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Big Jack Johnson – The Oil Man

13,50 9,68

SKU: Earwig 4910 Categories: , Tag:

Description

This LP marked Big Jack Johnson’s first album without the Jelly Roll Kings and his debut as a songwriter. It got rave reviews in many publications, including Billboard and Rolling Stone. It established him as one of the greatest electric blues guitarists after the classic period of 1950s and ‘60s Chicago blues, and enabled him to tour across the USA and internationally.
Johnson's fat, reverb-drenched guitar tone and convincing vocals make for a potent combination on such classics as Catfish and How Many More Years, and even help to compensate for such obviously derivative songs as I'm Gonna Give Up Disco (a thinly disguised rewrite of Jr. Parker's Mystery Train). Also worth hearing are Johnson's delightfully distinctive treatments of Steel Guitar Rag, and oddly enough, Tom Dooley.    - The Washington Post

The band latches onto some irresistable grooves that are custom made for dancing (roll up the rugs) and Johnson's guitar has a big, fat sound that makes you want to swing and sweat. Catfish, with its subtle references to Jimi Hendrix and John Lee Hooker,... ought to attract those fans of Stevie Ray Vaughn and George Thorogood if they can handle a lot more meat and a lot less sizzle. - Jazz Times

Track Listing:
1. Oil Man - 3:52   2. Killing Floor - 3:26   3. Tom Dooley - 2:36   4. Catfish Blues - 7:06   5. How Many More Years - 3:42   6. Too Many Drivers - 2:48   7. Driving Wheel - 3:14   8. I'm Gonna Give up Disco and Go Back to the Blues - 4:26   9. Part Time Love - 5:55   10. Steel Guitar Rag (Going Bass Fishing) - 2:44   11. You Can Have My Woman - 2:24

Reviews:

1. AllMusic - Bill Dahl
With his barbed-wire guitar work and hearty vocal on a marathon rendition of "Catfish Blues," Johnson hauls the time-honored Delta tradition into contemporary blues. The entire album is an eminently solid, doggedly down-home affair, though nothing else quite measures up to the powerhouse attack of that one vicious workout. 

Artist Biography - Bill Dahl 
Contemporary Mississippi blues didn't get any nastier than in Big Jack Johnson's capable hands. The ex-oil truck driver's axe cut like a rusty machete, his rough-hewn vocals a siren call to Delta passion. But he was a surprisingly versatile songwriter; Daddy, When Is Mama Comin' Home, his ambitious 1990 set for Earwig, found him tackling issues as varied as AIDS, wife abuse, and Chinese blues musicians in front of slick, horn-leavened arrangements.
Big Jack Johnson was a chip off the old block musically. His dad was a local musician playing both blues and country ditties at local functions; by the time he was 13 years old, Johnson was sitting in on guitar with his dad's band. At age 18, Johnson was following B.B. King's electrified lead. His big break came when he sat in with bluesmen Frank Frost and Sam Carr at the Savoy Theater in Clarksdale. The symmetry among the trio members was such that they were seldom apart for the next 15 years, recording for Philips International and Jewel with Frost, the bandleader.
Chicago blues aficionado Michael Frank was so mesmerized by the trio's intensity when he heard them playing in 1975 at Johnson's Mississippi bar, the Black Fox, that Frank Frost eventually formed Earwig just to capture their steamy repertoire. The resulting album, Rockin' the Juke Joint Down, came out in 1979 (as by the Jelly Roll Kings) and marked Johnson's first recordings as a singer. Johnson's subsequent 1987 album for Earwig, The Oil Man, still ranks as one of his most intense and moving, sporting a hair-raising rendition of "Catfish Blues."
The '90s were good to Johnson. In addition to Daddy, When Is Mama Comin' Home, he released a live record and two studio albums -- 1996's We Got to Stop This Killin' and 1998's All the Way Back. He also appeared in the acclaimed film documentary Deep Blues and on its resulting soundtrack, returning in 2000 with Roots Stew. The new millennium saw Johnson continuing as an active performer and recording artist, collaborating with Kim Wilson on 2002's The Memphis Barbecue Sessions and releasing Katrina, his "tribute to the land, people, and spirit of Mississippi," in 2009. Sadly, Big Jack Johnson was in ill health as the decade drew to a close and the 2010s began, and he died at age 70 in a Memphis hospital on March 14, 2011.

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