December 31, 2014
Blues Avalanche Recorded Live At Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland
I find it easy to find lots of good rock, jazz and R&B albums at my local record stores. And I've done very well in stocking my pop/80s vinyl collection from a few local record shows. But the one genre I would like to get more of is blues. I have a few, but I've felt like I need a deeper collection of some really good stuff. Well, I think this double vinyl LP is just that. This is some real good blues.
The track listings are:
Album 1
1. Bo Diddley - I Hear You Knockin´
2. Bo Diddley - You Can´t Judge A Book By The Cover
3. Bo Diddley - Diddley Daddy
4. The Aces with Lafayette Leake - Early In The Morning
5. The Aces with Lafayette Leake - Baby What You Want Me To Do
6. Koko Taylor with Muddy Waters - Wang Dang Doodle
7. Koko Taylor with Muddy Waters - I Got What It Takes
Album 2
1. Lafayette Leake - Wrinkless
2. Lafayette Leake - Swiss Boogie
3. Muddy Waters - County Jail
4. Muddy Waters with T-Bone Walker - Trouble No More
5. Muddy Waters with T-Bone Walker - Got My Mojo Working
6. Muddy Waters with T-Bone Walker - (Thay Call It) Stormy Monday
7. Muddy Waters with T-Bone WalkerShe Says She Loves Me
This album was recoded live on June 16 and 17 of 1972 at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland. The Montreux Jazz Festival is a music festival held annually in early July in Montreux, Switzerland on the Lake Geneva shoreline. It is the second largest annual jazz festival in the world after Canada's Montreal International Jazz Festival. It was founded in 1967, first held at Montreux Casino, lasted for three days featured almost exclusively jazz artists. The highlights of this era were Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, Bill Evans, Soft Machine, Weather Report, The Fourth Way, Nina Simone, Jan Garbarek, and Ella Fitzgerald.
In the 1970s, the festival began broadening its scope, including blues, soul, and rock artists, such as Led Zeppelin, Santana, Van Morrison, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, Deep Purple, BB King, Chuck Berry, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Prince. Today's festival lasts about two weeks and attracts an audience of more than 200,000 people. The festival was originally held at the original Montreux Casino, which burned down in December 1971 during Frank Zappa's performance (as referenced in "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple).
The first thing that attracted me to this album was the big names: Bob Diddley, Koko Taylor, Muddy Waters, etc. And among these artists, Koko Taylor stood out. The album contains one of my favoites blues songs: Wang Dang Doodle by Koko Taylor ("Queen of the Blues"). I can't find the specific Montreux Jazz Festival from this album online but here is one from Koko in 1967. Hope you enjoy!
I love it when I come across an album, or in this case, two albums where I thoroughly enjoyed every song on both sides of both albums. Muddy Waters performing "I Got My Mojo Working" is an absolute classic. Again, YouTube doesn't have this performance online, but it does have his 1960 Newport Jazz Festival performance of it. Here it is. Again - enjoy!
The live aspect of this album is particularly nice. Makes you feel like your there when Muddy Waters asks where T-Bone Walker is. You know your listening to great artists when their live performances are great. I bought this double LP vinyl at Hello Records in Detroit, MI. The cover is in pretty rough shape, but I probably paid about $3 for it so I consider it an awesome score cause the tunes are real good!
Web Page on album
Web Page on album
Web Page on album
Web Page on Montreux Jazz Festival