Z.z. Hill

Down Home is one of the very few classic blues albums of the 1980s. Hill revitalized the genre among African-American listeners with his "Down Home Blues," which earned instant standard status. But the entire album is tremendously consistent, with the percolating R&B workouts "Givin' It Up for Your Love" and "Right Arm for Your Love" contrasting with an intimate "Cheatin' in the Next Room" and the straight-ahead blues "Everybody Knows About My Good Thing" and "When It Rains It Pours."

Z.Z. Hill (1981). The initial step in Hill's amazing rebirth as a contemporary blues star, courtesy of Jackson, Mississippi's Malaco Records and producers Tommy Couch and Wolf Stephenson. The vicious blues outings "Bump and Grind" and "Blue Monday" were the first salvos fired by Hill at the blues market, though much of the set - "Please Don't Make Me (Do Something Bad to You)," "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" - was solidly in the Southern soul vein.
Bluesmaster (1984). Issued the year he died, Bluesmaster boasted more competent soul-blues hybrids by the man who reenergized the blues idiom with his trademark growl. LaSalle's "You're Ruining My Bad Reputation," "Friday Is My Day" (written by legendary Malaco promo man Dave Clark), and a nice reading of Paul Kelly's slinky "Personally" rate with the standouts.

His complete recordings for the Bihari brothers’ Kent label, together on one package for the first time, including many making their CD debut.

One of the most commercial of Hill's albums, this disco-tinged release included the minor hits "This Time They Told the Truth" and "Love Is So Good When You're Stealing It."

Thirty-seven years later, we have the iconic songs of Texas-born singer Z.Z. Hill brought to us by Grammy-winning bluesman Mississippi-based Grady Champion on the same Mississippi-based Malaco label. Champion is a producer/singer/songwriter/musician who has won a Grammy, several prestigious Blues Music Awards as well as the 26th International Blues Challenge. Amazingly, he is one of his father’s 28 children, born October 10, 1969 on a farm in Canton, Mississippi. Originally a rapper, he gravitated to the blues, first learning harmonica and releasing his first album, the self-released Goin’ Back Home (1998.) He was quickly signed by Shanachie Records, with whom he released two albums. Champion and Kevin Bowe co-wrote “Trust Yourself” which was included on Etta James’ album Let’s Roll (2003) and winner of a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. The album also won a Blues Music Award as the Soul/Blues Album of 2004. Dreamin’ (2011), was a #1 album on the Sirius XM’s Bluesville chart, as well as earning two BMAs. This is his third release for Malaco, a self-produced effort entirely in tribute to Z.Z. Hill who died 35 years ago April 27, 1984. Champion says, “I’ve been particularly inspired by Z.Z.’s efforts to restore blues music to modern black consciousness.”

When Malaco Records started out in the late 1960s, the label that small Southern R&B companies looked up to was Stax. The Jackson, MS-based Malaco, like the Memphis-based Stax, focused mainly on deep-fried Southern soul in the beginning – only in 1968 and 1969, Malaco was a struggling young operation that was fighting to stay afloat. But ironically, Malaco would still be in business long after Stax's 1975 demise, and it would continue to favor classic soul long after most labels had moved away from it. When other black-oriented independents were putting out urban contemporary, rap and house music in the 1980s and 1990s.

Authentic, occasionally obscure, but always groovy, West Coast soul. Southern blues abounds, while gospel and Motown’s influence are also present.