Memphis Slim Flac

Memphis Heat documents Chicago blues piano legend Memphis Slim's studio collaborations with the rock group Canned Heat in France on September 18, 1970, and July 11, 1973. The results are tasty indeed. Slim's voice and piano are well matched by Henry Vestine's electric guitar, Canned Heat's rockin' rhythm section, and (on six out of 13 tracks) the Memphis Horns, a solid wind quintet of trumpet, trombone, two tenors, and a baritone sax. Memphis Slim tried on a lot of different styles and instrumental combinations during the 1970s. His Canned Heat sessions have been both praised and panned over the years, a state of affairs that often revealed more about the reviewers than the music itself.

Unlike Mississippi Fred McDowell, who hailed from Rossville, TN, Memphis Slim was actually from Memphis, although his real name was Peter Chatman. By any name, Slim was a masterful blues pianist with a distinctive style. This satisfying drummerless two-fer was originally issued as 1960s albums Just Blues and No Strain, all songs written by the prolific pianist, recorded in the same session and re-released the year after he died in Paris in 1988. The 23-tune collection opens with "Beer Drinking Woman" (with sly Funeral March quotes), followed by one of his patented, totally believable spoken intros. Fully nine of these tracks feature just piano and voice, illustrating beyond a doubt that this bluesman was the real deal who needed no help to get his point across.

This brief segment of the Memphis Slim story unearths a parcel of tasty tracks recorded during 1967 in Paris where Slim would live out the rest of his life. Here he delivers his usual mix of slow drags, soulful struts, shuffles, and boogies, working the piano and singing the blues. Solid support is provided by guitarist Mickey Baker, bassists Guy Pedersen and Roland Lobligeois, and drummer Andre Arpino. The rest of the personnel remain largely unidentified; the nameless organist and a tidy anonymous horn section put a lot of meat on the ribs of this album. On "People People" and "Christina" the organ establishes a vibe comparable with certain wistful portions of John Mayall's largely introspective Bare Wires album, a distant cousin to this session recorded in April of the following year…

This was Memphis Slim's 1964 rock & roll album, designed for the Parisian in-crowd youth market. It was recorded at a time when the Rolling Stones were working hard to sound like a Chicago blues band. Some of the tracks are exciting and ideal for exuberant, reckless, or possibly go-go dancing. Unfortunately, despite the promise this series makes of extra material culled from the Barclay, Polydor, and Festival vaults, this disc only contains a paltry 28 minutes of music. Perhaps it would have been longer had the original producers and recording engineers resisted the temptation to fade down on tunes like "Steppin' Out Tonight," a solid Chicago-style jam that suddenly evaporates after two minutes and ten seconds, although it probably lasted ten minutes in the studio…

Yet another of the ubiquitous Memphis Slim compilations, Grinder Man Blues is different from most of Snapper Music's budget blues reissues in that it confines itself to a tiny space in its subject's career: his Bluebird sides from 1940-1941. The sound quality is good, which is no surprise, and the producers have mixed-and-matched the sides, so that slow, solo blues ballads, faster boogie numbers, and duet and full-band numbers alternate. The best cut here is probably "Old Taylor," which features Slim working (and sharing vocal chores) with an uncredited scat singer, while his piano ripples through and around their work. Every so often the blues harp joins his piano in the spotlight, while Leroy Batchelor's bass and Washboard Sam's percussion hold the rhythm, elsewhere, as on "Maybe I'll Loan You A Dime" it's pretty much just Slim's voice and piano, which are pretty formidable…

This album includes recordings from two sessions, one with solo piano, the other with the 1983 Chicago Blues Festival. Throught a beautiful series of instrumental or vocal boogie-woogies and slow blues, Memphis Slim pays homage to some of his models and peers: Roosevelt Sykes, Pinetop Smith (or Perkins!), Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, Sammy Price, Jay McShann, Lloyd Glenn, Willie Mabon, Eddie Boyd, Otis Spann.

In 1970, expatriate pianist Memphis Slim hooked up with fellow Chicago blues great Buddy Guy while the guitarist was touring Europe with the Rolling Stones, and recorded the tracks for South Side Reunion, originally released on Warner Bros. in 1972. Slim's rollicking piano and Guy's guitar-slinging prowess are complemented by Windy City musicians Phillip Guy, Ernest Johnson, and Roosevelt Shaw, plus saxophonists A.C. Reed and Jimmy Conley. While harpist Junior Wells (who was also part of the Stones tour) is listed as if he played a prominent role in this endeavor, he's only heard on the tracks "Good Time Charlie," "No," and "Help Me Some."

This early-'60s date was the second - and one of the best - of Memphis Slim's many top-notch Bluesville recordings. Featuring Slim accompanying himself on the piano, All Kinds of Blues is a vintage set of mellow yet deep blues by one of the music's most urbane performers. Whether reveling in his considerable boogie-woogie chops ("Three-in-One-Boogie") or tossing off a wryly sexual romp ("Grinder Man Blues"), Slim always seems to be totally at ease and in command. And while newcomers are advised to start out with one of his early-'50s sets on Chess, this will be one collection no Memphis Slim fan will want to overlook.

Like many of the black blues and jazz musicians of his generation, Memphis Slim found both an audience and a home in Europe for the last 20-plus years of his life, basing himself in Paris beginning in 1962 and remaining there until his death in 1988. In that span he recorded an astounding 50 or so albums, not including the various recordings of his live performances that still continue to surface. While it could be argued that his peak years were in the '40s and '50s, the recordings he made in the last third of his life were incredibly intimate and frank, and he didn't shy away from addressing racial and social injustice in the later songs, even while he kept his blues performances smooth and accessible. This fine set, recorded in New York in 1967 on one of his U.S. tours, is a case in point…