Big Blues

Performer: Jimmy Witherspoon
Engineer: Alex Burak
Producer: John Stedman; John Stedman
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players. Personnel: Jimmy Witherspoon (vocals, guitar); Jimmy Witherspoon; Harold "Hal" Smith (drums); Hal Singer (vocals, tenor saxophone); Jim Mullen (guitar); Peter King (alto saxophone, tenor saxophone); Mike Carr (piano, electric piano, organ); Harold Smith (drums). Audio Mixers: John Stedman; John Borthwick; Martin Atkinson. Audio Remasterer: Martin Atkinson. Liner Note Author: Bill Dahl. Recording information: Point Studio, London, England (06/1981); The Point Studio, London, England (06/1981). Photographer: Brian Smith . A CD reissue of a 1981 double LP, Big Blues is a sprawling piece of modernized electric jump blues that honestly never quite catches fire despite the best efforts of Jimmy Witherspoon and his guest star, tenor saxophonist Hal "Cornbread" Singer. Both Witherspoon and Singer play and sing with soulful grit and a relaxed ease, but the band backing them never quite comes together. One issue is that there's no bass player on the album, just keyboardist Mike Carr working a set of bass pedals with his feet � la Ray Manzarek of the Doors; this leaves drummer Harold Smith out in the cold, unable to work up the kind of in-the-pocket groove this kind of slow-cooking blues needs to get over. The overextended song lengths are no help either; one-third of these 12 songs break the seven-minute barrier, with "Whiskey Drinkin' Woman" and "Lotus Blossom" weighing in at a staggering eight and a half minutes each. Although both Witherspoon and Singer get in a few good solos, the length is simply not justified by the mostly lackadaisical performances. ~ Stewart Mason

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.

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