Great uplifting song and groove...always cheers me up. I,ve seen Charlie Musselwhite and Carey Bell both been credited with playing on this....which one do you think it is?...I,d say Carey Bell.
Joe as usual is bang on the money. It's Carey Bell. If you don't recognise his playing, you really should check out more of his recorded material. He really is a must listen to/study player for any serious aspiring blues harpist. Carey Bell is right up there with the two Walters and both Sonny Boy's when it comes to Chicago blues.
Let me repeat this (true) story about Carey Bell and Buster Benton I posted four years ago on MBH.
The year was 1975. Willie Dixon and his band came to town for a three day gig at the Commodore Ballroom-- Friday, Saturday and Monday. (No drinking on the Lord's day). I was playing in a local blues band at the time. Everybody in our band went to the Commodore Ballroom that weekend to see Willie and his "Chicago Blues Allstars".
What a band! Willie on stand-up bass and vocals, his son Freddie on electric bass, Buster Benton on guitar and vocals, Clifton James on drums, and Carey Bell on harp. It's one of the top five bands I've ever heard.
Buster stood out for his soulful vocals and stinging guitar. Clifton stood out because he pounded, I mean pounded, his drums. He drove the band, and made me concentrate on the drummer, for the first time ever, over any other player.
Carey stood out because of his excellent, tight, chromatic harp playing. I'll always remember him draining the chromatic of his spit once in a while. He'd tilt it upright; you could see the spit pouring out. He played a lot of chromatic the nights I saw him.
But, that's not my story. On Saturday afternoon, a little club, "Rohans", in the hippie neighbourhood of Vancouver held a blues jam for anybody that cared to come. Our band did. Carey Bell and Buster Benton did.
I ended up on stage with Buster Benton, playing a slow blues, followed by Little Walter's "Off the Wall". Like a million other harp players, I had memorized it, and played it more or less note for note.
Carey Bell was in the audience. When I got off the stage, he came up to me and said, without preamble, "I got a whole buncha tricks you ain't even seen yet". It was not a friendly conversation. There was no kindness shining out of his eyes.
I was taken by surprise. I didn't know what to say, so said nothing. I thought about it later. Could he have been jealous because I'd gone to the trouble of nailing a Little Walter song? I concluded that's all it was. If I had figured it out on the spot, I would have said to Carey, "Hey, my little trick is nothing compared to the beautiful sound you make with your harp, your inventiveness and your soul. And you can sing. Let's be friends and talk about harp".
