Rift
19 posts
Nov 16, 2010
7:09 AM
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I am listening to Pandora on my work computer right now. If you ever used it you will know you can enter a artist and it will play similar music. I added a Little Walter station and a Snooky Pryor song came on. I think I am going to start a Snooky station now. This guy rocks. I havent listened to much of him before but its good stuff. There is also a more generic station called Blues Essentials. Anyone using Pandora should give it a listen. Best part is its free!
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TahoeMike00
145 posts
Nov 16, 2010
7:53 AM
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Yup, Pandora is awesome for discovering "new" blues artists/songs. I end up adding more and more stations as I run across bands/artists that I have never heard of.
I have Pandora on my Droid, and I can listen to Pandora basically anywhere, any time. Using a wireless transmitter [iTrip] I can pipe Pandora into my car stereo. (or home stero for that matter)
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The more I learn about harmonica, the more I learn how much more there is to learn.
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Joe_L
833 posts
Nov 16, 2010
8:22 AM
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There is no reason to create one. It already exists. I listen to it all the time. Snooky wrote some bad ass tunes and his playing was great. His son, Rip Lee Pryor, plays a lot like Snooky. There are some videos of him on youtube.
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The Blues Photo Gallery
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Rift
20 posts
Nov 16, 2010
9:04 AM
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I guess I said it wrong Joe_L. I meant I am going to add it to my play list. Thanks for the tip on Rip Lee. I will try and check him out.
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Joe_L
834 posts
Nov 16, 2010
1:57 PM
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No worries. I just thought I would save you some work. ;-)
Snooky is one of my favorites players.
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The Blues Photo Gallery
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BAG
30 posts
Nov 16, 2010
3:17 PM
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I heard a song from Johnny Shines and Snooky Pryor:
Back To The Country cd on a blues radio show and it stopped me in my tracks and I went on-line and bought the CD that night. Some years later I discovered Pandora when they were playin' all kinds of great blues songs over the soundsystem in a bar and I had to ask whose collection it was from. Same thing basically happened, I went home and started listenin' to Pandora and immediately started blowin through my Itunes budget.
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Jagrowler
14 posts
Nov 16, 2010
3:19 PM
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@ Joe_L - I've just had a quick look at your photo library. Good work my man - I know from experience how difficult it can be to capture good images of performers. Well done!
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5F6H
384 posts
Nov 16, 2010
4:37 PM
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Love Snooky Pryor...there's some nice Snooky harp with Johnny Young (Moody & Floyd Jones too), "Back To Chicago", also features Paul Oscher (& most of Muddy's band at the time - Spann, Lawhorn, SP Leary) on a few tracks.
But, even if he never did anything else, Boogie Twist does it for me!
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groyster1
563 posts
Nov 16, 2010
5:15 PM
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is snooky still living?
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Rift
24 posts
Nov 16, 2010
5:39 PM
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i was reading up on him today and its looks like he passed away in 2006. he seemed like an interesting guy. i wish i would have known about him earlier. i also was reading that he said little walter stole the famous juke riffs from him. this guy could play, raw, gritty, full of soul. very cool.
Last Edited by on Nov 16, 2010 5:40 PM
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5F6H
385 posts
Nov 17, 2010
2:18 AM
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That intro to Juke was a pretty common lick, just a run up the scale, it would be very hard to determine any kind of provenance, LW's alternate take of Juke doesn't even feature it, so any claims that LW set out to rip off anyone in particular would seem to be exagerrated. Jr Wells also claimed that Juke was originally his/the Aces theme...lots of guys may have played that intro run, but there's more to Juke than that.
There have also been claims that Snooky innovated amplified harp (he was there at the dawn of it) & invented 3rd position...but I wouldn't set too much store by these, just enjoy the music.
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htownfess
206 posts
Nov 17, 2010
5:36 AM
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Checked @ Bluebeat Music for a couple standard Snooky Pryor recommendations and they got 'em: The JOB Records sessions (Paula 11) has got the "Boogie Twist" whereof Mark speaks, plus the "Boogie" that opens with the "Juke"-style riff (and has a *second* verse that is not unlike the second verse in "Juke"), all the very early stuff with Floyd and Moody Jones. It's a pretty thrilling moment to just be listening along to that record in sequence and suddenly the first amplified song kicks off with some phat tone.
In modern stuff, Too Cool to Move on Antones Records was mentioned by several non-harp playing friends of mine as their favorite blues record of 1991. Just brimming with Snooky's brio and good humor; Duke Robillard and Derek O'Brien and I think Luther Tucker on guitar; little guitar soloing on the record, just trying to outdo each other at backing Snooky up. There's a Chicago rhythm section and an Austin one. Snooky's recent music is kind of mostly the same and all good, can't go wrong with any of it, but the Antones record put him on a lot of people's radar.
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5F6H
386 posts
Nov 17, 2010
5:45 AM
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..."like a roach on the porch in the wintertime, too cool to move"
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Joe_L
835 posts
Nov 17, 2010
10:17 AM
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One of my favorite Snooky albums is the one produced by Steve Freund. Here is something Steve posted to a Yahoo group shortly after Snooky passed away in 2006.
"Snooky pretty much became sick of the music industry in the late 50's and moved to southern Il., and became a construction worker and later a contractor, running his own business. He would make occasional forays up to Chicago to sit in. I fondly remember the times he came up to Big Walter and Floyd Jones's gigs at Blues on Halsted. Walter would let him sit in, and Snooky would always steal the show, not by 'cutting' Walter, but with showmanship. He had a little skip-dance he would do while playing. He also did mostly up-tempo tunes that would get the crowd going. After 2 tunes Walter would grab the mic away and proceed to blow the roof off with the purest blues harp on the planet. Snooky was the only guy that could really make him nervous.
Sometime in the mid 80's I decided to get him a record deal, as he had not released anything in nearly 30 years. I brought a boom-box to one of our gigs and recorded the show. I then handed Jerry and Ed from Blind Pig the cassette. Two days later they were ready to sign him, with me as producer. I took Willie Smith and Bob Stroger, along with Snooky, down to Stroger'e basement for one rehearsal. Then we went in the studio and recorded TOTALLY LIVE, not one overdub, and the result is 'Snooky', the record that re-started his career.
Here is a blurb from Blind Pig:
An extremely devout and principled man, he became disillusioned with the music business and retired to downstate Illinois for most of the '60s and '70s to
pursue carpentry, fishing, and to see after his large family. Finally, a series of successful European tours lured him back to performing regularly. With his children grown, Snooky found the time to write new material, and eight of those compositions are on Snooky, his first domestic album of material ever released. Snooky chose Sunnyland slim band members
Robert Stroger on bass, Steve Freund on guitar, and Muddy Waters' band alumnus Willie "Big Eyes" Smith on drums. Released in 1987, the recording forced Snooky out of semi-retirement as the attention garnered from this release increased the demand for his personal appearances both here in the United States and abroad."
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The Blues Photo Gallery
Last Edited by on Nov 17, 2010 10:18 AM
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Rift
27 posts
Nov 17, 2010
10:23 AM
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I just listened to Cryin' Shame and now No More Monkey Business is on. I am hooked!
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