Show Me the Way Home, Honey

The rock era saw a few white female singers, like Janis Joplin, show they could sing the blues. But one who could outshine them all -- Jo Ann Kelly -- seemed to slip through the cracks, mostly because she favored the acoustic, Delta style rather than rocking out with a heavy band behind her. But with a huge voice, and a strong guitar style influenced by Memphis Minnie and Charley Patton, she was the queen. Born January 5, 1944, Kelly and her older brother Dave were both taken by the blues, and born at the right time to take advantage of a young British blues scene in the early '60s. By 1964 she was playing in clubs, including the Star in Croydon, and had made her first limited-edition record with future Groundhogs guitarist Tony McPhee. She expanded to play folk and blues clubs all over Britain, generally solo, but occasionally with other artists, bringing together artists like Bessie Smith and Sister Rosetta Tharpe into her own music. After the first National Blues Federation Convention in 1968 her career seemed ready to take flight. She began playing the more lucrative college circuit, followed by her well-received debut album in 1969. At the second National Blues Convention, she jammed with Canned Heat, who invited her to join them on a permanent basis. She declined, not wanting to be a part of a band -- and made the same decision when Johnny Winter offered to help her. Throughout the '70s, Kelly continued to work and record solo, while also gigging for fun in bands run by friends, outfits like Tramp and Chilli Willi -- essentially pub rock, as the scene was called, and in 1979 she helped found the Blues Band, along with brother Dave, and original Fleetwood Mac bassist Bob Brunning. The band backed her on an ambitious show she staged during the early '80s, Ladies and the Blues, in which she paid tribute to her female heros. In 1988, Kelly began to suffer pain. A brain tumor was diagnosed and removed, and she seemed to have recovered, even touring again in 1990 with her brother before collapsing and dying on October 21. Posthumously, she's become a revered blues figure, one who helped clear the path for artists like Bonnie Raitt and Rory Block. But more than a figurehead, her recorded material -- and unreleased sides have appeared often since her death -- show that Kelly truly was a remarkable blueswoman.

People have begun to discover just how good a blueswoman the late Jo-Ann Kelly was. That's led to a trawling through the vaults, which have turned up albums like this, of obscure compilation and unreleased cuts. Key to the Highway covers what's arguably her most prolific period, as her star was ascending and was at its critical height (although it should be noted that the 1974 end date in the title is very elastic -- there are six cuts from 1975, and two conversation pieces from 1988).

Second volume of female blues singer's works features British blues at its best - all 19 tracks have never been released before, feat. Dave Kelly, Tony McPhee & Bob Hall Recorded between 1966 and 1988.

14 track British blues collection is a mix of never before released & rare live & studio sessions. Features contributions from Fleetwood Mac's Danny Kirwan, as well as Keef Hartley, Bob Brunning & Bob Hall (tracks 9-14 are the last known live recordings).

This double CD by the best blueswoman England ever produced isn't new; it's actually a compilation from material already available on the Mooncrest label. But it's hard to criticize the recycling (unless you already own the other discs), as it provides a superb introduction to her raw style. Listening to the 45 tracks here you can conclude: In many ways, Kelly was everything Memphis Minnie aspired to be, an excellent guitar player, blessed with one of the most affecting voices in blues, and a huge compositional talent.

The set kicks off with four numbers taken from a rare Harlequin blues EP compilation, recorded with Tony McPhee in 1965. This was not Kelly's first session, she'd done an earlier one for Mike Vernon's Purdah label, but that remains unreleased, and thus this was the music with which Kelly was introduced to the world. Also featured are a pair of tracks from another scarce blues Harlequin compilation, this one released by the label in 1968, as well as a few more taken from other various rare collections. However, the bulk of the album boasts a stream of superb unreleased material, including no less than five songs recorded with guitarist Stefan Grossman during his U.K. tour in the summer of 1977.

The core band of Pete Emery, John Pilgrim and Mike Pigott are finely tuned, offering an impressive framework for that stunning voice.

Notes: Jug bands there have been a-plenty on records, made exclusively in America, chiefly in the cities of Memphis, Louisville, and Atlanta, mainly during the classic era of jazz from 1922 to 1931. There origin is as old as the blues; to the big companies operating in America today, they are not a commercial proposition any more, it seems. But this group, resident in London's folk-song club, the Roundhouse, in London's Wardour Street, is the first British jug band ever to make a record for commercial release.
The leader and general all-rounder (no pun intended!), Cyril Davies, used to play with our Steve Lane's Famous Southern Stompers and is the composer of that strangely attractive minor-key melody THE STAGGERS which has been recorded for us by Colin Kingwell's Jazz Bandits (VEP-11). On the session that produced the above tracks, he knelt before the microphone, the better to record the instrumental number SHORT LEGS SHUFFLE, which suggested its name. The rippling folksy banjo by petite Lise Turner, wife of the jug player Reg, is one of the most attractive and unusual sounds on any VJM record.
The first track on each side is a tribute to the Memphis Jug Band and its leader, Will Shade, who for nearly four years (February 1927 to November 1930) directed many sessions in Memphis and some in Atlanta, playing all the instruments used by Cyril Davies and Jeff Bradford. K.C. Moan was actually issued here on Regal-Zonophone in February 1937, but while a good sale of such a record could probably be expected now, it meant nothing to the public then. A more thoroughly satisfying blues performance has seldom been recorded, and this version echoes that mood.
W.C. Handy's HESITATION BLUES is a well-tried folk song, with countless variations on the lyrics. Lise Turner sings with Cyril Davies on this and IT'S THE SAME THING, and the effect is quite remarkably close to the sound of the country blues bands that made records "on location" in the South upwards of three decades ago.
This is not a skiffle group as the term as the term came to be misused by the Tin Pan Alley men in 1956 and a couple of years thereafter; it is a group of four enthusiastic and artistically sensitive people, mature in years, not teenagers, who have steeped themselves in their idiom with these happy results. ~ Brian Rust

Notes: In Nov. '62 harpist Cyril Davies left Alexis Korner and Blues Incorporated, wanting a tougher city blues sound. He formed Cyril Davies R & B All Stars, taking Long John Baldry with him from Blues Incorporated and recruiting Screaming Lord Sutch's backup musicians Rick Brown (bass) and Carlo Little (drums). The All Stars also listed talented guitarist Geoff Bradford among their members.
The All Stars evolved into Long John Baldry's Hoochie Coochie Men in January '64 after Cyril Davies's death. Still Geoff Bradford on guitar - and Rod Stewart as one of the vocalists.

Notes: Early in the morning of January 8th, 1964, I received a telephone call from John Martin: "I'm sorry to be the one who has to tell you this, John, but Cyril died last night." Cyril had been taken to hospital at six in the evening and within five hours was dead. I just could not believe it - he had been ill for some months, that I knew, but the suddenness of his death threw me. Some days before, as we were crossing the footbridge from our old stamping ground Eel Pie Island, he had said something that flashed back into my mind at that moment. "You know, John, I think this will be the last time I'll walk on this bridge".
As it happened, that particular evening at the Island was to be his last public appearance.
The first time I ever met Cyril Davies was a few weeks before the earliest tracks on this album were recorded. I was only a young kid just out of school at that time, just playing guitar and singing a little and very much in love with the blues. Although I had been listening to records by Bill Broonzy, and Muddy Waters among others since I was twelve, I had never heard English people playing and singing the blues until the evening I walked into the Roundhouse (the pub in Soho, not Arnold Wesker's ex-railway turntable shed) and heard Cyril and Alexis Korner. I used to go every Thursday evening and they would invite me to join them on the piece of lino between the piano and the bar, which served as the bandstand, encouraging me in my desire to be part of the blues scene. Those were great days, because apart from Cyril, Alex and myself performing, there were visits to the club by Big Bill, Muddy, Memphis Slim, Otis Spann, Ramblin' Jack Elliot and Derroll Adams and many more.
Of course, Cyril was better known then as a twelve-string guitarist than as a harmonica player. But later, in the days of the "Blues Incorporated" and the All Stars", he never played guitar on stage, so naturally became absolutely identified with harmonica. I have always thought it a great pity that his guitar playing was never utilized on his recordings for Decca and Pye. However, this situation can now be rectified as we listen to this collection of memorable recordings thanks to Doug Dobell.
As I listen, I look back and think of the little black Alsatian Uschi (still alive and well and monstrous in Kent) that he gave me from the litter of his scrapyard watchdog Kim. The entire barful of dockers on Teesside for whom he bought drinks all night. The inimitable way he curbed a tribal civil war in the back of a Timpson's coach outside Middlesbrough Infirmary. My sudden arrival back to sobriety one night in Burslem with a well-aimed harmonica hurled at my head from the stage. But there's not enough room on this sleeve to tell it all. Perhaps Doug might let me record an album one day so that I can tell you the WHOLE story of the Legendary Cyril Davies. ~ Long John Baldry