Live on Maxwell Street 1964
Robert Nighthawk's slide guitar was revered by the likes ofMuddy WatersandB.B. King. It's easy to hear why on this raw, lively, and relaxed recording of Nighthawk and a few of his cronies, including harmonica aceCarey Bell, playing outdoors at Chicago's famed Maxwell Street Market. It's the kind of setting Nighthawk loved (for more of the music recorded there, also check out the three-CD setAnd This Is Maxwell Street, featuring Nighthawk and other great artists). Surely, he would have been more famous if he hadn't preferred the wandering minstrel's life, juke joints, and the streets over studios. Nonetheless, Nighthawk, who split his time between Chicago and Mississippi, took slide guitar uptown. He polished the jagged phrases of the Delta bluesmen into flowing, elaborate melodies he sometimes conceived as complete 12-bar solos, as in the elegant medley of his signatures "Anna Lee" and "Sweet Black Angel." But the bottom line is that Nighthawk was killer on any blues. He sings with rugged intensity on the murderous "Cheating and Lying Blues," and his dirty chords and deft single-note licks pile a mountain of gravel over 13 numbers (plus a brief interview). This reissue features 5 tunes not on the original, including a vocal turn by another undervalued giant,J.B. Lenoir, on "Mama, Talk to Your Daughter."--Ted Drozdowski