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| What'd you know? There's Slim Harpo! |
Slim Harpo (born James Isaac Moore) made his impressive entrance into the world of blues recordings in 1957. Here was a man with an unforgettable name, a strong song, "I'm A King Bee" in a finely-crafted minimalist style, at once familiar and novel. In 1961 Slim Harpo made a crossover entry into the American Rhythm 'n' Blues and Popular Music charts when "Rainin' In My Heart" became one of those barely uncategorizable hits that just couldn't be ignored. Then came 'Baby, Scratch My Back', a soulful rhythmic number that led to world tours.
The story of Slim Harpo and his
music is among the most fascinating in all blues and Rhythm 'n' Blues.
Harpo's music had timeless and mellow qualities that made his sound both
authentic and accessible. By many benchmarks he was a success, and for
periods in his life he was in the spotlight, yet little, really, is
known of him beyond his fading circle of musicians, friends, and family
in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Born in 1924, he was among the last of the
original down-home bluesmen, but also one of the first to register hits
in the popular music charts.
Harpo lived, worked, and performed most of his life in Louisiana,
but he was highly regarded in the rock music circles of New York and Los Angeles
when he did appear there in his last few years. Apparently an unassuming
and calm man, he nevertheless developed a very polished and slick stage
appearance. He died at the age of forty-five, leaving behind one of the
most consistently good and coherent bodies of blues recordings.
Slim made music that was 'pure' blues in a number of forms but also borrowed
from and wandered into soul and country styles without losing face. It's easy to listen to, easy to love, but real. It has an underlying
intensity that continues to make it appealing to generations of
performers who have recorded Harpo's songs down the years.
Slim
Harpo's songs were recorded in Crowley, Louisiana by pioneering record
man J. D. Miller, among others, and issued on Nashville's Excello label. Down the years his songs have been covered by artists as diverse as the
Rolling Stones, Otis Redding, the Grateful Dead and Hank Williams Jr. His sound and style is at the forefront of the music that became known
as 'swamp blues' or 'swamp pop.' Also, when Muddy Waters' records one of your songs, and then titles the album after your song, you know you're doing something right, as Muddy did with Slim's "King Bee".
Buzzin' The Blues - The Complete Slim Harpo, is a 5CD set from Bear Family Records label, and was honored with the 'Blues Music Award 2016' as 'Best Historical Album of the Year'.
CDs 1 and 2 have all of Slim's Excello label 45s and original album tracks.
CDs 3 and 4 have all the recordings unissued in Slim's lifetime and all the alternative takes of issued songs.
CD 5 features a live recording made in 1961, one of the very earliest to capture an original and important Blues artist in their prime.
For the freeload, tell us what are some of your favorite musical subgenres.
I used to think Alan Wilson of Canned Heat was trying to sound like Slim Harpo. But I guess they both just sounded like that.
ReplyDeleteHard to know what is a sub genre and what isn't but I'll give it a go:
ReplyDeleteFreakbeat, Pop-Psych, Sunshine Pop, Mod, Motown, Stax, Mod Revival, Paisley Pop, Merseybeat, Philly Sound
I like Whaling songs as a distinct sub-genre of Sea Shanties. And Funk, Ska, NOLA, Cosmic Cowboy, Cuban, Garage... There's really only three types of music - The Dead, other stuff I like, and everthing else. German opera and Frank Sinatra go in the last bucket.
ReplyDeleteAugust, you can combine your love of sea shanties and NOLA music, and listen to the Valparaiso Men's Chorus' album, The Straits of St. Claude, featuring your's truly on a few of the chorus verses. On most streaming services, and I think I have a digital copy stored somewhere that I could post if anyone is interested.
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ReplyDeleteI love Slim Harpo. I also love discussions (and arguments) about subgenres and microgenres. They illustrate the difficulty of describing sound with words.
DeleteHeavy metal subgenres are especially interesting. I could follow the early divisions between (say) hair metal and thrash metal, or stoner metal vs. death metal. But then there was doom, black metal, sludge... and now things are labeled "technical death metal" or "blackened crust grind". I don't listen to much of it, but it's fun to read about. They even had to invent a word (djent) to describe one of these microgenres.
Hip hop subgenres are also interesting. After visiting one website and clicking on a few of my favorite artists and albums, I learned that "boom bap" is my subgenre of choice.
I still like Soul Coughing, their music was described as 'slacker jazz'!
ReplyDelete'Deep Slacker Jazz'
DeleteI used to see them at The Knitting Factory, just down the street from my building (a converted button factory).
Wow! You keep on impressing me!!
DeleteI guess Bossa Nova is a sub genre of jazz, regradless, its bossa nova.
ReplyDeleteRocksteady
ReplyDeleteOnly a couple of years or so and a few hundred singles at most I guess but the rhythms provided the basis for so much reggae and dancehall - even hip hop if you draw a line from U Roy through Kool Herc to New York
My favorites are: Bebop and Hard bop for Jazz. Delta and Chicago for Blues. Blues Rock for Rock.
ReplyDeleteI'm hard pressed to name it, but the particular blues style Harpo traded in is one I love. Somehow "country blues" doesn't get it though there are clearly country elements. But like Jimmy Reed and a handful of other electric bluesmen, it's a style bathed in mellowness and founded on irresistible grooves propelled by a shuffle beat.
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ReplyDeletehttps://we.tl/t-xUbnQLN4e0
British Folk in Winter; American Folk in summer.
ReplyDeleteStax and other Southern Soul ahead of Motown (and I love Motown). The slicker soul is, the less I like it.
My favorite country is what has in recent years been called Country-Funk or Country-Soul (the Seventies kind, not that pop stuff that gets played currently).
There are a few subgenres I've found myself chasing songs for over the last few decades.
ReplyDeleteEarly punk/wave, which I label KBD (after an influential series of compilations, analogous to the Nuggets series for 60s garage) or 'old new guard' (to denote its break from prevailing rock, albeit decades ago at this point; hence the 'old' in the title). This was before punk was separated from new wave and before it committed to an orthodoxy of sound; there was a lot of 'throw it against the wall and see what sticks' that I find in common with the other subgenres listed below.
Early ska/bluebeat/rocksteady. Trojan has been wonderful in making seeking pre-reggae viable, and, as with KBD, I love the open spirit of a bunch of, essentially, kids trying to figure out what works. You can hear the influence of New Orleans radio reaching the Caribbean in, say, the rhythm of Wilbert Harrison's 'Kansas City' morphing into Millie Small's 1964 'My Boy Lollipop'.
1960s garage. In my book, this includes freakbeat and psychepop and I might go thru 50 songs before I find one that stands out -- as with the other subgenres already noted -- but dang it is a wonderful thing to (again) hear some young'uns jumping in and seeing what they can do.
I was hooked on Slim Harpo the first time I heard 'Scratch My Back' decades ago, and have quite a bit of his stuff, but I shore don't have a 5-CD collection so I'm very much looking forward to this!
C in California
Symphonic Rock - Synth-Pop
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