Live At the 1972 Monterey Jazz Festival

Performer: Jimmy Witherspoon
Engineer: Don Geis
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Personnel: Jimmy Witherspoon (vocals); Robben Ford (guitar, alto saxophone); Woody Herman (clarinet); Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster (tenor saxophone); Roy Eldridge (trumpet); Earl Hines (piano); Paul Nagel (Fender Rhodes piano); Vernon Alley, Stanley Poplin (bass instrument); Mel Lewis (drums, drum); Jim Baum (drums); Jim Baum (drum). Recording information: The Monterey Jazz Festival (09/16/1972/10/02/1959). Authors: Jim Baum; Tim "T-Bone" Jackson; Jason Olaine; Robben Ford; Stanley Poplin; Paul Nagel. Arranger: Jimmy Witherspoon. In 1972 Jimmy Witherspoon blew away the Monterey Jazz Festival with a line-up helmed by blues guitar master Robben Ford. On this live recording from that performance, Ford covers an impressive emotional gamut with his fretboard that matches Spoon's slow-burning soul vocals note for note. Rarely have two giants been so ably matched and MJF LIVE 1972 captures their bond at its creative peak.

A quintessential blues shouter in the tradition of Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Witherspoon got his start like many urban blues singers, fronting for jump blues and swing bands in the 1940s. By the late '50s, Witherspoon had started collaborating with more straightforward jazz musicians such as Richard "Groove" Holmes, Earl Hines, and Roy Eldridge. This combination of blues grit and jazz sophistication resulted in a highly influential hybrid embraced by many soul vocalists that emerged after Witherspoon. He succumbed to throat cancer in 1997 at the age of 77.

Click Here for Shipping Options and Policies

Shipping or Dimension weight in pounds: 0.5