Roots of Blues -- Memphis Slim „The Life I'm Living"

„The Life I'm Living"
(P. Chatman)

Recorded:
no details available

John "Memphis Slim" Chatman (born September 3, 1915, Memphis, Tennessee; died February 24, 1988, in Paris, France) was a blues pianist, singer, and composer. He led a series of bands that, reflecting the popular appeal of jump-blues, included saxophones, bass, drums, and piano. His 1952 composition "Every Day I Have the Blues" was recorded by Joe Williams, and Lowell Fulson, B. B. King, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Natalie Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimi Hendrix, Mahalia Jackson, Sarah Vaughan, Carlos Santana, Lou Rawls, John Mayer to name a few. He cut over 500 recordings and influenced blues pianists that followed him for decades.

His birth name was John Len Chatman, although he claimed to have been born Peter Chatman. His father Peter Chatman sang, played piano and guitar, and operated juke joints.[1] It is commonly believed, though, that he took the name to honor his father, Peter Chatman Sr., when he first recorded for Okeh Records in 1940. Although he performed under the name Memphis Slim for most of his career, he continued to publish songs under the name Peter Chatman.

He spent most of the 1930s performing in honky-tonks, dance halls, and gambling joints in Memphis, Arkansas, and southern Missouri. He settled in Chicago in 1937, shortly after teamed with Big Bill Broonzy in clubs. In the late 1940s he recorded two songs for Bluebird Records that became part of his repertoire for decades, "Beer Drinking Woman," and "Grinder Man Blues," which were released under the name "Memphis Slim," given to him by Bluebird's producer, Lester Melrose.[2] Slim became a regular session musician for Bluebird, and his piano talents supported established stars such as John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, Washboard Sam, and Jazz Gillum. In particular, many of Slim's recordings and performances until the mid-1940s were with guitarist and singer Broonzy, who had recruited Slim to be his piano player after Josh Altheimer's death in 1940.

Starting in the mid-1940s, Slim led a series of bands that, reflecting the popular appeal of jump-blues, generally included saxophones, bass, drums, and piano. Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Big Bill Broonzy, Lonnie Johnson, and Memphis Minnie, the newly dubbed "Memphis Slim and the Houserockers" and introduced a new sound to the evolving South Side blues, a seven piece ensemble that added horns in place of harmonica parts of traditional blues.[3] During a successful period, he recorded many of the songs which he was associated, including "Messin' Around" (which reached number one on the R&B charts in 1948, "Harlem Bound," and, most notably, "Nobody Loves Me." In 1947, the day after producing a concert by Slim, Broonzy, and Williamson at New York City's Town Hall, folklorist Alan Lomax brought the three musicians to the Decca studios and recorded with Slim's on vocal and piano. Lomax presented sections of this recording on BBC radio in the early 1950s as a documentary titled The Art of the Negro, and later released an expanded version as the LP Blues in the Mississippi Night."

Memphis Slim's 1952 masterpiece composition "Every Day I Have the Blues," was recorded by Lowell Fulson, and B. B. King, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Natalie Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimi Hendrix, Mahalia Jackson, Sarah Vaughan, Carlos Santana, Lou Rawls, just to name a few.[4]. The 1956 version by Joe Williams (Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings) was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1992.[5] "Every Day I Have the Blues" is also seen in John Mayer's, Where The Light Is, a DVD (and CD) live recording in Los Angeles' Nokia Theatre featuring Steve Jordan (drums) and Pino Palladino (bass). In 1959 he recorded with guitarist Matt "Guitar" Murphy such as Memphis Slim at the Gate of the Horn, twelve of his compositions, includes songs "Mother Earth," "Gotta Find My Baby," "Rockin' the Blues," Steppin' Out," and "Slim's Blues

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Blues
• Roots_of_Blues
• History_of_music

[bozepiemeltje]

awesome

[BluesVaughan]

Muy bueno, gracias!.

[billyshitcheese]

wonderful