BLUES REVIEWS... |
Master Bluesman Jody Williams Reprises His Craft at the Hardware House |
 Jody Williams, Photo Courtesy of Evidence Music |
| This Saturday evening in November I headed off in my turnpike cruiser
for the ninety minute drive to a Blues concert. My destination was Kaper’s
True Value hardware store, known to Blues fans as Hardware House in Watseka,
Illinois. At first sight, perhaps this is a strange place to see a master
Bluesman reprise his craft, but on reflection not so strange at all. This
was the twelfth concert in the Wooden Boxes and Steel Strings Concert
Series hosted by the eponymous Burt Kaper, and promoted and emceed by
James Walker, Watseka Blues fan and BluesWax contributing editor.
By now the story of Jody Williams is becoming well
known. He and Bo Diddley were playing street corners
in Chicago by 1951. By the mid-fifties Jody was a highly regarded session
musician who played on some of Bo Diddley’s earliest
hits, who also played along with Hubert Sumlin in Howlin
Wolf’s band. A series of exploitations of Jody’s
musicianship led him to become disillusioned and abandon the Blues in
the 1960s. As Jody puts it, “Red Lightning,” his 1962 Gibson
345 guitar, laid under the bed for thirty years. He worked as a technical
engineer for Xerox, retired, and in 1997 was coaxed into attending a
Blues club by producer and bluesologist Dick Shurman
(a Hardware House audience member this night). Gigs for Jody followed
in 2000 and 2001 and his CD Return of a Legend (BluesWax Rating: 8),
produced by Shurman, was released this year. About a month before the
concert, I had asked James Walker what style Jody played, and he hadn’t
really answered me very clearly. The reason was, I think, because Jody
has his own unique and distinctive style of Blues guitar. |
 Jody Williams' Return of a Legend Click Image for More Info |
| Two sets were played and each set opened and closed with Jody’s composition “Lucky Lou.” “Lucky Lou” has something of an Otis Rush sound, but the case can be made that Otis Rush has a Jody Williams sound at times. James Walker has referred to Jody Williams as the missing link in Chicago Blues, and Jody spans Blues guitar from T-Bone Walker, with whom he has shared a stage, and B.B. King (both formative influences cited by Jody) to the present day. Jody played a mixture of originals and Blues standards, including some T-Bone Walker songs, in two one-hour sets. Many of the originals such as “Lucky Lou,” “Lifelong Lover,” “She Found a Fool and Bumped His Head,” “Wham Bam Thank You Man” and “Henpecked and Happy” are to be found on the CD, and several have wry and humorous lyrics. Jody was backed by the very tight Blue Four, consisting of James on rhythm guitar, Patrick Rynn on bass, Willie Hayes on drums and Dona Oxford on keys. Chris James is a California prodigy who sports an impressive resume of his own, having played with a who’s who of Chicago Bluesmen. The Blue Four band is to be found at Kingston Mines on Tuesday nights, and they are the C-Notes for harpman Rob Stone. One of the highlights of the evening was Jody and Chris, on his Gibson Les Paul Goldtop, trading licks on Williams’ original “Moanin for Molasses.” |
 Dick Shurman and Jody Williams At a Record Release Party at Rosa's in Chicago |
| The Hardware House provides an intimate setting – I was sitting
on the third row of folding chairs back, and was perhaps twelve feet from
the band. The venue is alcohol-free, for all ages, with tickets less than
$10. Between numbers Jody talked quite extensively to the audience about
his music and life in general. A self-admitted sixty-seven-year-old senior
citizen, Jody is a fit-looking man, obviously intelligent, with a twinkle
in his eye. He told me that he decided that when he came back out he was
not going to compete with anyone. I asked him how long it took him to
get up to speed when he came back. “Not long because my music was
still here and here,” he said, tapping his head and his heart. All
he needed to do was rebuild the strength in his fingers. Things are going
well for Jody; he and the band just got back from the Netherlands, where
they sold out all of their CDs, and they leave for Japan soon.
The pilgrimage to Hardware House was well worth it. Upcoming acts in 2003 include Felix (mentor of Sean Costello) and the Cats and Nick Moss and the Flip Tops. Brian J. Wilkinson is a freelance writer based in Bloomington,
Illinois. This is his first article published in BluesWax. We hope to
see more!! |
11/2002 |
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