MUSINGS & RAMBLINGS

Slipping it into the CD player I turned the volume half way up. A tremolo laden diamond-hard song riff by the whole band opened the first song and took me away. These days, few bands that do that particular ensemble unison with the guitar and sax and bass playing the same vamp. The Muddy Waters Band used to do that.

“Serves me right to suffer
It serves me right to be alone
It serves me right to suffer
It serves me right to be alone
You see I'm living in the memory
Of a day that has passed and gone

Every time I see a woman
You know it makes me think about mine
Every time I see a woman
You know it makes me think about mine
You see I'm living in the memory
Of a woman I've left behind

It serves me right to suffer
It serves me right to be alone
It serves me right to suffer
It serves me right to be alone
Now I'm living in the memory
Of a woman that has passed and gone
(“Memory Pain”[a.k.a. ‘Serve Me Right to Suffer’] by Percy Mayfield)

Diamond hard and filled with pain, this album is hard as nails Chicago lead guitar playing and tough understated vocals.

“This life is a hard road to travel,
But I know I got to keep on trying.
This life is a hard road to travel,
Oh, but I know I got to keep on trying.
My friends are all talking about me,
But I know I just can't pay them no mind.

They say: love don't love nobody,
now I believe this story is true.
They say: love don't love nobody,
and I believe this story is true.
All the good in the world you do,
Why does the wrong keep coming through?”

There’s nothing cute here. It’s uncompromising and tough as nails. It’s like the voice of Old Testament prophets with cutting guitar added. Dawkins is as tough on himself as others. What might have been maudlin in other hands becomes tough confessional in his hands.

On a soaring lick he sings, “Please have Mercy! …I know I done you wrong.” The “Mercy” rings in your mind. Ostensibly about love, it’s really about all ethical/moral failure and the plea for forgiveness and redemption.

The guitar is so distinctive. You always know it’s him when you hear it. Icy licks and screams from the heart. It’s West Side style all the way, and with Jimmy Dawkins there’s no hammyness in the playing, no million note runs. He has almost icy restraint in his notes and in his use of finger vibrato.

I went back to Last Record Store and the used bins. The other three CDs were gone. There were none in the new bins. I began to plot. I hunted his discography on the World Wide Web and found a French site devoted to him and got informed. Searching the Internet used and discount places and eBay on line, I found all three cheap and poorly labeled on eBay. Some smart collector beat me out on “Blisterstring” at the last minute but I was able to get “All For Business” and “Kent Shek Deez Bluz”. I had to get “Blisterstring” from “Blue Beat.”

Where “Fast Fingers” is Chicago in the late 60s and clear hard Chicago Blues, “Blisterstring” is 1970s with a more varied song selection and shows the addition of jazz and soul into the blues. Kenny Burrell’s “Chitlins Con Carne” and Little Milton’s “Feel So Bad”, as well as Little Walter’s “Blues With A Feeling” are not copies or covers at all. It’s the icy Dawkins playing and singing instead. “Welfare Line” recounts the tribulations of the industrial poor with the withdrawal of welfare in the first person. “Blisterstring" also has all-star sidemen including Jimmy (“Bar Room Preacher”) Johnson on second guitar and Sonny Thompson (all the classic Freddie King King/Federal sides) on piano. A fantastic sounding band.

“Kant Sheck Dees Bluze” is very 1980s when Jimmy was working at being a producer and talent developer as “Leric Productions.” With him on the CD are Nora Jean Wallace (now Bruso, a recent Handy Nominee) and “Professor” Eddie Lusk on keyboards. The rest of the band is again all-star with Johnny B. Gayden (Albert Collins, Staple Singers) and Billy Flynn on second guitar. This album is a more collective one, but through it all is the very emotional but icily controlled Dawkins guitar. No single song sticks out on this CD, rather the whole CD is a masterwork. An additional note: with this CD Dawkins begins his sometime practice of odd spelling.

“All For Business” is another slightly uneven masterwork, also done collectively. It’s a 1990 CD. Andrew ”Big Voice” Odom does most of the singing in a huge voice with thundering power. Otis Rush is on second guitar. Jim Conley does important sax work. Sonny Thompson is again on piano. “Moon Man” with its science fiction idea of moving to the moon to get away from Earth’s problems, Andrew Odom’s huge rendition of “Welfare Line” and the monster “Born In Poverty” are standouts. The best cuts on this CD can stand against any other modern Blues songs.

My “Jones” for Jimmy Dawkins is now back to sensible limits. Now I can wait for those used deals to just come to me out of the used bins. I’ll be watching.

“All for business,
I ain’t got no time for play
Yes, I’m all for business, Woman
I ain’t got no time for play
I say just what I mean
And I mean every word I say.”

A good biography and discography website on Jimmy Dawkins.

Another good Jimmy Dawkins website