Showing posts with label At Newport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label At Newport. Show all posts

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Today in Music (1960): Muddy Waters performed at Newport

At Newport

Muddy Waters

Released: November 15, 1960

Recorded: July 3, 1960

Peak: --

Sales (in millions): --

Genre: blues

Tracks:

Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.

  1. I Got My Brand on You
  2. I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man (3/13/54, #3 RB)
  3. Baby Please Don’t Go
  4. Soon Forgotten
  5. Tiger in Your Tank
  6. I Feel So Good
  7. I’ve Got My Mojo Working
  8. I’ve Got My Mojo Working, Pt. 2
  9. Goodbye Newport Blues

Rating:

4.365 out of 5.00 (average of 15 ratings)

Quotable:

“A great breakthrough moment in blues history, where the jazz audience opened its ears and embraced Chicago blues.” – Cub Koda & Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

Awards:

(Click on award to learn more).

About the Album:

This was “a great breakthrough moment in blues history.” AMG “Though his ‘50s recordings…revolutionized modern blues, it wasn’t until his raw, plugged-in steer blew up the Newport Folk Festival that whites in America gave Muddy (and the blues) proper respect.” VB “This was many white folks’ first exposure” BL “to live recorded blues.” AMG It was also significant because “the jazz audience opened its ears and embraced Chicago blues.” AMG

As “one of the earliest recordings of Waters’ electric band, Newport found the former McKinley Morganfield in needle-sharp form with his mojo working overtime.” BL That band included Otis Spann, James Cotton, and guitarist Pat Hare. AMG “Kicking off the album with a version of I’ve Got My Brand on You that positively burns the relatively tame (in comparison) studio take, Waters heads full bore through impressive versions of Hoochie Coochie Man, Big Bill Broonzy’s Feel So Good, and Tiger in Your Tank.” AMG This set “literally had ‘em dancing in the aisles by the set closer, a rippling version of Got My Mojo Working, reprised again in a short encore version.” AMG

“This album was in print almost continuously on vinyl for 20-plus years, and MCA reissued it in a fair CD version in 1986…but the real edition of this album to get is the March 2001 remastering from MCA. Transferred in high-resolution digital audio, it brings up the bass overall and the details of just about every aspect of the playing, as well as moving Muddy’s singing several layers forward in the mix, so that one gets a very vivid stage ambience.” AMG

What’s most significant, perhaps, is that this is “still pretty damn impressive some 40-plus years down the line.” AMG This is “maximum mojo for yo’ moolah.” BL The album is, in a word, “immortal.” VB

Notes:

A 2001 CD reissue added “four studio sides cut by the same group a month prior to the concert – none hold a candle to the live material, but they do fill in a few holes in Muddy’s U.S. discography. The new notes by Mary Katherine Aldin also give a much better picture of the background of the show and Muddy’s performance.” AMG

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First posted 7/3/2012; last updated 3/17/2024.

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Friday, July 7, 2006

Today in Music (1956): Duke Ellington played at the Newport jazz festival

At Newport

Duke Ellington

Recorded: July 7, 1956

Charted: June 24, 1957

Peak: 14 US

Sales (in millions): --

Genre: jazz

Tracks, Disc 1:

Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.

  1. The Star-Spangled Banner
  2. Father Norman O’Connor Introduces Duke & the Orchestra/ Duke Introduces Tune & Anderson, Jackson, & Procope
  3. Black and Tan Fantasy (5/5/28, 15 US)
  4. Duke Introduces Cook & Tune
  5. Tea for Two
  6. Duke & Band Leave Stage/ Father Norman O’Connor Talks about the Festival
  7. Take the ‘A’ Train (7/26/41, 11 US)
  8. Duke Announces Strayhorn’s A Train & Nance Duke Introduces Festival Suite, Part 1 & Hamilton
  9. Part I – Festival Junction
  10. Duke Announces Soloists; Introduces Part II
  11. Part II – Blues to Be There
  12. Duke Announces Nance & Procope; Introduces Part III
  13. Part III – Newport Up
  14. Duke Announces Hamilton, Gonsalves, & Terry/ Duke Introduces Carney & Tune
  15. Sophisticated Lady (5/27/33, 3 US)
  16. Duke Announces Grissom & Tune
  17. Day in, Day Out
  18. Duke Introduces Tune(s) and Paul Gonsalves Interludes
  19. Diminuendo in Blue/ Crescendo in Blue
  20. Announcements, Pandemonium
  21. Pause Track

Tracks, Disc 2:

Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.

  1. Duke Introduces Johnny Hodges
  2. I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good (10/11/41, 13 US)
  3. Jeep’s Blues
  4. Duke Calms Crowd, Introduces Nance & Tune
  5. Tulip or Turnip
  6. Riot Prevention
  7. Skin Deep (3/5/54, 7 UK)
  8. Mood Indigo (2/14/31, 3 US)
  9. Studio Concert [Excerpts]
  10. Father Norman O’Connor Introduces Duke Ellington/ Duke Introduces New Work, Part I, & Hamilton *
  11. Part I – Festival Junction *
  12. Duke Announces Soloists; Introduces Part II *
  13. Part II – Blues to Be There *
  14. Duke Announces Nance & Procope; Introduces Part III *
  15. Part III – Newport Up *
  16. Duke Announces Hamilton, Gonsalves, & Terry/ Pause/ Duke Introduces Johnny Hodges *
  17. I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good *
  18. Jeep’s Blues [studio] *
  19. Pause Track *
* These are the only songs from the original release; see notes.

Total Running Time: 2:09:57

The Players:

  • Duke Ellington (piano)
  • Cat Anderson, Willie Cook, Ray Nance, Clark Terry (trumpets)
  • Quentin Jackson, Lawrence Brown, John Sanders, Britt Woodman (trombones)
  • Johnny Hodges, Russell Procope, Paul Gonsalves, Harry Carney (saxophones)
  • Russell Procope, Jimmy Woode (clarinet)
  • Al Lucas (bass)
  • Sam Woodyard (drums)
  • Ray Nance, Jimmy Grissom (vocals)

Rating:

4.073 out of 5.00 (average of 15 ratings)

Quotable:

“One of the greatest live jazz festival recordings” – Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

Awards:

(Click on award to learn more).

About the Album:

“Ellington's original…Newport album was his best-selling long-player ever, and re-established him, after a two-year drought in the wake of his unsuccessful stay at Capitol, as a vitally popular jazz artist, perceived as worth courting by the major labels.” AMG

“When Duke Ellington took his orchestra to the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956, the band was in need of an uplift, some humongous event that would revitalize its image in the wake of bebop, hard bop, and so many more jazz currents.” AB

“Trouble…is that the living document of the Newport show is almost fully manufactured, recorded in a studio with crowd madness dubbed in.” AB “In keeping with Columbia’s standard operating proceedure of the day, a cut-and-paste job made up of studio re-recordings of the festival’s repertory.” AMG

“The producers revisited the Newport gig after four decades because they discovered an extant Voice of America tape – the one whose microphone Gonsalves blew his solo into, and the VOA tape catches the whole Newport set in its organic glory.” AB “The result is the first complete consideration of the actual Newport performance, as well as a complete account of the studio-generated portions of the original release.” AMG The latter “aren’t as exciting as the live renditions, but are worth hearing” AB and “make great siblings, illustrative of the live-event charm and the music industry’s dogged labors in reinventing it on record.” AB

“The highlight is an extraordinarily vivid account” AMG of the merging of “Diminuendo in Blue with set-closer Crescendo in Blue tacked on the end. Tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves got the nod from Ellington to segue from ‘Diminuendo’ to ‘Crescendo,’ and he blew doors. With one rousing 27-chorus solo, Gonsalves blew a fever into the crowd and jump-started Ellingtonia for another generation.” AB

“Alternately tender with layers of brushstroke orchestration and blazing with the band’s well-seasoned tightness, this new Newport is one for the generalist and the Ellington completist.” AB “One of the greatest live jazz festival recordings ever has gotten better.” AMG

Notes:

The original release contained only the songs marked with an asterisk (*). The above track listing reflects the 1999 reissue, Complete At Newport.

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Last updated 3/14/2024.

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Saturday, April 30, 1983

Muddy Waters died: April 30, 1983

Originally posted April 30, 2012.

McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters, was born on 4/4/1915 in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. Some sources indicate his birth year as 1913, but the bio on MuddyWaters.com cites 1915. He died on April 30, 1983.

Waters ranks second only to Robert Johnson as the top blues acts of all time. Waters was pivotal in the development of the Chicago blues style. He taught himself to play harmonica in the early 1920s and picked up guitar in the early 1930s.

Among his most significant songs are “I Feel Like Going Home” (1948), “Rollin’ Stone” (1950), “Hoochie Coochie Man” (1954), and “Got My Mojo Working” (1957). All have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The latter three and “Mannish Boy” also made the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. “Hoochie Coochie” is also in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress and made NPR’s list of the Most Important American Musical Works of the 20th Century. “Mojo” is also among the RIAA’s selections for the RIAA’s 365 songs of the 20th century.

Hoochie Coochie Man

Best of (1954), Down on Stovall’s Plantation (1966), McKinley Morganfield (aka “Muddy Waters”) (1971), The Chess Box (1972), Can’t Get No Grindin’ (1973), and The Complete Plantation Recordings (1993) are all Blues Hall of Fame inductees. In addition, Time magazine named The Anthology 1947-1972 (1947-72) one of the Top 100 Albums of All Time.

His most celebrated album is At Newport, a live album from 1960. It makes the DMDB’s lists of top 1000 albums of all time, Top 10 Blues Albums of All Time, and the top 50 live albums of all time. It also ranks as one of the 100 Greatest American Albums according to Blender magazine and one of the 100 Essential Albums of the Century according to Vibe magazine.

Awards:

Resources and Related Links:
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