Features Disc of the day
Jimmy Rogers
Chicago Bound
(Chess/MCA 1970)
He'd rather be sloppy drunk than anything he know
Not to be confused with Jimmy Rodgers the father of country music, Jimmy without a 'd' is one of the forgotten heroes of Chicago blues, a killer rhythm guitarist with Muddy Waters' Headhunters and a slurry-smooth blues vocalist in his own right, adept at every shade of urban blues and R&B, from wine-buzzed come-ons (You're The One) to lit-up liquor-stomps (the peerless Sloppy Drunk, covered by everyone from BB King and Little Walter to The Black Crowes and ZZ Top). Backed on this collection by his own variation of Waters' Headhunters (Little Walter on harmonica, Otis Spann on piano, Willie Dixon on bass, Elgin Evans on drums and Waters himself on guitar), Rogers is all about the rhythm, and his sides betray a sophistication (barroom vocal harmonies and twin-guitar lines interlocking with Eddie Ware's moody boogie piano) that the blues copyists of this world will be forever ignorant of. Rogers effectively retired from music in the 1960s, running a clothing store that burned down in the rioting that followed Martin Luther King's assassination. He returned to the studio in 1972 to cut an album for Leon Russell's Shelter label in 1972 but this is the one to track down and, crazily, the CD currently goes for nearly £40 on Amazon. If ever a blues album needed a remastered reissue with extra tracks, it's this one.
Andrew Male
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 25/02/2009
Further Listening
Muddy Waters – At Newport (Chess, 1960)
Little Walter – The Best (Chess, 1958)
Otis Spann – Is The Blues (Candid, 1960)
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