Up And In [CD]

Enough down and out, it's time for Up And In .* Here are some old and new original songs and three of my favorites by great musicians who inspire me. Let's ride.

The Window was originally recorded in the Delta Blues style in 1990 for my Chicago Blues album on Powerhouse Records, which is now out of print. Here I've taken it up the river to Memphis. I dedicate it to all my friends who work and hang out on Beale Street.

Alien's Blues is impressions of Earth from a visitor's viewpoint. I was abducted by aliens, and after I had sleazy but strangely exciting sex with them, they forced me to write and record this song as a warning to Earthlings. DJ's who don't play it, and the rest of these songs (which contain secret messages), will be re-programmed or neutralized.

Imagination was originally recorded by Gladys Knight and The Pips. It's not blues in style, but it sure is in content. I've been playing this song in my shows since the early '80s, and I've always wanted to record it, though it's a departure from what I usually do.

She And The Devil was first done for Powerhouse Records with blues greats Jimmy Rogers, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith and harp master Kim Wilson. The lyrics come from a story that Muddy Waters told me. This time around, I do it as a duet with 83-years-young Pinetop Perkins, who played piano with Muddy for 12 years and is himself a blues legend.

Blues For Bartenders is just that. Don't miss the video, in which Bruce Iglauer plays The Alligator, I play The Frog, and Kaz plays The Proctologist.

I played slide guitar on Why Are People Like That? on The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album in '75, his last for Chess Records. Here, we expanded the guitar parts and added my own lyrics to Bobby Charles' original ones.

Goin' Back Out On The Road is an old song by Chicago Blues legend Snooky Pryor, and this version is for him. I'm honored to have done gigs with him in the '9Os and to have him as a special guest on my last Alligator Records album, My Blues And My Guitar .

Up And In celebrates the influence that made me want to play guitar and led me to blues -- Chuck Berry.

Coffee Break was written by the late Grady "Fats" Jackson, a very soulful sax player and singer who played with Little Walter and Elmore James in the '50s, and then blessed Atlanta with his music. It is sung by his protege and my good friend, Sweet Betty, a deep and powerful singer. Kaz Kazanoff, who played tenor, worked with Fats on the Tri-Saxual Soul Champs 1991 Blacktop Records album entitled Go Girl! Though Fats was an educated and sophisticated player, I try to reflect his deep blues roots with some country blues acoustic guitar. We dedicate this song to Fats, whom we miss so much, and our friends who hang out at Blind Willie's in Atlanta, where Fats' music was at home at the end of his life.

'Bout Out has my most sophisticated chord progression, but it comes from the first song I ever wrote and recorded, when I was 18, on an album called Peak Impressions . I was in a band from my hometown of Brookline, Massachusetts called The Freeborn, and my slightly bluesy song was "Hurtin' Kind Of Woman." I dedicate this new one to the rest of The Freeborn -- Nick Carstoiu, Lew Lipson, Mike Spiros, and Dave Codd.

I've redone Not What You Said Last Night, originally on my Chicago Blues album, with Pinetop. I dedicate this version to Tom Principato, who gave me my first chance to make my own albums for his Powerhouse Records label.

Long Ago And Far Away is not the "standard" by the same name, but influenced by the songwriting of Duke Ellington and Mose Allison and the blues ballads of Memphis Slim.

I copped the opening guitar lick of Just Because from the late Luther "Georgia Boy" or "Snake" Johnson, a Muddy Waters veteran in whose band I played, with Kaz and David Maxwell, in the early '70s. My lyrics come from an old hippie trying to get through the '9Os. We dedicate it to Luther's memory.

Later For You was recorded for Powerhouse Records in l988 on my The Old School album. Pinetop's driving piano and Kaz' harp give it new life.

Thanks for checking me out, and I'll see you out on the road. Enjoy.

*Oh, no sleazy sexual meaning, really!