Critiques sur l'album

Otis Spann is, of course, no stranger to blues fans. For close to a decade-and-a-half now he has been featured in the Muddy Waters Band, perhaps the prototypical Chicago blues band of all those currently performing. And during his association with Waters, Spann has honed his instrumental skills to a fine edge; he is easily the finest blues pianist to be heard anywhere these days and is probably among the instrument's all-time leading performers. Certainly he's one of the most inventive and propulsive ensemble players the modern blues has produced, a rock-solid rhythm player whose improvisations are always perfectly adapted to the needs of the music at hand. And a singer couldn't ask for a more sensitive and responsive accompanist than Spann. On top of all this, he's a fine singer, with a dry, grainy voice and a shouting vocal style that are distinctively his own.

It's only been in recent years that Spann has emerged as a well-known artist in his own right—primarily as the result of a splendid series of recordings he has undertaken for various labels. First was the very provocative set shared with guitarist Robert Lockwood, Jr.—Otis Spann Is the Blues (Candid 8001)—which has been out of print almost since it was issued in 1961. Five years later came The Blues Never Die (Prestige 7391), on which Spann shared the vocal chores with harmonica player Jimmy Cotton, and this relaxed set was succeeded about a year later by Nobody Knows My Troubles (Testament 2211) an album that contrasted nine Spann solo performances with five featuring a five–piece Chicago ensemble.

Spann's latest efforts have been on ABC's BluesWay subsidiary, and they continue the format set on the Prestige album—that is, they present a number of relaxed and easy performances by various editions of the Waters band much as one would hear it in a club, with Otis singing instead of Muddy. (In the absence of Chess recordings of this band, future students of Waters' music will have to turn to these recordings for samples of the band's music during the 1960s).

The approach followed on both albums is mainstream postwar Chicago blues—not very adventurous or innovative in terms of what has been going on in the blues these last few years, but solid, full of good spirits, and rhythmically very powerful. Good, proven music played with authority and conviction by a group of musicians who understand it perfectly.

The two BluesWay albums are very much alike in mood and approach. The Blues Is Where It's At features an earlier edition of the Waters band. Spann, vocal, piano; Waters, Sam Lawhorn and Luther Johnson, guitars; George Smith, harmonica, Mac Arnold, bass, and Francis Clay, drums. On the second set George Bufford replaces Smith; Lawrence Wimberly and S. P. Leary replace Arnold and Clay, respectively, and Spann's wife Lucille is added for a few vocals. The music on both sets is unforced and freewheeling, marked throughout with the easiness of ensemble playing that comes only of prolonged association. There are rough spots from time to time, to be sure, but these are slight defects when compared with the rightness of feeling that suffuses the performances. Additional takes might have smoothed out this roughness, but one senses that much of the lightness, exuberance and spontaneity would have gone too and, personally, I'd rather have the feeling.

One is hard pressed to single one over the other. Each has its strengths and its weaknesses. On The Blues Is Where It's At there's George Smith, a far more resourceful and accomplished harmonica player than George Bufford, who is featured on the second set (at the same time, it ought to be mentioned that Smith sounds as though he's playing unamplified harmonica throughout the album, thus lessening the impact of his playing). This is perhaps the first set's most obvious asset/, for otherwise the two albums are very familiar.

On The Bottom of the Blues album the ensemble playing is generally tighter, but the set is even more plagued by sporadic out-of-tuneness than is the first. On the positive side, however, Waters' use of bottleneck is handled with greater restraint on the one selection in the second album on which he employs this technique. his playing in this style greatly enhances "Looks Like Twins" and is perhaps the finest bottleneck work he's committed to record in some time, and is in direct contrast to his playing on the first album, which is generally rather excessive, too much manner and not enough matter.

Scattered through the eighteen selections in the two albums are some splendid performances. in the first set are Spann's readings of "Down on Sarah Street," "My Home Is on the Delta," "'Steel Mill Blues" (a remake of Eddie Boyd's "Five Long Years," though uncredited to him) are all fine, and of only slightly lesser interest is "Nobody Knows Chicago Like I Do."

In the second album are excellent performances of Sleepy John Estes' "Diving Duck" (credited to Spann), "Looks Like Twins," "Down to Earth" and "Nobody Knows (My Troubles)." Mrs. Spann's contributions, while energetic, are undistinguished, though she turns in a creditable performance on "Down to Earth."

The second album is considerably better recorded than the first, possibly as a result of the latter's "studio party" atmosphere. There are evidences of much tighter control and greater understanding in the second album; producer Bob Thiele probably learned a great deal about recording this group when doing the first album and he has put this knowledge to good use in the second set. Too bad he didn't insist on better intonation as well. (RS 23)

PETE WELDING

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