Post by AlanB on Nov 27, 2012 9:41:16 GMT -5
It's astonishing to think that the book Chicago Breakdown by Mike Rowe (Eddison Press, 1973) is still available at Amazon (reprint Da Capo 1979) and still regarded as the seminal work on Chicago and its blues practitioners. I've often wondered why somebody hasn't taken that work as the basis for a revision. Here follows a very typical review at the time of publication:
Chicago
Breakdown
by Mike Rowe
Eddison Press, 228 pages, illustrated, £2.50
If anyone was going to write a book specifically about the blues of Chicago, it surely had to be Mike Rowe. Most people who have followed his writings over the past ten years or so (mainly in Blues Unlimited) would have been hoping one day for some such focal point of his research. Well, it has arrived in the form of "Chicago Breakdown", a concise study of the development of what was primarily a rural music in the urban environment of Chicago.
What an apt title! It is not only the name of a blues number, but it also signifies a 'breakdown' of available information into a unified whole. It also implies the eventual deterioration of the Chicago blues as a strong regional style, its general assimilation into other musical styles, and its gradual envelopment by them 'the Decline and Fall' as Chapter Nine in the book is headed.
Any criticism of such a work would be carping and subjective. Mike Rowe has tried to be as objective in his viewpoint as possible, although when dealing with such a personal music as the blues, it is not always easy to escape subjectivity.
What really sells the book at first are the excellent photographs. You can rarely turn over a page without seeing an illustration of some kind a label, a poster, a death certificate, or more usually a relevant picture of the artist and/or period under discussion. A good percentage of these are surely appearing in print for the first time.
As appendices, there is a map showing 'Chicago Clubs in the Fifties' (find out just where Smitty's Corner, the Copa Cobana and Pepper's were), a list of 'Chicago R&B Hits 1945 59' and a list of important records.
The R&B Hit listings tell the story of Chicago blues very basically. From Big Boy Crudup's three hits in 1945-6 through Muddy's first in 1951 (Louisiana Blues), the Chess! Checker dominated years of the early fifties, to the first Jimmy Reed hit (1955). Then 1956 a bumper year, but one that saw the ever increasing presence of names such as the Flamingoes, Chuck Berry, and the Moonglows. In the end the blues had virtually disappeared from the charts, with only the surprisingly consistent commercial success of Jimmy Reed representing the down home sound (Baby What You Want Me To Do in 1960 and Bright Lights Big City in 1961). The last actual blues hit was Koko Taylor's version of Wang Dang Doodle (1966).
The text of the book follows the same pattern, on the whole. But there are 15 pages on 'The Pre War Blues' with relevant emphasis on Sonny Boy (John Lee) Williamson and the musicians mainly involved on Bluebird sessions. This is followed by 14 pages of sociology 'From Farm to Factory'. This is important to a complete understanding of the nature of Chicago blues, and the coldness of the statistics is again relieved by photographs.
From then on it's a straight forward account of the post war scene, centred mainly of course around the operations of the Chess brothers, but dealing also with the many smaller labels that were so prevalent.
A criticism has already been levelled elsewhere that there are too many facts in too little space. One does indeed miss that certain descriptive enthusiasm of, say, a Samuel Charters. But these are hard times, and Mike would no doubt have liked to have written twice as much as he did. In any case, there are more than enough verbal illustrations from the men who made the music to add living colour to the names and labels.
My own subjective criticisms concern my own attitudes to the music. For instance, unlike Mike Rowe, I enjoy some of the songs that St. Louis Jimmy wrote for Muddy. Despite an admitted sameness, records like Woman Wanted and I Am Your Doctor were still exciting and vital sounds of the times. Mike Rowe also has little time for the 'thunderous amplification' of Muddy's earlier Little Geneva and Canary Bird. I happen to think these two tracks extremely exciting (and possibly influential). However, we are all bound to find chances to pick holes in the book as I said before, the blues is a personal music, perhaps even more so than jazz.
But if you have ever been moved by Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Little Walter, Elmore James, Rice Miller, Otis Rush, Otis Spann, Jimmy Reed, Howlin' Wolf, or Junior Wells (to name the best known) you'll find plenty o interest you in this book.
Dave Illingworth April 1974
Chicago
Breakdown
by Mike Rowe
Eddison Press, 228 pages, illustrated, £2.50
If anyone was going to write a book specifically about the blues of Chicago, it surely had to be Mike Rowe. Most people who have followed his writings over the past ten years or so (mainly in Blues Unlimited) would have been hoping one day for some such focal point of his research. Well, it has arrived in the form of "Chicago Breakdown", a concise study of the development of what was primarily a rural music in the urban environment of Chicago.
What an apt title! It is not only the name of a blues number, but it also signifies a 'breakdown' of available information into a unified whole. It also implies the eventual deterioration of the Chicago blues as a strong regional style, its general assimilation into other musical styles, and its gradual envelopment by them 'the Decline and Fall' as Chapter Nine in the book is headed.
Any criticism of such a work would be carping and subjective. Mike Rowe has tried to be as objective in his viewpoint as possible, although when dealing with such a personal music as the blues, it is not always easy to escape subjectivity.
What really sells the book at first are the excellent photographs. You can rarely turn over a page without seeing an illustration of some kind a label, a poster, a death certificate, or more usually a relevant picture of the artist and/or period under discussion. A good percentage of these are surely appearing in print for the first time.
As appendices, there is a map showing 'Chicago Clubs in the Fifties' (find out just where Smitty's Corner, the Copa Cobana and Pepper's were), a list of 'Chicago R&B Hits 1945 59' and a list of important records.
The R&B Hit listings tell the story of Chicago blues very basically. From Big Boy Crudup's three hits in 1945-6 through Muddy's first in 1951 (Louisiana Blues), the Chess! Checker dominated years of the early fifties, to the first Jimmy Reed hit (1955). Then 1956 a bumper year, but one that saw the ever increasing presence of names such as the Flamingoes, Chuck Berry, and the Moonglows. In the end the blues had virtually disappeared from the charts, with only the surprisingly consistent commercial success of Jimmy Reed representing the down home sound (Baby What You Want Me To Do in 1960 and Bright Lights Big City in 1961). The last actual blues hit was Koko Taylor's version of Wang Dang Doodle (1966).
The text of the book follows the same pattern, on the whole. But there are 15 pages on 'The Pre War Blues' with relevant emphasis on Sonny Boy (John Lee) Williamson and the musicians mainly involved on Bluebird sessions. This is followed by 14 pages of sociology 'From Farm to Factory'. This is important to a complete understanding of the nature of Chicago blues, and the coldness of the statistics is again relieved by photographs.
From then on it's a straight forward account of the post war scene, centred mainly of course around the operations of the Chess brothers, but dealing also with the many smaller labels that were so prevalent.
A criticism has already been levelled elsewhere that there are too many facts in too little space. One does indeed miss that certain descriptive enthusiasm of, say, a Samuel Charters. But these are hard times, and Mike would no doubt have liked to have written twice as much as he did. In any case, there are more than enough verbal illustrations from the men who made the music to add living colour to the names and labels.
My own subjective criticisms concern my own attitudes to the music. For instance, unlike Mike Rowe, I enjoy some of the songs that St. Louis Jimmy wrote for Muddy. Despite an admitted sameness, records like Woman Wanted and I Am Your Doctor were still exciting and vital sounds of the times. Mike Rowe also has little time for the 'thunderous amplification' of Muddy's earlier Little Geneva and Canary Bird. I happen to think these two tracks extremely exciting (and possibly influential). However, we are all bound to find chances to pick holes in the book as I said before, the blues is a personal music, perhaps even more so than jazz.
But if you have ever been moved by Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Little Walter, Elmore James, Rice Miller, Otis Rush, Otis Spann, Jimmy Reed, Howlin' Wolf, or Junior Wells (to name the best known) you'll find plenty o interest you in this book.
Dave Illingworth April 1974