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Recently I was on a random MySpace page when it started playing music. Normally I hate it when this happens. However, the song had a nice start – organic drums, overdriven bass, heavy twang. Stoner metal, perhaps? Then I heard the voice: an actual bluesman. “Oh, baby, baby, please don’t leave me,” he implored, over and over again. Guitar and bass trembled in groaning unisons. I was hooked.
Baby Please Don’t Leave Me (Buddy Guy)Baby Please Don’t Leave Me (Junior Kimbrough)
To my surprise, it was Buddy Guy. I associate him with a more tart Chicago blues style. But here he was, tuned down to C, crawling through down home Mississippi sounds. I had to find out more. Turns out that he cut a record in 2001 called Sweet Tea. It paid tribute to Mississippi’s Fat Possum label, with covers of songs by Junior Kimbrough, T-Model Ford, and CeDell Davis, among others.
I was briefly into Fat Possum in the ’90s. Of its artists, Kimbrough particularly caught my ear. His songs were dark, driving, and hypnotic. They went on and on, rarely changing chords, massaging riffs into hips and feet. I would have loved to have visited his legendary juke joint. Shoulders probably shook; alcohol probably flowed; eyelids probably drooped. If you don’t know Junior Kimbrough, do yourself a favor and get Sad Days, Lonely Nights.
Not only did Guy cover Kimbrough’s “Baby Please Don’t Leave Me,” a wide stylistic detour, he made the song utterly his. In Kimbrough’s hands, on the odds-and-ends collection Meet Me in the City, the song was spidery and rambling. (Somewhere in there is a Motörhead riff.) Its lo-fi miasma is a direct precursor to American weirdo black metaller Wrnlrd. In Guy’s hands, the song cried, cajoled, threatened, and heaved. It wasn’t metal, but it was heavy. No wonder Black Sabbath was once called Earth Blues Company.
“It wasn’t metal, but it was heavy.”
As is the whole record. Have spent entire afternoons with Sweet Tea playing over and over. “I Gotta Try You Girl” is just massive.
Both the Guy album and the Kimbrough album you cite are fantastic. I stumbled onto Kimbrough by semi-accident myself; Iggy Pop took him around as the opening act on the Naughty Little Doggie tour in 1996, and I caught that show at Roseland in NYC. Kimbrough sat in a chair onstage, backed by a bassist and drummer half his age and playing what seemed like a single 45-minute song that mixed John Lee Hooker with Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys – a voodoo-like trance blues sound. I ran to the merch table immediately afterward and grabbed Sad Days, Lonely Nights. None of his other albums are as good as that one, sadly, and even the CD doesn’t really measure up to the show I saw. But it is great stuff.
Great song, thanks for the post! I need to pick this up.
That song is also used in the movie Hustle & Flow. Such a good album and song.
Blue is the original “devil’s music”. Robert Johnson, one of the founding fathers of the blues, was rumored to have sold his soul to the devil for blues fame. That was the basis for that Metalocalypse episode that had King Diamond as the blues devil. Check him out, really essential stuff.
And on a side note, Buddy Guy still performs live every now and then at his venue here in Chicago called Buddy Guy’s Legends. He’s gonna be performing a free show at the Chicago Blues Festival. I saw B.B. King last year at the same fest, his performance gave me chills like Tony Iommi would.
Wow, seeing Buddy Guy for free – I’m jealous.
I heard about that Iggy Pop opening gig for Kimbrough – nice to hear the account, pdf.
Wow! Not often does a song make me shudder like this. Heavy than most the metal I’ve heard in a long, long time. This goes on the “to buy” list.
I stumbled across this guy named Michael Powers at Terra Blues on Bleeker St. If you dig eccentric bluesmen you should check him out. Nobody knows who this dude is, but he’ll blow your goddamn mind with or without the aid of mood altering substances.
…and this is why I love this blog. Does anyone else here the massive amounts of stoner reverb here? WOW! I’m used to blues (Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, etc) sounding ‘hazy,’ but not this expansive.
Thank you, Cosmo, for your continued dedication to good music regardless of genre. You are obviously someone who isn’t a scenester, locked helplessly into one sound. Thanks again.
And I was sick hearing about your recent theft, but was refreshed to hear your take on it. I hope you’re getting back to normal.
-Tom
Wow, never heard that before, but Kimbrough’s original is insanely heavy. I’ve known guys that hate the blues, but alot of the more obscure blues was going out of it’s way. I’ve tried to tap into a sinister slow “death blues” at times based on alot of repetitition….some early blues guys did it really well.
…analyzing Kimbrough’s original, you could almost say that that sort of mood and tuning and execution could have nearly invented drone and set some sort of template for heavy metal. Seriously. The mood is that bleak and the low end droning of the notes are bang on. Buddy’s version is great.
broseph, I dug the clips of Michael Powers on his MySpace. I’ll have to catch him one day at Terra Blues. Thanks for the tip.
wow