| Where Blues Crosses Over |
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Underground | |||||||||||||||
| By the end of september Ruf Records sent out a press release that mentioned the find of 'historical recordings by Luther Allison, found in a safe by Bernard Allison in the house of his mother Fannie Mae Allison'. Furthermore it was mentioned that the recordings dated from a session done in the Wonderful Studio in Chicago in 1958. I checked my record collection and found out that Luther had made his first recordings at - indeed - the Wonderful Studio in Chicago on March 8, 1967. Those were released on the Delmark-anthology 'Sweet Home Chicago' (Delmark LP DS-618/CD DD-618). After putting the message regarding the '1958-sessions' on the post-war-blues discussion-group post-war-blues@yahoogroups.com it became quickly evident that the eight songs on the Ruf-album 'Underground' were more likely recorded almost a decade later. Some of the listmembers had bought the bootleg-LP titled 'Underground' in the early seventies. I consulted Delmark-owner Bob Koester about it and he replied that he believed that the recordings were made during the term of Luther's exclusive contract with Delmark which was registered with the Union, so Luther was aware of the fact that he could have been fined if he had these recordings released anywhere commercially. Koester saw no sense in making a complaint, because, as he writes 'you cannot force creativity and we might have gotten a record even worse than the one he bootlegged. Luther wanted a more 'produced record' so he was apparantly happy with the Motown-stuff'. Luther recorded his first album 'Love Me Mama', his only one for Delmark, (Delmark LP DS-625/CD DE 625) in 1969. Upon request Koester gives some more details about the Wonderful-studio. 'It was owned by the brothers Ernie and George Leaner, who owned United Record Distributors. They distributed labels like Prestige, Savoy and various r&b/jazz/gospel product'. The Leaner's also had their own labels, such as One-Derfull and Mar-V-Lous. In their second location (1827 S. Michigan) they had their own studio. The book 'The R&B Indies' learns that the company existed from 1962 untill 1968, so the session organised by bandleader/bassplayer Bobby Rush must have taken place before the company folded in 1968. Considering the sound after hearing the recordings there are more cues that lead to the conclusion that it's impossible that these recordings should date from the late fifties. There's no fifties sound at all on the record and the recordings of 'Cut-You-A-Loose', 'You're Gonna Miss Me', 'Rock Me Baby', 'Easy Baby' and 'Driving Wheel' sound like demo's made prior to the versions of the same songs that Luther would record in the first half of the seventies for Motown. 'Cut-You-A-Loose' has almost an identical arrangement as the version that Luther recorded for Motown. Outside that it is very unlikely that Luther would have come up with the idea to record a funky version of Sonny Boy Williamson's 'Don't Start Me To Talking' in 1958 or that he would have recorded 'Cut-You-A-Loose' almost four years prior to the version of the originator of the song, Ricky Allen. Finally the sticker 'first time ever released studio recordings from 1958' on the jewel box on this cd-release might raise a few eyebrows, since the label of the original bootleg-LP 'Underground', obviously pressed in the early seventies, has been printed on the inside tray-card. |
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