Barry Goldberg, Charlie Musselhite, Harvey Mandel - Chicago Anthology (Great Blues US 1966)

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Source: Japan 24-Bit Remaster (Not the Bonus Tracks)

Barry Goldberg Story: 
Beginnings. My mother sang and played piano, we used to play duets, then I heard Meade Lux Lewis on the radio and started playing boogie woogie by ear at 5 yrs old. First band was in high school, Denny Lee And The Ramblers. Mike Bloomfield had the rival band and we would compete for sweet 16 party gigs. That’s when I first met him. Influences were Meade Lux, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino. Each time period has had memorable moments, but the early blues, and rock ‘58 through ‘64 was the most fun. 

Not a business yet! Sitting in for Otis Spann, and playing with Muddy. Michael and I on the West side of Chicago, playing with Howlin’ Wolf. Playing on Charlie Musselwhite’s “Stand Back” album with Harvey Mandel, and last year’s Chicago Blues Festival Reunion with Sam Lay, Nick Gravenites, Harvey Mandel, Charlie Musselwhite, and Corky Siegel. Also San Francisco Blues Festival with Steve Miller and James Cotton. And time you play with great musicians you are influenced by them. There is a level of greatness, they bring you up to, musically,and spiritually. I miss that with Michael.

Actually when I was 5 and started playing piano, my aunt bought me a drum set, and I Muddy Waters was magical, James Cotton can really blow, nobody can shake a string like Michael Bloomfield or Otis Rush. Charlie Musselwhite, and Harvey Mandel are inspirational, I love Nick Gravenites singing, Tracy Nelson and Marcy Levy vocals, Michael Bloomfield’s intensity was unbelieveable. Steve Miller’s Texas shuffle, Buddy Miles powerful drumming. Mick Taylor’s slide playing, Bob Dylan’s funky rhythm guitar, Duane Allman’s slide, Jimi Hendrix’s all around amazing chops. 

Playing “Hey Joe” with him! I always wanted to play with Elmore James! Top five albums: Phil Spector’s Greatest Hits, Blonde On Blonde, here’s Little Richard, Chicago Blues Anthology on Chess, Best of Muddy Waters. The Jerry Lee Lewis’ Greatest Hits on Sun. The band I am playing with at blues festivals: Harvey Mandel, Zach Wagner on guitars, Don Heffington, Sam Lay – drums, Marcy Levy, Nick Gravenites, Tracy Nelson – vocals, Corky Siegel, sometimes Charlie Musselwhite on harp, Rick Reed – bass.

The old blues scene is almost gone. Most of the great masters are in blues heaven, but there is nothing like the power of playing the blues, and the ones that are left must keep that alive! It is synonymous as life itself.
The people in Europe have always picked up on American jazz and blues more then the American people and have traditionally supported and respected the music and the artists more. That’s unfortunate, because its right here in their own backyard.

I like Harvey Mandel, Charlie Musselwhite, White Stripes, Soledad, James Cotton, Jimmy Smith, Johnnie Johnson. I would tell the people of Macedonia to embrace the blues, because it is real and true and free! It helps you when you need it. When you’re up, or when you’re down the blues is always there to help you through! You can have a good time with the blues, it can be your friend when you’re down! You can always count on the blues! We would love to bring the Chicago Blues Reunion to Europe and Macedonia. Maybe there is a way. Dear Vasja, it’s always nice to hear from people who appreciate your work. Thank you for your interest, and love for the blues, blues forever, Barry Goldberg.

Charlie Musselwhite Story:
Harmonica wizard Norton Buffalo can recollect a leaner time when his record collection had been whittled down to only the bare essentials: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's South Side Band. Butterfield and Musselwhite will probably be forever linked as the two most interesting, and arguably the most important, products of the "white blues movement" of the mid- to late '60s -- not only because they were near the forefront chronologically, but because they both stand out as being especially faithful to the style. Each certainly earned the respect of his legendary mentors. No less than the late Big Joe Williams said, "Charlie Musselwhite is one of the greatest living harp players of country blues. He is right up there with Sonny Boy Williamson, and he's been my harp player ever since Sonny Boy got killed."

It's interesting that Williams specifies "country" blues, because, even though he made his mark leading electric bands in Chicago and San Francisco, Musselwhite began playing blues with people he'd read about in Samuel Charters' Country Blues -- Memphis greats like Furry Lewis, Will Shade, and Gus Cannon. It was these rural roots that set him apart from Butterfield, and decades later Musselwhite began incorporating his first instrument, guitar.

Musselwhite was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi in 1944, and his family moved north to Memphis, where he went to high school. Musselwhite migrated to Chicago in search of the near-mythical $3.00-an-hour job (the same lure that set innumerable youngsters on the same route), and became a familiar face at blues haunts like Pepper's, Turner's, and Theresa's, sitting in with and sometimes playing alongside harmonica lords such as Little Walter, Shakey Horton, Good Rockin' Charles, Carey Bell, Big John Wrencher, and even Sonny Boy Williamson. Before recording his first album, Musselwhite appeared on LPs by Tracy Nelson and John Hammond and duetted (as Memphis Charlie) with Shakey Horton on Vanguard's Chicago/The Blues/Today series

When his aforementioned debut LP became a standard on San Francisco's underground radio, Musselwhite played the Fillmore Auditorium and never returned to the Windy City. Leading bands that featured greats like guitarists Harvey Mandel, Freddie Roulette, Luther Tucker, Louis Myers, Robben Ford, Fenton Robinson, and Junior Watson, Musselwhite played steadily in Bay Area bars and mounted somewhat low-profile national tours. It wasn't until the late '80s, when he conquered a career-long drinking problem, that Musselwhite began touring worldwide to rave notices. He became busier than ever and continued releasing records to critical acclaim.

His two releases on Virgin, Rough News in 1997 and Continental Drifter in 2000, found Musselwhite mixing elements of jazz, gospel, Tex-Mex, and acoustic Delta blues. After signing with Telarc Blues in 2002, he continued exploring his musical roots by releasing One Night in America. The disc exposed Musselwhite's interest in country music with a cover version of the Johnny Cash classic "Big River," and featured guest appearances by Kelly Willis and Marty Stuart. Sanctuary, released in 2004, was Musselwhite's first record for Real World. After extensive touring globally, he returned to the studio for its follow-up, the back-to-basics Delta Hardware, recorded in Mississippi. The set was hard-edged and raw blues and featured one live track, the hip-shaking "Clarksdale Boogie," recorded in front of a small but enthusiastic audience at Red's Juke Joint in that very town. Musselwhite returned to Alligator in 2009 and got down to business and cut The Well in Chicago, an all-original program that featured a guest duet appearance from Mavis Staples on the track "Sad Beautiful World." The song references the murder of his 93-year-old mother during a burglary in her home.

Harvey Mandel Story:
In the mold of Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana, and Mike Bloomfield, Mandel is an extremely creative rock guitarist with heavy blues and jazz influences. And like those guitarists, his vocal abilities are basically nonexistent, though Mandel, unlike some similar musicians, has always known this, and concentrated on recordings that are entirely instrumental, or feature other singers. A minor figure most known for auditioning unsuccessfully for the Rolling Stones, he recorded some intriguing (though erratic) work on his own that anticipated some of the better elements of jazz-rock fusion, showcasing his concise chops, his command of a multitude of tone pedal controls, and an eclecticism that found him working with string orchestras and country steel guitar wizards. Mandel got his first toehold in the fertile Chicago white blues-rock scene of the mid-'60s (which cultivated talents like Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, and Steve Miller), and made his first recordings as the lead guitarist for harmonica virtuoso Charlie Musselwhite. 

Enticed to go solo by Blue Cheer producer Abe Kesh, Harvey cut a couple of nearly wholly instrumental albums for Phillips in the late '60s that were underground FM radio favorites, establishing him as one of the most versatile young American guitar lions. He gained his most recognition, though, not as a solo artist, but as a lead guitarist for Canned Heat in 1969 and 1970, replacing Henry Vestine and appearing with the band at Woodstock. Shortly afterward, he signed up for a stint in John Mayall's band, just after the British bluesman had relocated to California. Mandel unwisely decided to use a vocalist for his third and least successful Philips album. After his term with Mayall (on USA Union and Back to the Roots) had run its course, he resumed his solo career, and also formed Pure Food & Drug Act with violinist Don "Sugarcane" Harris (from the '50s R&B duo Don & Dewey), which made several albums. 

In the mid-'70s, when the Rolling Stones were looking for a replacement for Mick Taylor, Mandel auditioned for a spot in the group; although he lost to Ron Wood, his guitar does appear on two cuts on the Stones' 1976 album, Black & Blue. Recording intermittently since then as a solo artist and a sessionman, his influence on the contemporary scene is felt via the two-handed fretboard tapping technique that he introduced on his 1973 album Shangrenade, later employed by Eddie Van Halen, Stanley Jordan, and Steve Vai.

Recorded live in 1966 at the legendary Big John’s, a swinging Blues club in Chicago’s old town. "Together Records" released this concert 1971, USA.

Along with MANDEL and GOLDBERG this recording features CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE on harmonica, ROY RUBY on bass, MORRIS MCKINLEY on drums, and on guitar BOBBY JONES.

Personnel:
★ Bass – Roy Ruby
★ Drums – Maurice McKinley
★ Guitar – Dave Brian, Harvey Mandel
★ Harmonica – Charlie Musselwhite
★ Organ – Barry Goldberg
★ Saxophone – Cliff Davis
★ Vocals – Bobby Jones, The Day Jobbers

01. Slow Down I'm Gonna Lose You 03:04
02. I Loved And Lost 04:18
03. Big Boss Man 05:09
04. Funk 05:35
05. Aunt Lilly 02:09
06. You Got Me Crying 03:25
07. Times I've Had 02:12
08. Hoochie Cooche Man 03:32

Bonus Tracks:
09. Barry Goldberg & Friends - One More Mile [Bonus]
10. Charlie Musselwhite - Sundown [2006 Bonus Track]
11. Charlie Musselwhite - Blues For Yesterday [2006 Bonus Track]
12. Charlie Musselwhite - Key to the Highway Live [Bonus]
13. A.B. Skhy w. C. Musselwhite - Thinking It Over [Bonus 1969]
14. A.B. Skhy w. C. Musselwhite - Sweet Little Angel [Bonus 1969]

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