Wednesday 5 September 2018

Sunnyland Slim born 5 September 1906


Albert Luandrew (September 5, 1906* – March 17, 1995), known as Sunnyland Slim, was an American blues pianist who was born in the Mississippi Delta and moved to Chicago, helping to make that city a center of postwar blues. The Chicago broadcaster and writer Studs Terkel said Sunnyland Slim was "a living piece of our folk history, gallantly and eloquently carrying on in the old tradition.

Exhibiting truly amazing longevity that was commensurate with his powerful, imposing physical build, Sunnyland Slim's status as a beloved Chicago piano patriarch endured long after most of his peers had perished. For more than 50 years, the towering Slim had rumbled the ivories around the Windy City, playing with virtually every local luminary imaginable and backing the great majority in the studio at one time or another. His piano style is characterised by heavy basses or vamping chords with the left hand and tremolos with the right. His voice was loud, and he sang in a declamatory style.

He was born Albert Luandrew in Mississippi and received his early training on a pump organ. After entertaining at juke joints and movie houses in the Delta, Luandrew made Memphis his home base during 1927, playing along Beale Street and hanging out with 
the likes of Little Brother Montgomery and Ma Rainey. He adopted his colourful stage name from the title of one of his best-known songs, the mournful "Sunnyland Train." (The downbeat piece immortalized the speed and deadly power of a St. Louis-to-Memphis locomotive that mowed down numerous people unfortunate enough to cross its tracks at the wrong instant.)

Slim moved to Chicago in 1939 and set up shop as an in-demand piano man, playing for a spell with John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson before waxing eight sides for RCA Victor in 1947 under the somewhat misleading handle of "Doctor Clayton's Buddy." If it hadn't been for the helpful Slim, Muddy Waters may 
not have found his way onto Chess; it was at the pianist's 1947 
session for Aristocrat that the Chess brothers made Waters' acquaintance. Slim's Shout Aristocrat (which issued his harrowing "Johnson Machine Gun") was but one of a myriad of labels that Slim recorded for between 1948 and 1956: Hytone, Opera, Chance, Tempo-Tone, Mercury, Apollo, JOB, Regal, Vee-Jay (unissued), Blue Lake, Club 51, and Cobra all cut dates on Slim, whose vocals thundered with the same resonant authority as his 88s. In addition, his distinctive playing enlivened hundreds of sessions by other artists during the same time frame.


                               

In 1960, Slim travelled to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, to cut his debut LP for Prestige's Bluesville subsidiary with King Curtis supplying diamond-hard tenor sax breaks on many cuts. The album, Slim's Shout, ranks as one of his finest, with definitive renditions of the pianist's "The Devil Is a Busy Man," "Shake It," "Brownskin Woman," and "It's You Baby."

In the late 1960s, Slim became friends with members of the band Canned Heat and played piano on the track "Turpentine Moan" on their album Boogie with Canned Heat. In turn, members of the band—lead guitarist Henry Vestine, slide guitarist Alan Wilson and bassist Larry Taylor—contributed to Sunnyland Slim's Liberty Records album Slim's Got His Thing Goin' On (1968), which also featured Mick Taylor.

Chicago Jump Like a deep-rooted tree, Sunnyland Slim persevered despite the passing decades. For a time, he helmed his own label, Airway Records. As late as 1985, he made a fine set for the Red Beans logo, Chicago Jump, backed by the same crack combo that 
shared the stage with him every Sunday evening at a popular North side club called B.L.U.E.S. for some 12 years.

There were times when the pianist fell seriously ill, but he always defied the odds and returned to action, warbling his trademark Woody Woodpecker chortle and kicking off one more exultant slow blues as he had done for the previous half century. He was a recipient of a 1988 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honour in the folk and traditional arts.

Finally, after a calamitous fall on the ice coming home from a gig led to numerous complications, Sunnyland Slim died of kidney failure in March 1995. He's sorely missed.

(Edited from Wikipedia & All Music) (* other sources give 1905 & 1907 as birth year)


Here’s a clip from 1969.: Sunnyland Slim - piano; Willie Dixon - bass; Johnny Shines - gtr; Clifton James - drums

5 comments:

boppinbob said...

For ”Sunnyland Slim and His Pals – The Classic Sides 1947 -1953 4CD [2006]” go here:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/7s4tudjzzvmfvft/SSaHP-TCS1.zip

CD1
1. Farewell Little Girl
2. Broke And Hungry
3. Illinois Central
4. Nappy Head Woman
5. Across The Hall Blues
6. Walking With The Blues
7. Sweet Lucy Blues
8. No Whiskey Blues
9. Jivin' Boogie
10. Brown Skin Woman
11. My Heavy Load
12. Keep Your Hands Out Of My Money
13. 5 Foot 4 Gal
14. I've Done You Wrong
15. Roll Tumble And Slip (I Cried)
16. Train Time (4 O'Clock Blues)
17. Hard Times
18. School Days
19. Blue Baby
20. I Want My Baby
21. Mud Kicking Woman
22. Every Time I Get To Drinking
23. Bad Times (Cost Of Living)
24. Hard Time (When Mother's Gone)
25. Brown Skin Woman
26. I'm Just A Lonesome Man

http://www.mediafire.com/file/vy6ghxsr2lv5hl8/SSaHP-TCS2.zip

CD2
1. Back To Korea Blues
2. It's All Over Now
3. You've Got To Stop This Mess - Fat Man
4. Glad I Don't Worry No More - Fat Man
5. Down Home Child
6. Sunnyland Special
7. Leaving Your Town (No Name Blues)
8. Mary Lee
9. I Done You Wrong
10. Orphan Boy Blues
11. When I Was Young (Shake It Baby)
12. Low Down Sunnyland Train
13. Ain't Nothing But A Child
14. Brown Skinned Woman
15. Hit The Road Again
16. Gin Drinkin' Baby
17. Shake It Baby
18. Woman Trouble (Overnite)
19. City Of New Orleans
20. When I Was Young
21. Bassology
22. Worried About My Baby
23. Troubles Of My Own
24. Worried About My Baby
25. I Done You Wrong
26. Be My Baby


http://www.mediafire.com/file/7pf4hq2f03r9vzh/SSaHP-TCS3.zip

CD3
1. Going Back To Memphis
2. Devil Is A Busy Man
3. Shake It Baby
4. Bassology
5. Four Day Bounce
6. That Woman
7. Be Mine Alone
8. Sad And Lonesome
9. Living In The White House - Shines, Johnny
10. Please Don't - Shines, Johnny
11. Dust My Broom - Lockwood, Robert Jr.
12. Pearly B - Lockwood, Robert Jr.
13. I'm Gonna Dig Myself A Hole - Lockwood, Robert Jr.
14. Dust My Broom - Lockwood, Robert Jr.
15. Glory For Man - Lockwood, Robert Jr.
16. My Daily Wish - Lockwood, Robert Jr.
17. Big World - Jones, Floyd
18. Dark Road - Jones, Floyd
19. Schooldays On My Mind - Jones, Floyd
20. Ain't Times Hard - Jones, Floyd
21. Floyd's Blues - Jones, Floyd
22. Any Old Lonesome Day - Jones, Floyd
23. Pet Rabbit - Foster, Leroy
24. Louella - Foster, Leroy
25. Late Hours At Midnight - Foster, Leroy
26. Blues Is Killin' Me - Foster, Leroy

boppinbob said...

http://www.mediafire.com/file/h50v5734m1dfq02/SSaHP-TCS4.zip
CD4
1. I Wanna Play A Little While - Lenoir, JB
2. Louise - Lenoir, JB
3. Let's Roll - Lenoir, JB
4. People Are Meddlin' In Our Affairs - Lenoir, JB
5. I Have Married - Lenoir, JB
6. Mountain - Lenoir, JB
7. I'll Die Tryin' - Lenoir, JB
8. How Much More - Lenoir, JB
9. Mojo - Lenoir, JB
10. Slow Down Woman - Lenoir, JB
11. I Want My Baby - Lenoir, JB
12. How Can I Leave - Lenoir, JB
13. Ludella - Rogers, Jimmy
14. I'm In Love - Rogers, Jimmy
15. That's All Right - Rogers, Jimmy
16. Shame On You Baby - St. Louis Jimmy
17. I'm Not Satisfied - St. Louis Jimmy
18. Trying To Change My Ways - St. Louis Jimmy
19. Hard Work Boogie - St. Louis Jimmy
20. Your Evil Ways - St. Louis Jimmy
21. I Sit Up All Night - St. Louis Jimmy
22. State Street Blues - St. Louis Jimmy
23. Mother's Day - St. Louis Jimmy
24. Chicago Woman Blues - St. Louis Jimmy
25. Nervous Breakdown - St. Louis Jimmy
26. Old Age Has Got Me - St. Louis Jimmy

Personnel:
Sunnyland Slim (vocals, piano);
Floyd Jones , Johnny Shines,
Leroy Foster, Robert Lockwood, Jr. (vocals, guitar).

Sunnyland Slim recorded on a number of labels in the late 1940s and early '50s, but each of the sides he waxed represented the blues artist's dazzling skill on the ivories and his keening, resonant vocals. Fortunately, SUNNYLAND SLIM & HIS PALS--THE CLASSIC SIDES, a handsome and well-compiled box set, brings together these various recordings under one cover. Across four discs, each of which contains 26 tracks, Sunnyland Slim and his backing musicians stomp out a template for piano-driven Chicago blues that belongs in the library of any fan of the genre.

A big thank you to theblues-thatjazz.com for active links.

For “Sunnyland Slim ‎• Slim's Shout” go here;

https://www31.zippyshare.com/v/zPBQuw9Z/file.html

1 - I'm Prison Bound -
2 - Slim's Shout -
3 - The Devil Is A Busy Man -
4 - Brownskin Woman -
5 - Shake It -
6 - Decoration Day -
7 - Baby How Long -
8 - Sunnyland Special -
9 - Harlem Can't Be Heaven -
10 - It's You Baby -
11 - Everytime I Get To Drinking [take 3] -
12 - Tired Of You Clowning -

Credits:
Bass – Leonard Gaskin
Drums – Belton Evans
Organ – Robert Banks
Saxophone – King Curtis
Vocals, Piano – Sunnyland Slim

Recorded By – Rudy Van Gelder
Recorded in Englewood Cliffs NJ; September 15, 1960
Remastered By [1993] – Phil De Lancie

A big thank you to Egroj @ egrojworld.blogspot for original link

egroj.jazz said...

GREAT POST!! many thanks!

Crab Devil said...

Thank you!

M. Fox said...

Thank you very, very much! Wonderful music.