BUKKA WHITE: 1963 ISN'T 1962 (1963/1994)
1) Streamline Special; 2)
Drunken Leroy Blues; 3) Fixin' To Die; 4) Midnight Twister; 5) Aberdeen Blues;
6) Vaseline Head Woman; 7) Jump; 8) Jack O'Diamonds; 9) Chi Chi Boogie; 10)
1963 Isn't 1962; 11) Boogie 'Til Dubuque; 12) Driftin' And Driftin'; 13)
Corinna Corinna.
Not released officially until 1994, this
little-known recording might actually be the best post-war slice of Booker T.
to be found on the digital circuit. The reason why it took so long to see the
light of day is technical — this is a relatively poor quality tape recording,
with a lot of distracting hiss running through it, that John Fahey and Ed
Denson took of Bukka in the process of «rediscovering» him in November 1963,
exactly one year after Dylan had covered ʽFixin' To Dieʼ and brought the name back
to public attention.
But poor quality aside, this is the only post-war
document to capture Bukka «unprepared», in a homely environment, without any
special new strategy of studio behavior, and, consequently, without the man
trying to be like somebody else (Chicago bluesmen, for instance). Mississippi Blues, recorded soon
afterwards, would still be relatively fresh and come close to matching this
attitude — yet even there, the man was already set on «giving the people what
they want», that is, well-recorded recreations of his classic pre-war hits.
Here, as you can see from the setlist, those hits are almost nowhere to be
found — no ʽShake 'Em On Downʼ, no ʽSic 'Em Dogs Onʼ, no ʽParchman Farmʼ, just
whatever Bukka felt like playing at that particular moment.
And he felt like playing lots of different
things in free format, be it an almost epic-length version of one of his train
tales (ʽStreamline Specialʼ), interspersed with streaks of rapped quasi-autobiographic
dialog, or short stretches of boogie improvisation (ʽJumpʼ, ʽBoogie 'Til
Dubuqueʼ) that, interestingly, would not reappear on his post-1963 studio
recordings, since, apparently, dance-oriented boogie-blues was not what Bukka's
main target audience was expecting from the man. All in all, the main
distinguishing feature of 1963 Isn't
1962 is the apparent lack of reverence
for this business — Bukka was not yet fully aware of how «sacred» the new blues
fans were finding that kind of music, and his laid-back mode here might really
not have been all too appropriate for market demands circa 1963. But it's all
right now, half a century later.
Of particular interest here is the brief cover
of ʽJack O' Diamondsʼ, a song usually associated with Blind Lemon Jefferson —
Bukka gives us a rougher, faster, more rambunctious version, but still punctuated
with plenty of weeping outbursts from the slide guitar to preserve the song's
tragic outlook (but his own "Jack o' diamonds is a hard card to
play!" sounds pissed-off and frustrated next to Jefferson's almost-sobbing
delivery). Great slide moments abound on the album in general, for that matter
— weird as it is, this homemade tape gives the impression of the man really trying to prove his best on the
instrument, much more so than on his soon-to-come streak of comparatively
inferior studio recordings. And his will to improvise and create is most amply
illustrated by the title of the title track, even if the tune itself is generic
12-bar stuff.
So, if you can stand a little hiss and crackle,
1963 Isn't 1962 might be your best
bet for a post-war companion to Bukka's pre-war recordings. The general rule
holds here: as long as all those old faded «stars» of a goneby era were content
with staying what they were, their recordings were full of genuine spirit —
when, on the other hand, they were trying to «match the expectations of the
times» or anything like that, things immediately began going sour. This one is
quite sweet, by that standard, and gets a respectable thumbs up.
Check "1963 Isn't 1962" (CD) on Amazon
Check "1963 Isn't 1962" (MP3) on Amazon
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