Album Reviews

Rock ‘n’ roll historians invariably trace the roots of the now-expansive, constantly morphing music to a Mississippi bluesman named Robert Johnson, a 1930s guitarist who ostensibly made a deal with the devil – trading his mortal soul for stellar talent - one night at a rural intersection (a “crossroads”). Johnson’s canon of songs, bolstered by his pioneer legacy and dark mythology, is embraced universally as being instrumental to the very structure of rock ‘n’ roll.

But another Mississippi bluesman may soon get credit - earned, deserved and long overdue - for creating a crossroads of convergence that brought together musicians of varying disciplines from both sides of the Atlantic, forever changing the definition and direction of rock.

With the mid-August release of Rhino Handmade’s “Delaney & Bonnie and Friends With Eric Clapton,” an illuminating 4CD, 44-song (the other tracks are announcements and such) boxed set of a week’s worth of concerts, Delaney Bramlett’s reputation should get a stratospheric boost from writers, archivists and fans who - better late than never - realize and celebrate his far-reaching and eternal influence on popular music.

A long-time California resident and rhythm & blues session guitarist, Delaney and his first wife, Bonnie, gathered a number of fellow west coast musicians and others for a short tour of Europe, including a December 1969 week in England. It was that leg of the tour that resulted in the 1970 LP “On Tour With Eric Clapton,” an album that - though not a great seller - is acknowledged as one of rock’s great live recordings.

The original LP, eight songs and about 40 minutes, was just a taste of what unfolded during the two-shows-a-night rock revivals at three halls. Rhino, as it does so very well, researched, recovered and remastered several nights of the tour, releasing the deluxe set with more than three hours of previously unheard soul, gospel and blues, all wrapped up in “full rock-force position,” as Delaney described it during the final show.

The album contains the band’s opening performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall, a melding (because of recording equipment issues) of the next night’s performances at Bristol’s Colston Hall, and both shows (2 CDs) from the tour’s final night at Fairfield Halls in Croydon. The Bramletts’ band - the “Friends” - included bassist Carl Radle, drummer Jim Gordon, organist Bobby Whitlock, Jim Price and Bobby Keys on horns and guitarists Eric Clapton (late of Blind Faith) and Dave Mason (Traffic), and for the final night in England, Beatle George Harrison. Rita Coolidge joined Bonnie in harmonies and unison duets, as co-engineer Tex Johnson provided assorted percussion.

It was a remarkable band. It is a remarkable album.

Eclipsing the original LP in every way, this expanded CD set testifies to the scope and power of a band that was as impressive as any of its time. And it’s all here: roof-raising gospel-driven vocals, down-home red-dirt blues, Southern soul, delta sweat and countrified rock borne by the astonishingly tight band, a group of players that figured into so many other magical musical projects.

(When the D&B tour concluded, members of the entourage were involved in everything from George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass” album to Joe Cocker’s “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” tour and from Eric Clapton’s self-titled debut solo album to the venerated Derek and the Dominos’ “Layla and Assorted Other Love Songs.” This speaks to Delaney’s recognition and integration of talent … such as Clapton’s vocals on the tour.)

It was on this tour - on these recordings - that Clapton finally found the confidence to sing; he lived with, wrote with, jammed with and traveled with the band, and was petitioned earnestly by Delaney to start singing as well as playing guitar. “Eric,” Delaney told him, “the Lord has given you that singing talent..,”  and Clapton bowed to Bramlett’s admonishment, most undisguisedly on “I Don’t Know Why,” a song he wrote with Delaney. Indeed, Clapton’s best works, over the years, were collaborations.

“It’s communications, it’s relationships,” he told Pierre Perrone in an interview published in the August 2010 edition of Record Collector. “Solitary music-making has a shelf life … that’s why I love live shows - working with a group of musicians who are really, really fine is as good as it gets for me.” 

(From back left: Eric Clapton, unidentified friend, Rita Coolidge, Jim Gordon, Jim Price. Bottom row: Bobby Whitlock, Bonnie Bramlett, Delaney Bramlett,  PP Arnold (tour supporting act), Carl Radle, Bobby Keys (in front)

But the album’s standout vocals belong to Bonnie Bramlett, who - to which this sonic document will attest – may deserve further consideration as to her position in the constellation of rock and soul singers. Strong, almost bombastic at times, Bonnie’s vocals are as pretty Roberta Flack’s and as powerful as Janis Joplin’s. When the girl gets into it - consider Bessie Griffin’s “That’s What My Man Is For” - she can sing, scream, shout and squeal with equal verve. “I still think Bonnie Bramlett is the greatest white blues and soul singer that ever will live,” said stage partner Rita Coolidge in the extensive liner notes.

“… With Eric Clapton” is similar in composition to another recent release of a long-forgotten live performance, that of “Otis Redding Live on the Sunset Strip,” in that there are multiple takes included of several songs performed night after night. And every take is worthy.

The Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin’” is on each of the four CDs, as is the band’s “Poor Elijah,” an homage to bluesman Robert Johnson, Clapton’s idol and muse. Along with the band’s nod to Little Richard, captured three times in powerful-crazy medleys, are sideman Mason’s “Only You Know and I Know,” Eddie Floyd’s “Things Get Better” and the band-built “Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way.” Throughout the four CDs the musicianship is (as expected) exceptional, the set lists are inventive and accommodating, the execution and presentation are astonishing and the sound of – the “feel” of - a live recording is tangible.   

One of the album’s special treats - one that reveals the remarkable work done by the original recording engineers, brothers Andy and Glyn Johns - is a song unheard since its performance December 7^th, 1969 (the last show on the last night of the UK leg of the tour): the instrumental “Pigmy.” An organ-drenched boogie groove that canters on for nearly nine minutes as each musician takes a solo, “Pigmy” captures perfectly the sound of “live,” despite the comparatively unsophisticated analogue portable recording equipment available in 1969.

THE SOUND

The featured leg of the tour (it opened in Germany and continued in Scandinavia) was accompanied by the Pye Records mobile recording lorry; the electronics were pulled out and set up in a inside each hall to record the performances. “There was a 4-track mixer and a 4-track mono mixer, so you’ve got 8 tracks … it was primitive” recalls Andy Johns. And although the decades-old technology reflects the limitations of the day, the sometimes muddled, often dimensionless music is both appealing and engaging. There’s not a lot of punch, for instance, in Jim Gordon’s drumming; lead vocals are sometimes lost in the mix; the guitars and horns are sometimes too bright and harsh; and when the audience cheers and claps, shouts and whistles in appreciation, the capabilities of the magnetic tape were overwhelmed by the range of sound.  But this is an album that is absolutely enjoyable and immediately indispensable to collectors, historians and fans. Because it was recorded, mixed and mastered at less than ideal standards does not preclude this from being a worthwhile listen; it’s as fun and joyous a listening experience as it must have been to attend the shows.

THE PACKAGING

44 musical tracks - most of them previously unreleased - on four colour-coordinated CDs contained in digi-pak gatefolds with hand-tinted black-and-white pictures within. The 45-page loose-leaf notebook of hand-written liner notes is full of recollections, tour details and various participants’ involvement, and includes three black-and-while photos of Delaney and Bonnie from the tour, all of this nestled in acoustic foam and contained in a facsimile tour box.

“On Tour With Eric Clapton” captured - and the new “… With Eric Clapton” expands upon - some of rock’s most notable artists at an incredibly fertile time in their inventive and creative careers. The assembly and the concerts were, in retrospect, a latter-20^th Century crossroads for first-call musicians from both sides of the Atlantic.

Bramlett, who died in December 2008 after surgery, had anextraordinary facility for identifying and bringing into his fold the best of two generations of talent - artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Jim Keltner, Dr. John, Leon Russell, Jeff Beck, Todd Rundgren, Buddy Miles, Duane Allman, Albert Collins, Gram Parsons, Steven Stills (liner notes) and other Laurel Canyon-connected players, as well as his Southern peers (Jerry Lee Lewis, Steve Cropper, et al) and innumerable rockers from Great Britain. Delaney touched the future by exploiting the talents of his peers who channeled the ideas and techniques of their musical predecessors.

Delaney and Bonnie’s seven night, 13-show concerts were an infinitely more appropriate swan song for the ‘60s than the angry, ugly and violent Altamont Free Concert in California, held the very same week in December 1969. When I look back to see how rock ‘n’ roll’s future became what it is, I’ll sit down with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends With Eric Clapton … rather than Gimme Shelter.