW allowed him to hone his skills. His ability to emulate the masters, cover blues classics, build a book of originals and keep fresh differentiated him from others.
So, is Cotton Top 10? Listen to the power of Cotton doing The Creeper" on Pure Cotton and "Nine Below Zero" on Late Night Blues. Feel the power of the ensemble - Cotton, Luther Tucker, Alberto Gianquinto, Bobby Anderson and Francis Clay. Then decide. If Cotton isn't there, maybe Little Walter, Rice Miller, and Big Walter aren' t either...because they didn't rely on pedal boards and electronics for their sound or to cover inabilities. ---------- BnT
Last Edited by BnT on Dec 18, 2017 10:12 PM
What's funny to me about Cotton's technique is that he does everything "wrong" regarding my approach of "it's finesse, not force".
Cotton BLOWS THE H#LL OUT OF HIS HARMONICAS and, in his case, it sure sounds good and POWERFUL.
It's funny, but if I get a student that tells me he wants to play like James Cotton, I tell him that I can't help him out in this particular technique. (Same goes for "Train sounds" and "whooping fox chases") ---------- The Iceman
BnT - The only thing you left out was that Cotton was a helluva singer, too. He was a complete artist. I saw some great Cotton shows where he may have played 24 bars of harp before finishing the night with a killer version of the Creeper.
Joe_L My apologies for the oversite. Lots of great singing in his 300 song book (of course that was in '67. It grew after that). After the throat cancer in '94 people missed hearing that big voice. But yeah, Cotton was the whole enchilada.
And one other thing - Butterfield opened up guys thinking about harp with his first two albums ('65 & '66) but Cotton was much bigger on the rock circuit from '67 on and harp-players-to-be were hearing and trying to copy a guy who could perfectly play the songs of Walter and SBW, had his own stuff, and mixed in the soul and jazz a band would normally play in Chicago blues clubs. And Cotton had the advantage of the equipment improvements that occur every ten years or so and the sound he projected was more powerful than the old Chess recordings. Plus, Cotton put a lot of air thru a harp! But his singing was really important in making him a prominent figure and actually influenced the songs new harp players took on. ---------- BnT
Gnarly, take another look at my Top-10 list. "PLEASE NOTE: Within each list, the players are listed in no particular order." Cotton isn't #4. I haven't ranked the players, beyond saying that they belong in that list.
Human nature being what it is, no matter how many times nor how big a font you use to tell people that the list is not numbered by rank, once folk see a number beside a name, they will assume that it is.
If you wish to avoid confusion, don't list them by number, but just put their names out there- - even a vertical list will suggest rankings, so perhaps horizontally is the way to go. ---------- The Iceman
cotton is in my top 10 along with both walters both sonny boys,sonny terry,butterfield,carey bell,george smith and jr wells.....they are all gone but they deserve permanent top 10 status
FWIW, when I first saw Adam's list 8 or 9 years ago, I bought CDs by both Sonny Boys and was a bit confused, as there was so much difference between their playing, and I much preferred Rice Miller. I think any such list can be confusing. Perhaps Adam should put them in his order of preference and then insist that they are in no order? Perhaps he did that already? Perhaps we should just learn to think more independently.
The fact that this forum has ranked him above Stevie Wonder indicates how little independent thought there is here. (I agree with Adam's view on that matter, whilst being terrified that I might be insulting him somehow!) ---------- Andrew. -----------------------------------------
Last Edited by Andrew on Dec 20, 2017 6:10 AM
Silly, lightweight original post ended up with some good discussion about James Cotton and some great clips. Thanks to everyone, I have enjoyed reading.
Andrew - when you’re doing that you also need to take into consideration the impact that the player had on generations of players. John Lee Williamson was highly influential on those who came after him as a harp player and a vocalist. Many of his recordings and the rest of the artists who recorded for the Bluebird label are still influential today. Most people are completely clueless about that generation, but a lot of material credited to artists recording for Chess Records or B.B. King were originally done by artists who recorded for Bluebird.
Last Edited by Joe_L on Dec 20, 2017 8:48 PM
