The big boss man of the blues Jimmy Reed gets us going on up the road, whereupon we run into South African, contemporary vocalist Melanie Scholtz, and conclude with 14 Stevie Wonder covers featuring Carmen McRae, Donny Hathaway, Quincy Jones, Vanessa Rubin, Tuck & Patti, Iain MacKenzie, Joe Locke, Cassandra Wilson, Soulive, Sao Benitez, Jose Felicano, and, of course, the musical master himself, Stevie Wonder. What a wonderful week.
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[Hard working black men] were one of the real glues of the Civil Rights movement, men who did back breaking labor on the chain gangs in the thirties and forties, in the foundries and factories of the fifties, these men who were determined that their offspring would not have to go through what the average southern born black man had endured.
The driving wheels of desegregation were black men who had been sharecroppers and soldiers, undereducated but dedicated to advancing themselves and their families. These were the men (and women) who sent school children off to battle murderous crackers who wanted to lynch pre-teen black kids because these kids wanted a quality education (when really it was the parents of the children who wanted a quality education for their children).
If you don't know this history, the attraction and accuracy of these Jimmy Reed songs will be lost on you. All you will hear is songs sung in the same key in one of three tempi: fast (i.e. "jump"), mid-tempo (i.e. "shuffle"), and slow (i.e. "slow drag"). The seemingly simple lyrics will probably bore you. The talk-sing/shout approach to vocals might even cause you to question whether this should really be called "classic" music. I understand why you don't understand what "big boss man refers" to or the portend of "Mr. Luck," not to mention the near universal, at that time, serious observation inherent in "bright lights of the big city."
If you weren't alive to experience the black side of fifties life in America, all of this technically rudimentary but emotionally rich blues music will seem to be a gargantuan but insufficient effort to make a lot out of a little bit.
You probably really enjoy somebody like Otis Redding (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967), who in many, many musical ways is Jimmy Reed's son, except Otis sounds positively sophisticated next to Jimmy's thick drawl.
—kalamu ya salaam