Agh, who needs electricity anyway? Or, for that matter, even a band? After all, Robert Johnson and Blind Boy Fuller rose to the status of godheads without either stuff. Plus, John Lee Hooker and Lightnin’ Hopkins partly cemented their legacy in the absence of juice or help.
So, when John Hammond—a fellow Blues Hall of Famer—seriously scaled back operations on that San Francisco weekend in late-spring of 1973, no one flinched.
Not even “Wang Dang Doodle”—the almighty, prototypical, urban, voltage-gobbling, full-on ensemble blaster—hesitated about getting stripped down to barest bones. Arriving in even more of a manic panic than Howlin’ Wolf’s 1961 Chess blueprint called for, the song’s classic rollcall—Automatic Slim, Razor-totin’ Jim, Butcher-knife-totin’ Annie, Fast-talkin’ Fanny—machine-guns out as quickly as humanly possible to keep up with the whoosh of six fizzing strings. But now that blaster could be performed on a street corner, a porch, or the side of the road.
With nothing more than acoustic guitars (wood as well as steel), a harmonica and a wellspring of adrenaline, Hammond proceeded to shock the blues of Johnson and those four other icons (as well as a horde more) into newfound life. Without juice or help. Country blues, alive and wiggling.
Not that the future Grammy winner was averse to plugging in or teaming up. In fact, record shop bins back then housed a few Hammond LPs boasting electric bands. Vouching for that are 1964’s Big City Blues, the year after’s So Many Roads (cut with accompanists that, upon personal referral, became his good friend Bob Dylan’s electrified backup band and, after that, The Band) and ’72’s I’m Satisfied. It’s just that solo acoustic was arguably Hammond’s natural medium. Still is, all these years later. Minimalism always suited John well. Then factor in being out in front of an appreciatively cheering crowd rather than an inert pane of recording-studio glass, and the man is in seventh heaven.
That is quite plain to hear across his two-night stand at The Boarding House. Although extinct since 1980, the fabled San Fran venue throbbed on the 2nd and 3rd of June 1973, as fully and immaculately documented by You’re Doin’ Fine.
Hammond, who by that time had been well ensconced as an active headliner since the 1960s blues renaissance, is wound with energy that often plays out with a sense of exhilaration on a loud, brash, steel-bodied National guitar. Being a bottlenecker only ramps up the fireworks. So, for instance, “Hitchhiking Woman” throws sparks with every pass of the slide along the neck. At the same time, sky-piercing notes are simultaneously getting ejected from a harmonica racked around his 30-year-old neck. The kind of sky-piercing notes that would make Jimmy Reed bust his buttons. Matching the onrush, Hammond’s singing is similarly excitable: swooping high, diving low, compressing down into a slur, face contorted, eyes shut tight. And shoving everything along is the stomp of his foot, turning the stage into his personal drum.
As with Son House or Bukka White, Hammond is likewise a very physical, kinetic, percussive deliverer. A total-body flail that has got it all going on. Plus, the authenticity of his spirit never flags. As an index of Hammond’s standing within the blues community, John Lee Hooker arrives for the June 3rd show—as a member of the audience. That’s saying something.
A lot of geography gets covered each night—all while perched atop a stool on the stage. The dusty Texas flatlands yield Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Death Bells,” a rock-bottom dirge of dirges. The cottony Mississippi flatlands supply Robert Johnson’s uncharacteristically sentimental “Honeymoon Blues.” The double shot of Little Walter’s “You’re So Fine” and the slide fest that is Elmore James’ “Look on Yonder’s Wall” traces to a Chicago barroom on the West Side. Then shortly after that consecutive run, a supercharged version of Blind Boy Fuller’s “Truckin’ Little Baby” bolts out from the rolling hills of North Carolina. Back-to-back-to-back with zero hesitation or refueling.
That degree of ping-ponging keeps up throughout, as songs gurgle up endlessly from deep down within Hammond’s vast memory bank. The tang of Wolf’s “Shake For Me.” The crisp snap to Billy Boy Arnold’s “I Wish You Would.” Lil’ Son Jackson’s empty-pocketed “Gambling Blues.” Muddy’s “I Can’t Be Satisfied,” recast on a silvery resonator, arrives in the form of a hailstorm on a tin roof: pelting the room with jangling, banging, metallic sound. Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen’” remains 99% chug, saving a little extra room for a harmonica to race atop. Somehow, all the correct strings manage to get hit during the breakneck flash of “Rag Mama” and “Ride ‘Til I Die,” as if his blurred hands came equipped with GPS to pull off such split-second timing. “King Bee,” on the other hand, oozes. And what on paper could appear to be misplaced entries among a blues setlist—Chuck Berry’s “No Money Down,” Chuck Willis’ cosmopolitan “It’s Too Late, She’s Gone,” “Junco Partner,” a stimulant for New Orleans pianists like Professor Longhair and James Booker—seamlessly camouflage right in.
Yet, of the 20plus historic bluesmen-songwriters pooled here, Robert Johnson wins for having caught Hammond’s ear the most: Seven of his Delta blues infiltrate the evenings’ repertoires. Of those, when’s the last time you heard someone trot out “Malted Milk” or the fantastically miserable “Drunken Hearted Man”—other than Robert himself back in 1937? The notorious lemon-squeezing “Traveling Riverside Blues” forms familiar bedrock, along with the barely less suggestive but likewise slide-slashed “Terraplane Blues.”
At more than three hours, You’re Doin’ Fine now reigns, within an already extensive discography, as the single greatest you-are-there chronicle of the Hammond experience. Three CDs and 45 tracks are needed to cover both Saturday and Sunday nights. The exquisite hardcover booklet fills in all the details and backstories, stuffed with 60 pages of essays, including those from longtime pals Tom Waits (the opening act for these Boarding House shows) and Jorma Kaukonen (Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna). And, crucially, the sound quality puts you at arm’s length from Hammond. Owsley Stanley, better known in Grateful Dead circles as “Bear,” was not only a whiz with lysergic chemistry but a savant with the practical physics of audio recording. His electronic alchemy produced astonishingly vivid, on-site, reel-to-reel mementos. In the end, a live, in-bar pounding beats an in-studio pounding any day. And Owsley was there to prove it.
As such, You’re Doin’ Fine also serves as the bluest addition in Bear’s series of Sonic Journals—codeword for his pristine recordings which also caught, among others, the Allman Brothers and Hot Tuna to New Riders of the Purple Sage and Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen to Johnny Cash and Ali Akbar Khan live and in the act. In the highest of high fidelity, too. Take your pick—any and all of them play three feet from your face.
So, when Blind Willie McTell’s “Love Changing Blues” comes up in Sunday night’s rotation, such closeness reaps rewards. Listen to the slide sheathing Hammond’s little finger angle in on the guitar strings, shuddering them and shearing them, sending small clouds of curlicued, snowflake-delicate notes wafting in the updrafts only to settle softly to the floor. So vibrant and timeless, that stunning moment—like the whole of You’re Doin’ Fine—could just as well have unfurled last night, instead of a little over 50 years ago.
Label: Owsley Stanley Foundation
Release Date: 11/22/24
Artist Website: johnhammond.com
Label Website: owsleystanleyfoundation.org
Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski
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