Johnny 'Big Moose' Walker - Mellow Down Easy

Size: 102.4 MB
Time: 43:59
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 1992
Styles: Piano Blues, Chicago Blues
Art: Full

01. I'm Tore Up (3:43)
02. Mellow Down Easy (4:35)
03. One-Eyed Woman (5:17)
04. Talk To Your Daughter (3:03)
05. Sixteen Tons (5:16)
06. Fool Race (3:59)
07. I Don't Want No Woman (4:58)
08. Would You Babe (3:02)
09. Don't Cry Baby (6:25)
10. Somebody Got To Go (3:36)

b. John Mayon Walker, 27 June 1927, Stoneville, Mississippi, USA, d. 27 November 1999, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Of partly Native American stock, Walker learned to play several instruments in his teens but was known primarily as a pianist. He began touring with blues bands from 1947, playing piano and organ, and worked with many Mississippi artists in the 40s and early 50s, including Ike Turner, Sonny Boy ‘Rice Miller’ Williamson, Lowell Fulson and Choker Campbell. Walker’s most enduring associations were with Elmore James and Earl Hooker, to whose recordings he made telling contributions on piano, although his organ work was less successful. He served in the US Army between 1952 and 1955 and recorded in his own right for Ike Turner in 1955, though the results were not released until the late 60s. Tracks that Walker made the same year for the Ultra label were released under the name ‘Moose John’. In the late 50s, he settled in Chicago, and over the next three decades became an in-demand session player for the likes of Elmore James (as ‘Bushy Head’), Otis Rush, Muddy Waters (on bass), Otis Spann, Sunnyland Slim, Jimmy Dawkins and Son Seals. He also recorded several solo albums in the US and Europe before a series of strokes ended his working career. ~AMG

Mellow Down Easy MP3
Mellow Down Easy FLAC

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Melvin TAYLOR - Plays The Blues For You / Blues On The Run

A fleet-fingered guitarist with a technique that encompasses elements of blues, R'n'B and jazz, Melvin Taylor led his own group, the Transistors, at the age of 15. A stint with The Legendary Blues Band brought him to Europe in 1981 and he made his recordings debut in following year. This and another French-recorded album were issued in the US a decade later, forming the basis of a recording cereer notable for its eclecticism and the speed and clarity of his guitar playing.

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Album: PLAYS THE BLUES FOR YOU
Styles: Modern Electric Chicago Blues
Recorded: 1984
Released: 1987
Bitrate: 320k/s
Size: 128.24 MB
Time: 55:53
Art: Front & Tray (Isabel)

1. Talking To Anna-Mae Pt.1 (4:11)
2. TV Mama (3:14)
3. I'll Play The Blues For You (5:16)
4. Born To Loose (2:59)
5. Tribute To Wess (3:25)
6. Cadillac Assembly Line (5:17)
7. Voodoo Daddy (6:29)
8. Talking To Anna-Mae Pt.2 (4:10)
9. Groovin' In Paris (3:16)
10. Kinda Easy Like (5:28)
11. Don't Answer The Door (7:07)
12. Ridin' (5:01)

Personnel: Melvin TAYLOR - Guitar, Vocals
Lucky Peterson - Organ, Piano, Vocals on tr.11
Titus Williams - Bass
Ray 'Killer' Allison - Drums

Note: Guitarist Melvin Taylor's fluid, smartly constructed solos and understated yet winning vocals are surprises on this 1984 twelve-track set recorded for Isabel and recently reissued by Evidence on CD. Taylor is not a fancy or arresting singer but succeeds through his simple, effective delivery of lyrics, slight inflections, and vocal nuances. His guitar work is impressive, with skittering riffs, shifting runs, and dashing solos. Organist/pianist Lucky Peterson is an excellent second soloist, adding cute background phrases at times, then stepping forward and challenging or buttressing Taylor's playing with his own dazzling lines.

                                                          Plays The Blues For You
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Album: BLUES ON THE RUN
Styles: Modern Electric Chicago Blues,
Recorded: 1982
Released: 1994
Bitrate: 320k/s
Size: 102.47 MB
Time: 43:48
Art: Full

1. Travelin' Man - 6:23
2. Lowdown Dirty Shame - 7:30
3. Escape - 6:55
4. Cold, Cold Feeling - 4:41
5. Just Like A Woman - 8:02
6. Chitlins Con Carne - 10:04

Personnel: Melvin TAYLOR - Lead Guitar, Vocals
Johnny Dollar - Rhythm Guitar;
Big Moose Walker - Piano
Willie Love - Bass
Casey Jones - Drums

Notes: With this album, recorded in Chicago originally for the French label Isabel, Taylor sprang fully formed from hiss shell. His effortless extended improvisations confine a 43-minute programme to just six tracks, the longest a ten-minute exploration of Kenny Burrell's 'Chitlins Con Carne'. Others sources are Albert King, T-Bone Walker and Louis Jordan, with the artist's sole contribution a seven-minute instrumental 'Escape'. Although his musicians are given little to do except keep up, they do so willingly, with an occasional solo from Walker.

Taylor is a weak vocalist here but verses are merely bookends for his guitar solos, in which he displays unflagging invention. But for all their dexterity, these profligate solos lack character and dynamic contrast, numbing the ear to whatever fleeting emotion may be present.

                                                             Blues On The Run
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MIGHTY JOE YOUNG - Blues With A Touch Of Soul

Styles: Modern Electric Chicago Blues
Recorded: 1970
Released: 1998
File: mp3 @ 320 k/s
Size: 100.96 MB
Time: 43:18
Art: Full

1. I Walked All Night - 3:06
2. Somebody Loan Me A Dime - 10:40
3. Every Man Needs A Woman - 8:24
4. Why Baby? - 5:36
5. Things I Used To Do - 3:50
6. Got A Bad Case Of Loving You - 5:50
7. Honky Tonk - 5:23

Personnel: Mighty Joe YOUNG - Guitar, Vocals
Johnny 'Big Moose' Walker - Organ, Piano
Jimmy Dawkins - Guitar
Jordan Sandke - Trumpet
Dennies Lansing - Tenor Saxophone
Sylvester Boines - Bass
Hazekiah Roby - Drums

Notes: Joe Young was a boxer as a young man, and had the physique to go with his nickname. He recorded singles for a number of small Chicago labels, and was a busy club and session guitarist before becoming a fixture on the American and overseas touring circuits. In 1986, surgery for a pinched nerve in his neck went wrong; it was a year before he could walk again, and having lost feeling in his fingers he was unable to play guitar. Young kept performing as a singer, and worked on the self-produced CD he'd begun before the disaster. In 1999 he underwent further elective surgery, hoping to play guitar again; this time the post-operative complications killed him.

   The touch of soul is very light; essentialy this is West Side Chicago blues. Young's singing and playing are elegant and logical, but four (out of only seven) tracks are far too long, with the band members queuing up to play tensionless, unimaginative solos, ...and this is his first album.

                                                     Blues With A Touch Of Soul
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Son SEALS - Lettin' Go / The Son Seals Blues band

Son Seals was born Frank Seals on August 13, 1942 in Osceola, Arkansas. His dad operated a juke joint called the Dipsy Doodle Club in Osceola where Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Nighthawk, and Albert King cavorted upfront while little Frank listened intently in back. Drums were the youth's first instrument; he played them behind Nighthawk at age 13. But by the time he was 18, Son Seals turned his talents to guitar, fronting his own band in Little Rock.
While visiting his sister in Chicago, he hooked up with Earl Hooker's Roadmasters in 1963 for a few months, and there was a 1966 stint with Albert King that sent him behind the drumkit once more. But with the death of his father in 1971, Seals returned to Chicago, this time for good. When Alligator signed him up, his days fronting a band at the Flamingo Club and the Expressway Lounge were numbered.

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Album: Lettin' Go
Styles: Modern Electric Chicago Blues
Recorded: 1999
Released: 2000
Bitrate: 320k/s
Size: 164.75 MB
Time: 70:35
Art: Full

1. Bad Blood (4:47)
2. Let It Go (4:21)
3. Give The Devil His Due (5:24)
4. Doc's Blues (3:36)
5. Hair On A Frog (4:04)
6. Jelly, Jelly (7:07)
7. Osceola Rock (4:23)
8. Dear Son (6:58)
9. I Got Some Of My Money (4:33)
10. Rockin' And Rollin' Tonight (3:03)
11. Bad Luck Child (5:06)
12. Blues Holy Ghost (5:52)
13. Love Had A Breakdown (5:23)
14. Funky Bitch (5:58)

Personnel: Son SEALS - Guitars, Vocals
Jimmy Vivino - Rhythm & Acoustic Guitar
Al Kooper - Hammond B3 Organ
Scott Healy - Keyboards
Mike Merritt - Bass
James Wormworth - Drums
Fred Walcott - Percussion
and Horn Section

Note: After spending his entire recording career with Alligator, Frank "Son" Seals' debut release on the Telarc Blues label is also the Chicago bluesman's first album of new material in almost six years. Although he lost part of his leg to diabetes in 1999, as somberly evidenced on the cover photo, little else has changed. Seals' gritty, booming vocals sound as authoritative as ever, and, if anything, the half decade between studio albums has added an even tougher quality to his traditionally gutsy singing. Working with the legendary Al Kooper on Hammond B-3 and top-notch musicians from Conan O'Brien's late night band gives Seals a firm, razor sharp backing on which to lay down his tough Chicago blues. The four-piece horn section and Kooper work wonderfully together. Along with Seals' beefy vocal attack and his fat, stinging guitar tone, he turns in a solid, uncompromising set of primarily original tunes. The 70-minute album would be stronger if some of the weaker tracks like "Osceola Rock," little more than a bland rewrite of "Jailhouse Rock," were omitted. But the album-closing jam with Phish's Trey Anastasio on a remake of Seals' "Funky Bitch" is energized and electric, and with excursions into gospel, light funk, gritty country, Southern R&B, and even a sensitive ballad, the guitarist expands his palette while staying within the blues framework. All of which makes Lettin' Go a sturdy, hard-hitting, and above all welcome comeback album from one of the acknowledged greats of Chicago blues guitar.

                                                                    Lettin' Go
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Album: The Son Seals Blues Band
Styles: Modern Electric Chicago Blues  
Recorded: 1972
Released: 1973/1993
Bitrate: 320k/s
Size: 99.29 MB
Time: 40:40
Art: Full

1. Mother-In-Law Blues (3:15)
2. Sitting At My Window (4:34)
3. Look Now, Baby (3:27)
4. Your Love Is Like A Cancer (4:36)
5. All Your Love (3:37)
6. Cotton Picking Blues (4:41)
7. Hot Sauce (3:07)
8. How Could She Leave Me (3:42)
9. Going Home Tomorrow (3:39)
10. Now That I'm Down (6:02)

Personnel: Son SEALS - Guitars, vocals
Johnny 'Gig Moose' Walker - Organ
John Riley - Bass
Charles L. Caldwell - Drums

Notes: It all started with a phone call from Wesley Race, who was at the Flamingo Club on Chicago's South Side, to Alligator Records owner Bruce Iglauer. Race was raving about a new find, a young guitarist named Son Seals. He held the phone in the direction of the bandstand, so Iglauer could get an on-site report. It didn't take long for Iglauer to scramble into action. Alligator issued Seals' eponymous debut album in 1973, which was followed by six more.

The Chicago mainstay's debut album was a rough, gruff, no-nonsense affair typified by the decidedly unsentimental track "Your Love Is like a Cancer." Seals wasn't all that far removed from his southern roots at this point, and his slashing guitar work sports a strikingly raw feel on his originals "Look Now, Baby," "Cotton Picking Blues," and "Hot Sauce" (the latter a blistering instrumental that sounds a bit like the theme from Batman played sideways).

                                                      The Son Seals Blues Band
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