Saturday, May 10, 2014

Remembering Little Walter

I was driving around tonight and heard some great music on the car radio. I thought it might be Little Walter. It was Sugar Ray Norcia doing Walter's Mean Old World.  Turns out there is a tribute record to Little Walter just out…it was recorded live and includes Billy Boy Arnold (a great player who was contemporary with Walter, and who doesnt lay down recording tracks too much), the great Charlie Musselwhite,  Sugar Ray, and others.   Ray is from Providence and had a band with Ronnie Earl way back, and has just gotten better and better. The cool thing about the concert/recording is that all these guys were able to just riff on Walter as homage – other nights somebody might say they were copping riffs – but the Blues Pope gave the absolution here. Little Walter would have been 80 two weeks ago, if he hadn’t been beaten up in an alley a long time ago (the 60s).Sigh. I heard this on the Holly Harris Sat Night Blues show on WUMB. She was and still is a really great DJ - was kind of in Meg Kramer's shadow in the old days of Boston Blues Radio. But her show is a great conglomeration of blues music. I know you guys are probably out painting the town on Sat nights, but if you run out of paint, check out Holly's show, which is on the Web as well as the air.


2 comments:

Jeff said...

I have to check out that recording....sounds good. Always loved Little Walter. I think Jim Haas introduced me to him...like a lot of things.

Jeff said...

I have to check out that recording....sounds good. Always loved Little Walter. I think Jim Haas introduced me to him...like a lot of things.