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* A few years ago, I asked legendary harmonica player Sugar Blue if the story about him was true. I had always heard that he was playing harmonica on a sidewalk in Paris when Mick Jagger and Keith Richards walked by and immediately asked him to be on their next album, Some Girls.
Sugar smiled and said, “Have you ever seen that movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance?”
Of course, I said. I’ve seen it dozens of times.
“Well, do you remember at the end of the movie when that newspaper reporter tells Jimmy Stewart: ‘When the legend becomes fact, print the legend’?”
Say no more.
Sugar’s sound is unlike anybody else’s. I’m not sure how he does it, but it’s instantly recognizable. I’ve heard him play several times (he was a regular at Rosa’s in Chicago back when I lived there) and I always got a chill up my spine.
Most of you probably know him best from Miss You…
Sugar Blue’s playing is what gives that song its nasty edge. Without him, it’s just a good disco tune. With him, it’s an anthem.
Here he is on one of the more underrated Stones blues songs, Down in the Hole…
Blue kept the Stones honest. He’s so real and so powerful that he forced Jagger - who never likes to be outdone - to step up his game. He also meshed perfectly with Richards’ style, which always amps Keith.
* Sugar learned how to play by listening to Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder records as a kid. He’s since played with Dylan and just about everyone else. Eric Clapton, Frank Zappa, Willie Dixon, James Cotton, Brownie McGhee, Eddie Clearwater, Stan Getz, and on and on and on. At Rosa’s, he often jammed with Pinetop Perkins. Those shows will be forever burned in my mind.
Sugar has a deep historical knowledge of the blues, combined with an ability to grab the genre by the tonsils and make it his own. These clips pretty much say it all…
* I’m telling you all this because Sugar Blue has a new album out and Chicago Magazine profiled him in their February issue…
Chicago blues may be known the world over, but not many musicians have logged the miles to see just how far it has traveled. The exception is Sugar Blue, 60, the famed harmonica innovator and Grammy winner who honed his craft on the South Side from the masters James Cotton, Big Walter Horton, and Junior Wells. Sugar Blue, born James Whiting, now spends most of his year traveling Europe in an RV and performing shows, from large festivals to clubs.
Even with all the touring, he has finally found time to record Threshold (Beeble Music), his first new album in three years, out in February. Despite firm roots in the blues, his vocal and songwriting styles recall the soul and funk protest anthems of War or Sly & the Family Stone. On one song, he sings, “They call it war, I call it murder / Murder in the first degree.” He writes from experience, having served in Vietnam between 1970 and 1973. “We’re in the 21st century—there has to be a better way for us to solve our problems,” he says. “So many young lives lost for so little. One of these people could be the person who has a cure for cancer. I bleed for them.”
Despite Blue’s schooling by a who’s who of Chicago masters, the fluid tone, speed, and precision of his harmonica playing are rooted in the styles of the bebop saxophone and horn players he met as an up-and-comer at the Apollo Theater in New York’s Harlem, where he grew up. In the Apollo’s heyday, Blue’s mother worked as a dancer there and, when he was a newborn, once brought home a friend—Billie Holiday.
I can’t wait to get my hands on that thing.
* Related links…
* Sugar Blue’s homepage
* YouTube
* Store
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Feb 5, 10 @ 1:49 pm
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Rich, you’ve got great taste in music.
Comment by Billy Dennis Friday, Feb 5, 10 @ 1:59 pm
Saw Sugar Blues play in St. Louis in 2007 at BB’s Blues Jazz and soups. The guys is truly amazing. Having known Snooky Pryor, and hosted a blues radio show for 10 years, I can say he is the best I have ever seen. Perhaps only rivaled by Phil Wiggins of Cephas and Wiggins fame.
Comment by Moving To Oklahoma Friday, Feb 5, 10 @ 2:02 pm
Thank you….thank you….thank you! This is a MUCH needed reprieve from all the insanity! I too love your taste in music…..and your insights into the wild mouse ride of politics! Looking forward to more of both!!
Comment by Justice Friday, Feb 5, 10 @ 2:10 pm
Yeah, I thought we all needed a little mental health break.
Comment by Rich Miller Friday, Feb 5, 10 @ 2:31 pm
Quinn/Sugar Blue, perhaps?
The campaign rallies would be worth going to (Quinn needs this kind of back-up during his stem-winders).
Comment by Pot calling kettle Friday, Feb 5, 10 @ 2:34 pm
I first saw and met Sugar in the fall of 1977, on my first night living in Paris while in college, in a little divey blues bar. Spent much of the subsequent year as a pal of his drummer, Vic Pitts, from his band at the time “Mud Ball Suite”, roaming around Paris and its music clubs. Blue is still one of my all-time favorite musicians. BTW, I always heard that Jagger first heard him in the underground concourse of the Paris Metro system. I also heard that Sugar kind of insulted Mick during the recording session for “Some Girls”…basically laughing at Jagger when Mick told Sugar how he wanted the harp to sound during the song. Will try to find a youtube clip of Sugar in concert that you might like.
Comment by Paris1977 Friday, Feb 5, 10 @ 2:44 pm
In case you can’t catch him at Buddy Guy’s or Rosa’s…try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iPKBEUEnJ8
Comment by Paris1977 Friday, Feb 5, 10 @ 2:53 pm
First time I saw Sugar was at Springfest at SIU in’86. been a fan ever since.
Comment by anon Friday, Feb 5, 10 @ 3:04 pm
Constantly impressed with your taste in music - the Dead, Pogues and now Sugar Blue. Well played. Used to see him at the old Wise Fools’ Pub. Nice to see he’s doing well.
Comment by paddyrollingstone Friday, Feb 5, 10 @ 4:33 pm
Rich, wow! Good choice. After this past week, I really needed some Sugar to straighten me out.
Comment by walkinfool Friday, Feb 5, 10 @ 6:55 pm
Thanks for the tip. I’ll have a CD in mailbox next week.
Comment by Pot calling kettle Friday, Feb 5, 10 @ 10:16 pm
Is the clip for “Down in the Hole” from The Corner?
Comment by Marcus Agrippa Saturday, Feb 6, 10 @ 9:54 am