Tampa’s Guitar Boogie

Prisoner Of Love

All Out and Down

Just As Well Get Ready

Take A Little Walk With Me

Don’t Ever Change

I have been listening to the country blues musician Robert Johnson since the early nineteen sixties, not long after starting to learn guitar. I used to attempt playing ’Hellhound On My Trail’ back then but I was unhappy with it as I was trying to copy the original too much without having a real understanding of the rhythmic subtleties in Delta blues.

Nearly forty years later, I have finally come up with a version of it which has my own stamp on it. Incidentally, this is also a song that Mark Knopfler wanted me to come up with a version for ’The Notting Hillbillies’ project ..... sorry, it’s a bit late!

Blind Willie McTell, the Atlanta twelve string guitar genius, has been a firm favourite and a massive influence on me. I have been performing my reading of his poignant ’Statesboro’ Blues’ in recent years with ’The Rough Diamonds’ and on my solo dates.

A couple of years ago I did cut a version of this produced by the much talented Skip McDonald of ’Little Axe’ fame. Sadly the recording was completely lost when the computer at the studio in Leeds went ’caput, big style’ after I had returned home.

I did not have the heart to ask him to do it all again so I have tried to re-create it myself with something of Skip’s feel as a tribute to him. I am somewhat archaic and still record onto tape, that is as long as I can still buy fresh tape stock!

Billie Holiday, the jazz blues singer, has to be just about my favourite female vocalist ever but what I did not realise until recently was that she had composed some of her greatest recordings. ’Don’t Explain’ is a phenomenal composition, it has a chord structure unlike any other tune I have ever come across. In fact it was so different I could not figure it out at all.

Jack Gibson, my drummer from The Rough Diamonds, managed to find me the sheet music for it ..... only about fifty per cent bore any relation to Billie’s recording.

Many jazz and blues pieces were not scored by the original composers but instead, written up by a ’Tin Pan Alley’ pianist who was trying to make a quick buck.

After many late nights I eventually managed to come up with a guitar part that I feel does it justice. The version here is ’take number one’ – it’s the only time that I have been happy with my first shot at a recording session. I was trying to put too much in on the later takes and this song definitely benefits from the minimalist approach.

’Hobo Blues’ is something I have been toying with for many years, parts of it keep turning up in various instrumentals that I play on stage. I decided it was high time to condense the whole thing into a song inspired by the ’Atlanta’ school of country blues guitar players.

Those of you who are blessed with ’perfect pitch’ will probably detect that the twelve string guitar used here and on a couple of other tracks, is not always bang on in tune. On most of the recordings on this album I have just gone for a ’take’, sometimes the one I picked that had the best feel was not technically perfect. The instrument is tuned way down to around ’B’ which effectively makes it a baritone guitar and as I am ’fair laying in to it’, was prone to slight tuning variations during the recording.

My good friend, Terry Swaysland, the songwriter from Rossendale in Lancashire, recently showed me an unusual ’C’ tuning that runs from the bottom string E,G,C,G,C,E.

I could not make it work for me until I tried dropping the bottom string down to ’C’ which sparked off something in my head that I had heard a sound like this before.

It was a nineteen twenties record by the bottleneck guitarist, Sylvester Weaver, ’Soft Steel Piston’ which I had never been able to figure out.

As soon as I tried it in this tuning it just played itself really, which inspired me to write ’Forever More’. It tickles me that people were using these more esoteric tunings way back then.

’Mississippi Blues’ is the only piece I play in my live shows that I have not changed over the years. The original was recorded by Alan Lomax for The Library of Congress in nineteen forty-two when he was on a field trip in the Delta region.

The performer was Willie Brown, a mysterious figure that disappeared into the mists of time. I sent a money order off to the Library of Congress in the nineteen sixties to buy a copy as it was not commercially available in record shops then.

Learning how to play this piece completely revolutionised my approach to the guitar as it opened up all kinds of possible ways to get up the dusty end of the fretboard and keep the open bass strings going at the same time.

I have included it here because I never recorded it before even though I have been playing it for over thirty-five years.

It is to me, a perfect piece of composition. I cannot think of any way that might improve on it without spoiling its haunting beauty. Also, everybody else I have seen just play it as an instrumental. Willie Brown’s original has lyrics as well which to me makes it a more finished thing.

’Tampa’s Guitar Boogie’ is based on an old recording, ’Boogie Woogie Dance’ by the great bottleneck guitarist, Tampa Red. This is also a tune I have been playing for over thirty-five years but unlike the previous track, it just keeps on evolving over the years.

Those of you who have my first album, ’The Best of Steve Phillips’ might be interested to compare this current version to the one I included on that album which was recorded live at a dance in the nineteen seventies.

’Prisoner of Love’ was a hit for Russ Columbo, a dance band singer in the nineteen thirties. As with ’Don’t Explain’, I was having difficulties with some of the jazz chord sequences. Jack Gibson, the drummer, came to my rescue yet again with the original sheet music, which filled in the gaps for me.

James Brown, the soul singer, had a hit early on in his career with a wonderfully tormented version of it.

Recently, a private recording of the blues guitarist Lonnie Johnson playing it in a New York apartment in the nineteen sixties came to light.

This definitely inspired me to have a crack at it myself and Jack suggested I ought to try a solo version for this album.

’All Out and Down’ is derived from the old traditional song, ’Red River Blues’. I particularly care for the Henry Thomas version recorded in the nineteen twenties.

He was a larger than life character from Texas who made a living by busking whilst playing guitar and panpipes at the same time, no mean feat I can tell you as I did make a failed attempt at it myself. Many people have expressed their liking for this song so I thought it would be worthwhile giving it a shot. It also belongs to a genre of folk music prevalent in the late eighteen hundreds that predates what we now think of as twelve bar blues.

Now back to the influence of Blind Willie McTell again for the spiritual song, ’Just As Well Get Ready’. I’ll let you twelve string guitar pickers into a little tip .... on his later recordings, Willie used to tune his guitar down six or seven semitones and I also think he put a high octave string on the second pair of strings. Normally these strings would be tuned in unison. The high octave string usually starts from the third pairing down to the bass end on a twelve string.

’Take A Little Walk With Me’ is a fairly recent addition to my repertoire, it’s one of those pieces that has a bass rhythm like a barrelhouse piano tune.

Robert Junior Lockwood recorded a great version of it and interestingly said in an interview that his stepfather, Robert Johnson, had written the song after his last recording session.

Finally, here’s a little song ’Don’t Ever Change’, that came to me during the latter stages of making this album. I consider myself to be a ’songster’ who occasionally writes a tune. I never try to force myself to compose but if I can hear some music going on in my head that I don’t recognise ...... I pick up my guitar and try to make some sense of it all.

Written by Steve Phillips (Dec. 2004)