Muddy Waters' 1958 UK tour info request

[mitchfit]

was disgusting the possibility that tour couldda been [at least part of] the driving force behind Townshend/Sullivan/Blackmore urging Jim Marshall to create his higher gain version of the old Fender Bassman circuit at another forum.

same theory based on the Jimmy Rogers "cranked" signature tone on the circa '50's Chess Records label while he was still with Muddy's band.

is this pet theory all wet? were there indigenous recording artists in the UK who played with the dirty edge to their axe/amp sound who paved this road beforehand?

mitchfit

[Michael Messer]

Hi Mitchfit,

There is no doubt in my mind that Muddy's 1958 UK tour with Chris Barber's Jazz Band was a pivotal moment in British music history. We do know that many of the 1960s legendary British musicians saw Muddy on that tour. It was certainly the first time anyone had seen electric Blues slide guitar being played over here. Electric Hawaiian guitar had been played here for 20 years, but NOT electric Blues. I have the album of that tour and Muddy's guitar sounded relatively clean by today's standards; he played four songs featuring his electric guitar - Honey Bee, Long Distance Call, I Canʼt Be Satisfied and Louisiana Blues. I would imagine that in 1958 Muddy's Telecaster through a clean sounding British amp, or maybe just through a PA system, in context being heard alongside Chris Barber's Trad Jazz sound and singer, Ottilie Patterson, that to a British audience Muddy's guitar would have sounded fierce, loud and filthy! It could well have indirectly influenced Jim Marshall.

Have you seen the documentary about Marshall amps? In was on British TV recently. I forget what it's called, but it is great film.

Shine On
Michael

[bod]

Feb 17, 2015 12:18:00 GMT Michael Messer said:

....

Have you seen the documentary about Marshall amps? In was on British TV recently. I forget what it's called, but it is great film.

Shine On
Michael

Play it Loud?

[blueshome]

See a Marshall amp on stage and I know it's not a blues gig.

[Michael Messer]

Shine On
Michael

[mitchfit]

BELOW COPIED FROM ABOVE MENTIONED THREAD:

Marshall had the good sense to listen to the likes of Windmill Pete, Too-Tall Sullivan and Ritchie "Smoxon" DeWater. they wanted more volume, and whether they knew it at that time or not, they wanted more distortion. he had to have his engineer tweak the bassman circuit 6 times before the desired post toasties levels were finally obtained.

i wonder if the pushed amp sound demand in the UK wasn't a byproduct of the Muddy Waters invasion in 1958. Jimmy Rogers liked to run his little Gibson amps, and later on little Fender amps near the ratty edge. listen to the old Chess Records label recordings from the 50's Chicago blues era. Jimmy likely used P90 equipped Gibson hollow bodies into cranked single ended amps for most of those sessions. they were a volatile combination that became the signature guitar sound Muddy retained even after Jimmy left the band in '56. Gibson didn't start putting humbuckers in the L-5 until 1958.

[by the '58 UK tour, Muddy was playing a tele.]



INTERVIEW WITH JIMMY:

What were the best guitar and amp to use for recording sessions back then?

..."Well, I had an old L-5. That was a good guitar. I had several nice guitars. That was way before all this fancy stuff, these little guitars come out – Les Pauls and all that stuff...

Did you use an L-5 in the studio when you were cutting your own records for Chess?

"Yeah, I did that. I used it in the studios a lot until it got kind of bad, and then I had to put it in the shop and get it repaired. You couldn’t fix ’em around Chicago. You had to send it to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Send it off, and you might get it back and you might not. Mm hmm."

What were the best kind of amps to use?

"Gibson, I would say. That was my first one and second one. I had a lot of different amps. After later years they started making Fender, and then I got hold to one of those tweed Fenders."



Leo did understand the desire for more volume, the circa '52 bassman was a only 26 watt circuit. a decade later, the 1962 fixed bias bassman was reported to make 50 watts. by late 1960, he even started selling bassman heads.

well before Marshall did.

what he never seemed able to embrace was a growing fondness among rockers for distortion/clipping.

just not his vision of what an electric guitar should sound like.

I DID FIND QUITE A FEW PICS OF MUDDY WITH HIS TELE FROM THAT TOUR, MOSTLY OFF STAGE SHOTS.
AS SUCH, THE ACTUAL STAGE AMP/P.A. SYSTEM WOULD BE THE DECIDING FACTOR, AS SUGGESTED BY MM.

IT WOULD TAKE A CONSIDERABLY MORE POWERFUL AMP TO PUSH THE SOLID BODY TELE SIGNAL THAN A
TRUE HOLLOW BODY L-5 WITH P90'S.

MITCHFIT

[snakehips]

Hi there !

It's been a while since I listened closely to the 1958 recordings but from memory, I think slide on a Telecaster, on the bridge pickup, high up the neck it going to sound like it's screaming ! And to 1958 Britain, it probably sounded new and cool and raunchy (I am imagining !)l and perhaps scary !!!

I think though it is risky talking about guitars and amps used in earlier recordings - as much of it can be based on assumption and then taken as fact soon after.

Jimmy Rodgers circa 1950's Chess Records recordings while with Muddy Waters ?

That's quite a wide timescale range - in a period when much was changing - guitar wise, pickup wise and amp wise.

I'm no expert in the amps In this stated wide timescale, but I would imagine that things were changing fast, and the ability of musicians to remember exactly what gear they were using for any particular recording, on a particular year could be tricky and/or potentially unreliable, many decades later. Some may have used the same gear for many years, and only used their own, so it might be easy to remember what was used. Some may have used whatever pawn-shop special they had from one minute to the next. Some may have used whatever amp was available in the studio instead of bringing their own. Which, and when ?
I know that it was Jimmy Rodgers who recommended to Muddy to electrify his acoustic with a Dearmond add-on pickup. I am partly assuming this happened by 1946 as Muddy was electrified on recordings by then. I am partly assuming that Jimmy Rodgers had done the same with his acoustic - but who knows when he switched to a P90 equipped electric guitar or whatever ??? The Dearmond add-on pickups for electric guitar - namely the FHC pickup (available from the late 1930's) and the Rhythm Chief Model 1000 pickup (available from 1948) is what their guitars are pictured with, in early photos. They have a P90 type fat sound to them that also lends themselves to grungy distortion on amps working flat out (fairly common I'd think on those small valve amps cranked up to the max, I suggest for volume, and not distortion ). It is difficult to determine when both these Dearmond pickups were used until, by Muddy and Jimmy Rodgers, to then be replaced with "modern" electric guitars. It seems Jimmy Rodgers may have switched to a "proper" electric guitar before Muddy - but when exactly ? Does any one know for sure ?
Muddy Waters had a Dearmond FHC pickup on his Gretsch Synchromatic and I hear the sound of that pickup on his Aristocrat/Chess recordings up until sometime in 1952, when he then used (as pictured with) a Dearmond Rhythm Chief Model 1000 pickup, with a large bodied fancy Kay archtop, using it from the second half of his 1952 recordings (as far as I can tell, going by the tone, sustain amd break-up/crunch tone - that I am very familiar with, owning several of both types of these pickups myself).
What is not clear is WHEN Muddy, and Jimmy Rodgers too, switched to "electric guitars" (ones with built-in pickups - P90 or otherwise, solidbody or otherwise) - because I can't tell so much when the sound changes, as his mid 1950's stuff features more a full band sound, leaving the guitar(s) less clear/obvious.

What I am getting at, is that some of the guitar sounds / "cranked tone" attributed to Jimmy Rodgers' "famed" "circa 1950's" tone may actually come from the pickups/guitars, instead of / or as much as any fabled amp.

[blueshome]

Re the Marshall pic - touche. Although I'm sure that was a house amp.

I seriously doubt i was the visit by Muddy that led to interest in loud amps in the uk. Blues was a minority interest then. There had already been visits by rock and rollers and there were records around with loud and distorted guitar sounds. Marshall was trying to produce an improved version of a Fender, the call for volume and distortion came in the mid/late sixties.

[Michael Messer]

I have never met a recording artist/musician who wasn't very serious about their equipment. I agree that the sound we hear on a recording could be attributed to many things, but people tend to forget that analogue recording equipment also colours the sound and not all distortion comes from the guitar or amplifier. Maybe because there are less people experienced in this area. Microphone distortion, tape and tube distortion from the board...etc. What I disagree with is the comment that after a few decades it all gets a bit hazy in the memory! Having clocked up a few decades and made quite a lot of recordings, I can tell you that I remember every guitar and amp that I have used on my recordings.

Shine On
Michael

[Michael Messer]

Phil, it was a house amp at a festival and while I did used to like real Marshalls (100 watt stacks) in the 70s when I played loud, this thing was TERRIBLE!!! I really fought to get a sound that I could work with. I am very fussy about my choice of amps and really only like to use my little tube Nationals and hand made amps, but when I travel to gigs by air and use house amps I am easy because I can pretty much always get a sound I can work with. I do believe it is in the playing, not in the tools. But that little Marshall monster was a devil to work with, it really didn't do what I wanted at all. I would say that of all the amps I have used at festivals in recent years, that was by far the worst.

Shine On
Michael

[mitchfit]

sorry about large time lapse since this began.

truth is my plate has been pretty full this week at work. you know, the only 4 letter slang word that starts with "w". would be working even today, but developed gluteous glaucoma....couldn't see my buttocks going there today.

thank you for the above input from all.

found myself with the luxury of minutes to squander freely today, and located the below. this, and postings above kinda blow my pet theory outta the water.

below from:

www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2008/mar/17/muddysbluesdidntrockus

Muddy's blues didn't rock us
Previously unreleased recordings of the electric blues landing in Manchester shatter the myth that Muddy Waters shocked little old England

Owen Adams

Monday 17 March 2008 06.00 EDT


It was a seminal moment in British rock and blues history when Muddy Waters first toured in 1958, but not because his "screaming" electric guitar horrified the staid, malnourished audience.

Apparently, each time Muddy touched the knobs on his electric instrument, the volume got louder, forcing one critic further back in the audience until he was out of the door. The Chicago bluesman, humbled by James Asman's chastising review, told Melody Maker: "Now I know that the people in England like soft guitar and old blues, next time I come I'll learn some old songs first."

But now we know this is a load of hokum: shocking new proof has emerged that Muddy wasn't, in fact, all that shocking. To date, one man alone has railed against the prevailing myth that British audiences were blown away in horror by his electric blast - perpetuated in interviews by Muddy himself.

Chris Barber ought to know how loud or quiet he was: he brought Muddy and pianist Otis Spann over here and accompanied him with his band. And that he played electric was no surprise, at least not to Paul Oliver who wrote the programme notes.

The truth may not be as alluring, but a triple-CD set of previously unreleased live recordings from Manchester's Free Trade Hall featuring American guests with the Chris Barber Jazz Band has Muddy's guitar sounding distinctly, er, muddy: it can hardly be heard over Spann's boogie-woogie triplets and the ecstatic Dixieland jazz of the band. And unlike the infamous 1966 incident at that venue, there wasn't a Judas shout to be heard or even a rumble of disapproval from the crowd.

Muddy appears on the second disc of this chronologically organised historical document. The first volume shows Sister Rosetta Tharpe had already plugged in her guitar on British stages in 1957 and you can hear it ringing as clear as a battered bell as she goes solo for Rock Me (in which her enraptured, soulful self almost seems to be asking for sexual favours from Jesus). And is the audience's embarrassed-sounding laughter during This Train provoked by the gospel-singer slugging great draughts of whiskey mid-song and gyrating, which she was prone to doing?

Her duets with the sorely underrated Irish blues singer Ottilie Patterson along with Barber's exuberant band dispel the notion that Brits didn't have what it took to get into the spirit of the blues until the Rolling Stones came along.

Britain's only first-hand experience of bluesmen until the start of this amazing Barber chronicle was from acoustic blues tours by Josh White, Lonnie Johnson and Big Bill Broonzy from 1950 onwards. Less well documented is that, although the masses of skifflers didn't amp up their DIY appropriations of Leadbelly, electric blues arrived as early as 1955 with the formation of the London Blues & Barrelhouse Club at Soho's Roundhouse pub. Club founders, Hofner-wielding Alexis Korner and metal-worker and harp-player Cyril Davies had recorded an electric set and released a run of 100 Blues At The Roundhouse LPs on Doug Dobell's 77 indie label in 1957. The liner notes applaud the players for playing "Negro blues not merely with competence but also with sympathy and understanding".

The Manchester audiences may sit in a reverent hush when Barber makes his awkward, overlong introductions, but they become noticeably fired up as each show progresses. The experience turned Muddy Waters and Rosetta Tharpe into Anglophiles and regular visitors - they'd gained major acceptance by the time the Blues & Gospel Train, broadcast from Manchester, hit TV screens in 1963.

Though Muddy Waters might have played softly, his impact was sufficiently loud to reverberate through the annals of rock for the next 50 years. His enduring popularity in Britain resurrected his faltering career in the 60s when the figureheads of the British Invasion alerted white America to what it had missed.

These recordings put the myth to rest that Brits were backward and not ready to rock in the 50s, from the perspective of both the musicians and the audiences. The transatlantic exchanges represent the cornerstone of rock music, the font from which the Stones, Hendrix and Led Zeppelin owe their existence. Another piece of the jigsaw has been found, and it's a crucial one.

mitchfit

[Michael Messer]

Here are recordings from that show. Whatever is said, it was the first time that British audiences had seen anyone playing electric blues slide guitar. While it doesn't quite have the sound of a Chess recording and it is not well recorded at all, Muddy's guitar sounds pretty audible to me.







Shine On
Michael

[mitchfit]

Michael,

thanks for posting. took me a while to go you-tubing on "roku". some sort of web based internet access through the TV, not sure how all of this works.

for the most part, digitally illiterate here.

first pushed lick in "Rollin' Stone" took my ears back to Jimi playing "Voodoo Chile" in sections where the volume knob on his stratoblaster is rolled back. same according to urban legend was played through a domestically tweaked Bassman.

[Fender based clone of a Marshall???]

:-)

perhaps i scrapped the idea without due process...

thanks again,
mitchfit