30 - The Mississippi Sheiks

 

July 1978 saw Rory Gallagher in the studios with Gerry McAvoy and new drummer Ted McKenna working on the Photo Finish album, so-called because of a tight deadline brought about by Rory scrapping previous work recorded in San Francisco and then recovery from a broken thumb. The album was handed in just in the nick of time!

The album, as mentioned previously in this blog, was recorded at Dieter Dierks’ studio just outside Cologne and provided a congenial atmosphere to work in. Ted McKenna said, “It took us two weeks to do the backing tracks. I remember doing a lot of takes, and Rory would take his time choosing the one he thought had the magic. It was a great studio, and an enjoyable experience altogether.”

A new line up seems to have given Rory a boost. Photo Finish, released on 1 October 1978 (certainly giving proof to the pudding that it indeed just made the deadline!), is a joy to listen to and one of my personal favourites. Rory was asked in one interview promoting the album if he had been getting singing lessons, much to his surprise. But it is a fair question. His vocals on this are especially strong.

Photo Finish takes the listener on many journeys, from the murky world of ‘Shadow Play,’ the heartbreak of ‘Fuel To The Fire’ to a band causing unrest in a quiet, small town, presumably somewhere in the boonies, by playing a show there in ‘Brute, Force and Ignorance’. Rory even includes a touch of time-travel in ‘The Mississippi Sheiks,’ which is without a doubt, the song of a blues devotee. The song beautifully captures the notion of slipping back in time to the early twentieth century when most of his blues heroes were working, many earning a few dollars playing in the street, as well as in juke joints and fish fry parties.

It was a history that Rory certainly absorbed in learning as much as he could about the blues. For anyone with an interest in the blues, he is certainly a good teacher. Interviews have him answering questions about his influences, and the answers he gave ranged along Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Howlin’ Wolf and Skip James. He covered songs by Bukka White, Blind Boy Fuller, Son House, and Lead Belly, making his own mark on them. In a less serious interview, he was asked who his ideal date was – Memphis Minnie! It is probably not much surprise he wrote a song like ‘The Mississippi Sheiks.’ You could certainly go no wrong by metaphorically accepting his invitation to “… come along with me, back to the southern streets.”

The namesakes of the song itself comprises of a guitar and fiddle country blues band from Mississippi, popular during the 1930s. The core of the group comprised of the Chatmon family, Armenter Chatmon, Lonnie Chatmon, and Sam Chatmon, as well as Walter Vinson, and Papa Charlie McCoy. The Mississippi Sheiks’ most famous song is ‘Sitting On Top Of The World’ from 1930, which was covered by many artists, including a Rory favourite, Bob Dylan. The group made their final recording in 1935. Armenter was better known as Bo Carter, He was mostly a part-time member, with a successful solo career outside the group, eventually leaving the band altogether. He is particularly known for sexually suggestive songs, one of which was also covered by Rory, ‘All Around Man,’ which is #10 in this blog. It’s thought that Carter was the half-brother of the legendary Charley Patton, a strong influence on Howlin’ Wolf, but as with most things in blues history, that’s not a definite!

Peg Leg Howell is the other name Rory sees in his blues-tinged fantasy. Hailing from Eatonton, Georgia, Howell picked up guitar aged twenty-one and often played in the streets of Atlanta, with a side line in bootlegging. He recorded for Columbia, but his career faded after the mid-1930s, with very few performances. He had a leg amputated due to complications from diabetes in the 1950s and was ‘rediscovered’ by George Mitchell and Roger Brown in 1963, during the blues revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s, a time when the young Rory was also taking in a lot of the blues and began playing guitar. It is an interesting question of how much he may have picked up from the blues revival, which saw many blues musicians play in the UK and Europe, where interest in the blues was strong. This is the same period that brought Son House and Skip James back to the fore. Rory could not have been doing anything but pay attention, even if he were too young at the age of twelve to make it to any of the shows in Europe and the UK mainland. Peg Leg Howell did make some final recordings in this period, but being born in 1888, he was an old man and passed away in 1966.

It's amazing what Rory hints at in what is lyrically a very short song – more of a vignette than a full tale. But it’s enough to provide a powerful glimpse into the world of the blues back in the day. During an interview later in his life, it was suggested to Rory he could easily teach a blues course at a university. He no doubt would have been particularly good at it. His short comments on the topic to journalists and other interviewers are lessons in themselves.