First things first. I put the needle down and heard Walter Wolfman Washington pour himself a drink before starting to strum his guitar on the song that opens this wonderfully intricate and intimate record, Lost Mind. Then … is this blues? Is it jazz? Is it R&B?
Turns out it's all that and more.
The ghosts of Sam Cooke and Al Green seem to be singing in unison with Washington, who was 74 when he recorded this, and goosebumps are literally shivering down my spine as the needle works its way in.
She’s Everything To Me, about halfway through the record, is a love song with a yearning piano and some understated guitar that is obviously about someone very special. The piano on I Cried My Last Tear is a light barrelhouse throwback, and Even Now - a duet with Irma Thomas - is as silky smooth as it gets. Those two voices were meant to be in the same song.
This is one of those records. It's not what I was expecting, although I wasn't really expecting anything. I'd never heard of Walter Washington before. I was in Grooves, a record store in London, Ontario, flipping through the miscellaneous "W" blues when I stumbled across this absolute treasure of a record. I had no idea what I was buying. Sometimes you have to just go with your gut.
This is late night blues at its finest.
Although I'd yet to hear about him, Washington isn't an unknown entity. He has a following, although on this continent it's mostly in and around his native New Orleans. He also has a lot of really talented musical friends, some who appear on this record, and why he isn't at least as well known escapes me. He should be. He's that good. His interpretation of the classic, Save Your Love For Me, is both tender and sweet, and his ability to pull all that longing and emotion so effortlessly out of his guitar surely has to be a mark of greatness. It seems so simple, but you know it's not.
The man oozes class.
The third song in, What A Difference A Day Makes, is stripped back to the essentials. Other versions of this song - and there are many - are draped in curtains of strings and orchestrations and whatever else, but here it's the words, pushed along by a wonderful bass guitar underpinning courtesy of James Singleton. It just breathes. It's the best version of this song I've ever heard!
At its core this is an album of voice and solo guitar, with subtle accompaniment where Washington deems it necessary. He sounds as though he's strumming his guitar with a black velvet glove, so sparingly sometimes and then not at all on I Just Dropped By To Say Hello, which features his wonderfully silky voice backed by some beautiful tinkling on the piano. A love song that can reach way down deep if you let it.
On I Don't Want To Be A Lone Ranger he is helped along by some tasty Hammond B-3 courtesy of Jon Cleary. I'm always down for hearing some B3, and Cleary knows how to play it in a way that isn't at all overbearing.
I can't choose a favourite track from this record. It's that good. It's one of those records I bought without knowing anything at all about it that turned out to be such a satisfying listen. And isn't that what collecting records is all about? The chase, and then sometimes finding stuff you otherwise would never have known existed just because you were in a certain store on a certain day at a certain time and in a certain mood? That's what I like about this hobby.
Maybe it was the album cover that first intrigued me, because it's a great cover. Black and white, real classy-looking. Then on the back there's the list of musicians who play on the album, including Irma Thomas and Ivan Neville. And they don't sit in with just anybody.
So I bought it and it's one of the best records I've bought in a while. It's going to get a lot of turntable action. It sounds so good it's as if the musicians are in the room with me.
If you're looking to seduce somebody put this record on. Because it will work.
First things first. I put the needle down and heard Walter Wolfman Washington pour himself a drink before starting to strum his guitar on the song that opens this wonderfully intricate and intimate record, Lost Mind. Then … is this blues? Is it jazz? Is it R&B?
Turns out it's all that and more.
The ghosts of Sam Cooke and Al Green seem to be singing in unison with Washington, who was 74 when he recorded this, and goosebumps are literally shivering down my spine as the needle works its way in.
She’s Everything To Me, about halfway through the record, is a love song with a yearning piano and some understated guitar that is obviously about someone very special. The piano on I Cried My Last Tear is a light barrelhouse throwback, and Even Now - a duet with Irma Thomas - is as silky smooth as it gets. Those two voices were meant to be in the same song.
This is one of those records. It's not what I was expecting, although I wasn't really expecting anything. I'd never heard of Walter Washington before. I was in Grooves, a record store in London, Ontario, flipping through the miscellaneous "W" blues when I stumbled across this absolute treasure of a record. I had no idea what I was buying. Sometimes you have to just go with your gut.
This is late night blues at its finest.
Although I'd yet to hear about him, Washington isn't an unknown entity. He has a following, although on this continent it's mostly in and around his native New Orleans. He also has a lot of really talented musical friends, some who appear on this record, and why he isn't at least as well known escapes me. He should be. He's that good. His interpretation of the classic, Save Your Love For Me, is both tender and sweet, and his ability to pull all that longing and emotion so effortlessly out of his guitar surely has to be a mark of greatness. It seems so simple, but you know it's not.
The man oozes class.
The third song in, What A Difference A Day Makes, is stripped back to the essentials. Other versions of this song - and there are many - are draped in curtains of strings and orchestrations and whatever else, but here it's the words, pushed along by a wonderful bass guitar underpinning courtesy of James Singleton. It just breathes. It's the best version of this song I've ever heard!
At its core this is an album of voice and solo guitar, with subtle accompaniment where Washington deems it necessary. He sounds as though he's strumming his guitar with a black velvet glove, so sparingly sometimes and then not at all on I Just Dropped By To Say Hello, which features his wonderfully silky voice backed by some beautiful tinkling on the piano. A love song that can reach way down deep if you let it.
On I Don't Want To Be A Lone Ranger he is helped along by some tasty Hammond B-3 courtesy of Jon Cleary. I'm always down for hearing some B3, and Cleary knows how to play it in a way that isn't at all overbearing.
I can't choose a favourite track from this record. It's that good. It's one of those records I bought without knowing anything at all about it that turned out to be such a satisfying listen. And isn't that what collecting records is all about? The chase, and then sometimes finding stuff you otherwise would never have known existed just because you were in a certain store on a certain day at a certain time and in a certain mood? That's what I like about this hobby.
Maybe it was the album cover that first intrigued me, because it's a great cover. Black and white, real classy-looking. Then on the back there's the list of musicians who play on the album, including Irma Thomas and Ivan Neville. And they don't sit in with just anybody.
So I bought it and it's one of the best records I've bought in a while. It's going to get a lot of turntable action. It sounds so good it's as if the musicians are in the room with me.
If you're looking to seduce somebody put this record on. Because it will work.
Walter "Wolfman" Washington is a New Orleans-based blues singer and guitarist who was born on December 21, 1943. Although his roots are in blues music, his style is a unique stew of blues, funk and R&B. He has been a mainstay on the New Orleans music scene for decades, having cut his teeth as a teenager backing some of the best singers and performers in New Orleans history.
Washington formed an acapella spirituals group called the True Love And Gospel Singers when he was school-aged, and one particular Sunday they appeared on a local gospel show on the local radio station WBOK. Washington noticed the guitar player who was playing behind them. “I just sat there and watched him,” Washington recalled. When he got home he made his first guitar from a cigar box, rubber bands, and a clothes hanger. It was an attraction that may have been in his blood, as both Guitar Slim and Lightnin’ Slim were his uncles.
In the 1970s, Washington joined Johnny Adams' band. He also played with the house band at the Dew Drop Inn, where he met bassist Richard Dixon who told Lee Dorsey about him. Dorsey hired the then 19-year-old Washington to go on the road with him. “Our first gig was at the Apollo Theatre in New York" Washington remembered. "We drove there in a red Cadillac.”
Since the 1980s Washington has been performing with his own band, the Roadmasters. They toured Europe several times, which helped establish Washington's reputation as one of the most popular acts on the European blues circuit.
