Good Understanding !
The great bluesmen Willie Dixon (bass) and Peter Chapman, a.k.a. Memphis Slim (piano), were both born in Mississippi in 1915 and both moved their music to the more hospitable climate of Chicago. Since the early Fifties, Willie Dixon has been the studio kingpin of Chicago blues, having written, produced, and played bass on countless classics by Muddy Waters, Howlin¹ Wolf, Otis Rush, Koko Taylor and many others. He was working the coffeehouse circuit with pianist Memphis Slim when he cut this, his first album as a leader, in 1959. Besides his unique interpretations of « Good Understanding » and « Sittin’ & Cryin ‘ The Blues », it includes eight lesser-known compositions from Dixon¹s prolific pen. It is unlike all other albums by Dixon, as he and Slim are accompanied not by the usual crew of Chicago blues players, but by a group of New York mainstream jazzmen, including tenor saxophonist Hal Ashby and guitarist Wally Richardson. Fantastic.
Willie Dixon & Memphis Slim - Good Understanding
Willie Dixon & Memphis Slim - Sittin' And Cryin' The Blues
Comments
"Well, (the Stones) come to my house, you know, and I wouldn't let them all in the house 'cause there be too many people with 'em, you know. They had a whole LINE of limousines, a block-long of limousines, and all of them full of people and they think they gonna get in my 6-room house. And that could never happen, you know. So I took 'em all where Muddy Waters was working at The Quiet Night, it was a good big place... We got into jammin' and singin' and playin' together." (Willie Dixon)