Posted on 04/03/2023 11:49:20 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The one-time Muddy Waters lead guitarist and living legend of the Chicago blues scene discusses good times, Hard Times, and that time Keith Richards offered him a cigarette
Chicago bluesman John Primer earned his musical education the hard way, playing long sets at blues clubs on the city’s South Side up to seven nights a week. But that training helped him earn plum gigs with legends Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters.
Not long after joining Dixon’s band in 1979, Primer traveled with them to Mexico City, where Waters took a shine to his playing. “He asked Willie, ‘Who’s that young man playing your guitar? Where’d you get him?’ ‘Oh, he works at Theresa’s Lounge.’ He said, ‘That man sure knows my music.’”
Waters was right on the money – Primer had learned his early acoustic music, and later his electric blues style from the 1971 album Live (At Mr. Kelly’s). Like Waters, he had moved up from Mississippi, where he had lived on a sharecropping farm until age 18. When Waters’ band quit in 1981, the Hoochie Coochie Man tracked down Primer at Theresa’s and offered him the lead guitar spot.
Primer accepted in time to participate in the famed gig where the Rolling Stones backed Waters, immortalized on Live at the Checkerboard Lounge, Chicago 1981.
“Everybody was tore up that night – even Muddy was feeling good,” Primer says. “Keith Richards passed me a cigarette. I don’t even smoke. I should have kept that cigarette.” Richards and Ronnie Wood watched Primer and followed his lead, which gave Primer a thrill. He played with Waters until his untimely death in 1983 and started his own solo career in 1991 with Poor Man’s Blues.
Hard Times, Primer’s latest solo studio album, is informed by decades spent woodshedding his guitar licks with the masters and leading his own band. Echoing the playing traditions of Elmore James, B.B. King and Luther Allison, Primer rips through roadhouse blues on Don’t Wait Too Long and Chicago, swings on Tough Times and All Alone, and leans into the country blues of his early years on the title track. Ever the purist, he does it all without the aid of effects.
“I learned how to play blues on my own, and I didn’t have no foot pedals,” he says. “I tried the Cry Baby wah-wah pedal [and a] phase shifter, [but] the blues guys said, ‘Hey, you throw that thing in the garbage and go somewhere and jam and get your sound.’ [Now], a lot of [players] use it for playing blues – I guess to make it sound different – but when they go to their wah-wah pedals, it’s all rock ’n’ roll.”
Don’t talk crap about RJ.
I don’t like you and you don’t like me. I’m cool with that. Eat me.
If it was good enough for Stevie Ray, it’s good enough.
I have 7 acoustics don’t want to hear your drivel. I know things. Imbeciles be imbeciling.
You two are funny. Haha! Rock on. I’ll just sit over here with my Martin.
“ I don’t like you and you don’t like me. I’m cool with that. Eat me.”
I have no idea who you are. In real life of course but also in this forum.
How could I like you or not like you.
I certainly have nothing against you.
I had a Theremin and an original Echoplex back in the day.
L
Nice. I quit my working band a few months ago. Feel pretty good about it too.
I got a 63 D24 with GC written in the back. Guy Clark? I hope so.My luck it’s somebody named Gerald Connally
That dog cost me 1200 bucks 7 years ago. She’s probably double now.
Yikes!! Is that thing safe to be around?
👍
A little bit of overdrive and a delay.
Albert King used a phaser. SRV used wah and phaser.
Are they not blues?
It is safe. The large plate inside is activated by stereo transducers that transmit a sound wave through the plate to a microphone. The result is an echo effect that is very realistic and very appealing. Here are You Tube videos on how you can make your own plate reverb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b4rSDHt5qs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OcRMA2FNUE
For best effect, off-set the transducer from one of the corners so that the vibrations travel different distances to each of the edges. It will add more harmonic character.
Not blues, but here’s a solid rock cover band I came across recently.
Stranglehold (Ted Nugent) | Lexington Lab Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j7dQjmTig0
Jimi, Stevie and Eric use / used the Cry Baby to great effect.
“Not blues, but here’s a solid rock cover band I came across recently”
WOW!
Told ya!
Their site is worth checking out.
Played Key Board for years with a Wah wah and got good effects. Been on the shelf a while though.
Also used a breath controller on my DX7, which was great for horns and organ patches.
Phase shifters and chorus was also fun with keyboard. Pitch bend is still a favorite. Set on 1/2 step to bend notes.
The trick for everything was, like reverb, don’t over use the effect.
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