Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's Southside Band
I became fascinated with this album when I first picked up the harmonica. It was probably the first actual full album I listened to, as opposed to individual singles or singles made into compilations. It was different because it felt like a coherent unit - just like concept albums in other genres e.g. Bowie's Low. It also has, for me, a similar melancholy rather haunting feel throughout. I often like to listen to the whole thing rather than dip in and out.
Anyway, to the question. After trying to learn to play in that sort of style, of course I listened to other stuff and returning to Stand Back it seems sort of out of place - there's nothing quite like it. I was very tiny when this was released - can anyone describe how it fitted in at the time. Was it revolutionary or did it fit it with what was going on around?
What should I be listening to before/after to put it in context?
Last Edited by MindTheGap on Dec 10, 2015 5:35 AM
@MindTheGap This record was the launch of Charlie's career! It all started with this one in 1966-67 and the musicians he played with were superb.The Southside Band was made up of stellar musicians. Drummer, Fred Below (Little Walter & the Aces); Bob Anderson - bass player(worked a bunch with James Cotton); Barry Goldberg on organ ( first I ever heard him play was with Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels doing 'Good Golly Miss Molly') and of course Harvey Mandel on guitar ( Canned Heat etc.) This was 1967 and the blues was suffering due to rock and soul music's predominance. Half the band were rock influenced and the others were blues oriented. I guess "The Blues had a Baby & they named it Rock & Roll" to coin Muddy. The outcome from this album is a great story! My favourite cut is: My Baby. Thanks for the reminder on this excellent album & era of time.
I liked musselwhite when I first heard him in the 80s, and then I didn't hear him for s long time, just remembered him as a great player. I still respect his ability and at times I really enjoy his work, but stand back seems relatively mediocre to me. I bought it a while back and I think I played it twice. Iirc I thought it sounded fairly naive and imitative; about what I'd expect from such a young man. I saw him live last year and enjoyed the show and would go again.
Not liking it is one thing, but it if it's imitative I'd be interested to know what it is imitating. Genuinely interested I mean. I've not worked out where it sits in a progression. I read that it sold well, but it's quite possible that a popular thing can obscure the other works it draws from or builds on. Alternatively, it might be an original. On wiki it says it was called 'seminal' by a critic (source quoted).
Last Edited by MindTheGap on Dec 10, 2015 2:26 PM
I first heard Musselwhite in the 80's also in my blues discovery period and although he is great to see live I prefer his album with the Dynatones - Curtain Call (I love that version of Christo Redemptor on that LP) and the albums he made in the 80's onwards like Where Have All the Good Times Gone?,Mellow-Dee and the great Ace of Harps.
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"Those British boys want to play the blues real bad, and they do"
Last Edited by marine1896 on Dec 10, 2015 2:35 PM
Just an impression I recall. I don't know that it actually is imitative and I'd have to listen to the record again. Like I said, I only played it a couple times. I think I thought it sounded like fairly ordinary impression of blues harp and somewhat behind the stuff butterfield was putting out. But of course, my listening was quite out of context, after 30 plus years of listening to blues and blues harp recordings from across the spectrum of 90 years...in 67 maybe musselwhite' effort was groundbreaking...but it sounded pretty tame and uninspired to me, compared to what Cotton, Horton, Smith, et al, even Butterfield, were producing. I'd really have to listen to it again though...understand I'm not saying it IS any of the things I've stated, just relaying my memory of a somewhat rapidly formed impression
I'm listening to it now...kind of...I discovered I don't have it. I have 5 tracks from it. So far, I like the band ok, it's the harp I find grates. I'm not sure what you find remarkable about it, these tracks sound to me fairly typical of the time and I don't get the 'concept' concept at all...but I only have 5 tracks and I assume there are 10 -12 on the album. Just sounds like blues for white audiences to me, and the harp...don't get me wrong, I'd be fairly satisfied if I'd produced it but I'd wince regularly. Ag9fbu
What I like about it is that the harp is integrated into the songs in a different way to the more conventional harp-oriented stuff I've listened to - which makes up the vast bulk of the catalog. It's a common theme on MBH, strongly stated, that there is a right and wrong way to use harp on a song. I could easily imagine that the harp on Stand Back would make harp players wince because it's kind of wrong compared to the template. A more exaggerated version of this - which I've experienced now myself - would be to wince when the harp comes in on Dylan's From a Buick 6. Something to resist.
Concept album, definitely. There's a thread running through the songs that I've not thought about analysing before but (aside from the harp) I think it's the guitar. Similar phrases appear in different songs, and again rather different from the conventional blues licks.
Also it has a bit of the Brubeck's Time Out idea going on. Except that here the variation is in harp positions. One of the things I really do like about the diatonic harp is that changing position doesn't just mean changing key it means changing the flavour.
There was a time before equal temperament ruled the world (well before any of our times) that changing key had a similar effect. A composer would choose Eb over G less because it suited the singer and more because it had a particular flavour.
Could it be that the album was popular with the general public, but blues fans didn't like someone putting out some kind of crossover album? Example: MBH loves Butterfield, but I've read about the Lomax-Grossman fight.
Liking/disliking art is about emotional response only, but it is interesting to chew the cud about why. I want to hear about why don't like it so much.
I've no idea what wheat straws zig zags are. Opal Fruits anyone?
Last Edited by MindTheGap on Dec 11, 2015 1:44 AM
I don't know, I just think the harp is ambitious and falls short I guess. Poor note choices and lack lustre intonation. That's harsh, but if we're holding it up for comparison against the best that was going around at the time, I think it doesn't quite make the grade. Better than most, but not top drawer. Not something I'd be interested in emulating. Crossover? I don't really get it. It doesn't sound very out there to me. Maybe influenced by the Brits? I mean it's not as horrible as the wolf/waters 'electric' records of a couple years later...it's got the keys and guitar going on but that's whatever it is, I dunno. Most of the songs I heard seemed pretty conventional, the harp just sounds like...second rate butterfield? Nah, I don't know enough to draw comparisons, I just don't like it much...out of tune guitar? Maybe. I'm not even that big on butterfield but I do recognise his sound usually and it's generally acceptable to me, as in I accept it without question. Whereas this I find questionable.
The intonation point is a good one to talk about. I bought Adam's lesson on Chicken Shack, he starts with a quick survey of versions, plays a bit of CM's version and says something like hmmm, flat.
Yes it is, and it's a valid criticsm. And yet, a lot of blues harp is played flat and out of tune in other ways. So much so that you could say that's what it's supposed to sound like. I've experienced this in a minor in my own learning - I spent ages learning to play those chuffing bends to pitch, only having to unlearn that later to rough it up a bit. Because that's the style.
When I first heard Christo Redemptor, it's a strange sound isn't it. Later when I tried to play it, ok, it's that 3'' bend in there that contributes to it. You know, the melotron (or whatever it is?) on Strawberry Fields is odd like that, probably off pitch but that's the beauty of it. Play it on a modern synth with perfect intonation and quantised timing and oh dear.
I'm willing bet to be we hear the same thing i.e. it's got a rough feel. Just I like it and you don't.
Last Edited by MindTheGap on Dec 11, 2015 2:10 AM
As usual it's all personal taste and you can't really knock someone like Charlie Musselwhite but I find his early stuff a bit uninspiring and too much of 60's vibe that in retrospect sounds dated to me although for what it was I think that Stand Back was a successful album from what I have read for him, but comparing him to Wells, Cotton and Butterfield etc. he did not have there in your face energy and depth. His harp playing has an almost horizontal feeling about it at this time but a few years after learning harmonica myself I always thought that Charlie's harp playing was a more thought out approach like he was striving to achieve his own thing and nothing wrong with that but for me even now there's a sort of lameness about it. I think after the Harmonica according to Charlie Musselwhite to my ears I placed him up there with the greats and he has a very recognisable sound of his own. As I said earlier his great strength is playing live.
Oh yeah I googled wheat straws zig zags I think they are rolling papers? ----------
"Those British boys want to play the blues real bad, and they do"
Last Edited by marine1896 on Dec 11, 2015 3:08 AM
I dunno about roughness. I don't think it's quite about rough, as in near enough, good enough. I think those notes between the cracks are quite deliberate and used with purpose. Like the so called 'blue third' which works in the tonic chord, but do it in the IV chord, where it's between the major 7 and the flat7....it's just a bum note. Personally, the constant use of an over flat 4 draw bend...drives me bonkers The 9 blow...bent flatter than flat 5 to sub for the 4...can be OK, even preferable to the actual 4th in the right place. But used on the other chords it's just wrong I think. Anyway, probably just displaying my ignorance
Marine1896 - thanks these are just the kind of opinions I want to hear. Where the album sits in the scheme of things. I can hear that CM's later work is stronger in some technical sense and I understand that a bit now. For non-technical, purely emotional response reasons, this album has a special place.
As it goes, I think I may be predisposed to like 'early works'. Just running through other bands in my head. It's all the early stuff I like. Before the corners have been knocked off. Bowie's an exception.
Superbee - There's definitely a style of blues harp playing that sticks to the rules, these are the rules that I understood. I always think of David Barrett - very precise, great intonation and making tasteful, correct and appropriate note choices. There is another style which deviates from this, I think of Jerry McCain. I think it's something around the 'right wrong' notes. I like them both but because I don't really understand the latter, I'm drawn to it - gut-wise.
I don't know you if you like Bjork, but here's the analogy. Early, nicely produced pop stuff: not my cup of tea. Middle period: getting quite weird, just right. Later stuff: too strange. So another exception to the 'early is best' rule. But the point is about the right amout of strange (roughness).
Last Edited by MindTheGap on Dec 11, 2015 4:36 AM
Some blues musicians early stuff like say, Jerry McCain, Billy Boy Arnold, Snooky Pryor and to an extent Junior Wells early work is just full of exuberance and that is missing from their later output and just does not interest me while others like SBWII, Big Walter and Robert JR Lockwood, Carey Bell etc. just kept producing great work. So I get where you are coming from about early work. ----------
"Those British boys want to play the blues real bad, and they do"
Last Edited by marine1896 on Dec 11, 2015 4:47 AM
