WHO'S BEEN TALKING

Rip It Up, Issue 156, 1 July 1990, Page 21

WHO'S BEEN TALKING

- Rick Bryant & Bill Lake

The blues came down from the delta, travelled up the Mississippi and staked a claim in the windy city. Chicago? Yes, but Wellington as home of the blues?

Those South Side sounds produced by Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters spread around the world. To dodgy squats in Dartford where they inspired Mick, Keith and “Elmore” Jonesto form a band. And to the

living rooms of Rongotai where Rick Bryant and Bill Lake were devoted listeners of Cotton Eyed Joe. Broadcaster Arthur Pearce played the great Chess 78s, new James

Brown 45sand even interviewed the pimply Stones when they came fo thecapital. :

Hooked on the devil's music there was only one thing Bryant and Lake could do: form a band. Original Sin became Gutbucket, Mammal and the Windy City Strugglers. A whole family tree of Wellington R&B has grown since but recently Bryant and Lake reunited to record a cassette of old blues and new originals: We're in the Same Boat, Brother (Eelman/ Jayrem). The conversation began with Wellington's old R&B scene but wandered to all sorts of topics. Heavy venues like the Realm dancehall,

home of the Hataitai hoods. Ghuznee Street's notorious Sorrento coffee bar where it helped to have a screwdriver in your pocketin case a fightbroke out. Buying jeans and records off visiting seamen. Getting booed at the national folk festival for using amplifiers. Mafia ownership of record companies. Rude songs like Wyonie Harris's ‘Open Up Your Back Door'. And guppies, “the little fish you breed o feed alive to other more

exotictropical fish. They need live food otherwise they get constipation anddie.”

So it seemed appropriate to pin. the two music scholars down with a “blindfold test” — that haven for vinyl junkiesin the jazzer’s bible, Downbeat. Play a few songs and maybe they'd talk about their early influences. ..

Muddy Waters, ''m Ready'. Rick: I'd still like to do this. lt's one of his most urbane songs, almost like a Louis Jordan number.

Bill: This was the prototype fora whole lot of rock bands. The Stones, Little Feat. All those bands that tend to get some swing info what they do. The whole line-up is really the first rock band, | suppose, along with Howlin’ Wolf's band.

Lightnin’ Hopkins, Trouble in Mind'.

Bill: He was a big one for me. | learned more about how to play the guitar from him than anyone else. Rick: He was one of the first guys to getrediscovered. Folkies like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan were attracting attention to blues and R&B singers. As well as the Stones, Jagger and Richards probably did more good formore black songwriters, alot of them old and sick, than any two other white men in the world. Just by covering their songs and getting them royalties, in some cases. John Hammond, ‘Shake It For Me'. Rick: It's a Howlin Wolf song. Oddly enough, in the Original Sin, we were doing quite alot of his songs. He was a source of songs you couldn't getanywhere else. At the time | hated him as a black voice

mannerism thing, but | find him easier to take now because he's stuck with it and he clearly loves the music. Otis Rush, 'Double Trouble'. Bill (instantly): Otis Rush. Rick: Always chilling. The first time | heard'So Many Roads' ljustfelt cold all over.

Bill: We tried so hard fo do these tracks. That guitar sound, Ofis Rush has never got it again. | thinkit's the production. Those Chess productions I¥'s not only the sounds they got but they must have told these bands how to play to some extent because they can gettheminto such grooves. Elvis Presley, 'Workingona ‘Building’.

Rick: Sounds like Presley ... that's good, a bit of a revelation. We now do astraight gospel song and | don't even think aboutit. But | had astrong allergy to religion when | was a kid. I've gradually realised it's just another thing you've gotto be tolerant about. (sings) “Told Elijah, he

sentdown fire. .. sent down fire from the sky” — I like singing about Elijah sending down fire but a lot of it sets my teeth on edge. The Beatles, ‘Long Tall Sally’. Bill: John Lennonisn'tit¢ Oh, Paul McCartney. Rick: The best Little Richard imitator ever. Brilliant. | love this song. ‘Slowdown’ is the other song they do really well, thoughit's not Little Richard. This is Paul McCartney's best work. Bobby Bland, ‘Cry Cry Cry'. Rick: | know this. Bobby Bland. | only got on to him late butassoon as| found outabout him he was my main man. He was taught by C.L.Franklin, the same as Aretha was and that's whytheir styles are quite similar. Bob's the biggest under-rated talent ofthestyle. - Howlin’ Wolf, "Who's Been Talkin'.’ Bill: Wolf showed aninterestin rhythms other than the standard blues rhythms: Latin rhythms, sambas. ‘Shake It For Me'is unique, don't know anyone else who's done that. That's presumably why Lowell Georgesaid he'sthemanwho - invented rock n'roll. You can see why

B> Beetheartwas interested. His guitarist Herbert Sumlin was prety special. | reckon Robbie Robertson gotalot off his stuff. Rick: Wolf owned his land, which was really unusual. He was a deejay, like BB King, as well as a muso, which meant he heard more recordsthan a lot of people. | know somebody who saw him play and said he was very infimidating. ; Bill: Someone put on Moanin’in the Moonlightonce and | had this sudden perception thatthe Chicago

bluesmen were gangsters, real crims, Rick: They had o be pretty tough to geta gig. A hell of alot of country blues singers did time and quite alot ofthem for murder. ..

The Windy City Strugglers never daredto enterthe Sorrento coffee lounge. Neither did Howlin’ Wolf. But you can check out Bryant's “wolf” voice and Lake's bottleneck guitar on We're in the Same Boat, Brother.

CHRIS BOURKE