Eddie C. Campbell - 2 albums: Baddest Cat On The Block / Tear The World Up

Album: Baddest Cat On The Block
Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 57:45
Size: 132.2 MB
Styles: Chicago blues
Year: 1985
Art: Front

[3:29] 1. Hey Baby
[5:05] 2. Nineteen Years Old
[3:45] 3. I'm In Love With You Baby
[4:52] 4. Tears Are For Losers
[2:55] 5. Look At What You Done
[4:35] 6. Early In The Morning
[4:26] 7. Same Thing
[5:26] 8. Cha Cha In Blues
[4:31] 9. Cheaper To Keep Her
[3:04] 10. Millionaire's Blues
[3:01] 11. You Must Be Shampoo Baby (with Hip Linkchain)
[3:03] 12. My Girl (with Hip Linkchain)
[2:48] 13. Confusion Blues (with Hip Linkchain)
[3:04] 14. Little Car Blues (with Hip Linkchain)
[3:33] 15. Bright Light City Jam (with Hip Linkchain)

This is a strange CD because it is really a compilation of two artists, but it is not listed as such. The second half of the CD is by Hip Linchain, who, like Eddie C. Campbell, was a great West Side (of Chicago) blues guitarist in his own right.

The Eddie C. Campbell material is good, but not Eddie's best. The band doesn't really click here -- they don't back up Eddie as well as they should, and the overall sound suffers. Nevertheless, Eddie's reverb-drenched guitar cuts through pretty well, and true fans will want this CD to complete their collection.

The Hip Linkchain cuts are pretty good, also. He had a great, soulful, albeit rough voice, and his guitar work was excellent. If you've never heard him before, this might not be a bad place to start. ~kmeyer99/amazon

Born in Duncan, Mississippi in 1939, guitarist Eddie C. Campbell was raised in Chicago, where he played with nearly every seminal figure who defined Chicago's West Side sound -- his friend Magic Sam, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon, and Little Walter, among others. Although Campbell's music is strongly reminiscent of that classic West Side blues sound, he would prefer to call it "black culture" music.

Campbell specializes in jaunty, irresistibly danceable rhythms overlaid with lithe guitar lines, often placed so tightly in the pocket of the beat that his lead guitar almost doubles as a rhythm instrument.

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Album: Tear This World Up
Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 60:39
Size: 138.9 MB
Styles: Chicago blues
Year: 2009
Art: Front

[4:02] 1. Makin' Popcorn
[3:27] 2. Big World
[4:59] 3. Easy Baby
[3:49] 4. Tie Your Time Up
[4:56] 5. Voodoo
[3:05] 6. Love Me With A Feeling
[4:48] 7. Vibrations In The Air
[3:47] 8. Care
[4:50] 9. It's So Easy
[5:02] 10. My Last Affair
[4:18] 11. I'm Just You Fool
[4:06] 12. All Nite
[4:51] 13. Summertime
[4:34] 14. Bluesman

In the liner notes for Tear This World Up, Eddie C. Campbell makes an interesting observation about 21st century guitarists who try to emulate the West Side Chicago blues of the 1960s. "Not too many people can play it," Campbell asserts, "A lot try, but then, they get mad and change it into Jimi Hendrix." Indeed, going for that Magic Sam-type of sound isn't easy -- add too much psychedelic feedback, amplification, and distortion, and you can end up in Hendrix/hard rock/early heavy metal territory. Don't add enough, and the results can sound like electric Chicago blues in the 1950s rather than West Side Chicago blues in the 1960s. But having worked with Magic Sam himself and having been very active on Chicago's West Side in the 1960s (and Chicago's South Side as well), Campbell has no problem achieving that type of sound on Tear This World Up. If Campbell's electric guitar solos bring to mind Hendrix in any way, it would be pre-1967 Hendrix -- that is, before the formation of the Jimi Hendrix Experience (when Hendrix was a sideman for Curtis Knight and Lonnie Youngblood). But the most obvious stylistic comparisons on this 2008 session include Magic Sam (Campbell even performs Sam's "Easy Baby"), Buddy Guy, and Junior Wells. Like Sam circa 1967-1968, this is a blues-oriented CD that occasionally detours into straight-up soul. Campbell, who was 69 when Tear This World Up was recorded, isn't oblivious to non-Chicago blues; "Makin' Popcorn" has a John Lee Hooker-ish appeal (electric Detroit by way of Mississippi), and the unplugged "Bluesman" is Mississippi country blues. But 1960s-style electric Chicago blues is the main focus of Tear This World Up, which recalls that era with enjoyable results. ~Alex Henderson

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