J.B. Lenoir's final two albums before his death in 1967 may well have been his crowning achievements.
Alabama Blues (1965) and
Down in Mississippi (1966), both produced by
Willie Dixon, were recorded for the German label
L & R, and both featured stripped down acoustic arrangements that recast
Lenoir as a Southern
folk-blues troubadour.
Lenoir's lyrics on these two albums (which have been packaged on one CD as
Vietnam Blues by
Evidence) approached pure poetry as he skewered racism and other cultural ailments with a fiercely focused passion. Some of the tracks featured the veteran
Chess drummer
Fred Below, as well as an occasional backing vocal turn by
Dixon.
Alabama Blues, recorded in Chicago in 1965, appears to be made up of outtakes from those sessions, or possibly rough home demos done to get a feel for the direction
Lenoir wanted to go. These tracks aren't as rare as the subtitle suggests (
JSP released the same tracks -- with a different running order -- as
One of These Mornings in 2003), but they make a perfect addendum to the single disc
Vietnam Blues release on
Evidence.
Lenoir sounds somehow both relaxed and intense on these short pieces, and his agenda of both personalizing and politicizing the
blues is well in evidence on songs like
"Alabama Blues" and the harrowing
"Remove This Rope." Fred Below plays drums on
"God's Word," while
Dixon adds some background vocals here and there, and gently interviews
Lenoir at a couple of points. Had
Lenoir survived into the early '70s, his sharp writing, his emerging experiments with African rhythms (which he called "African Hunch"), and his fierce determination to speak the truth may well have made him an international star on the order of
Bob Marley. Fate took over, though, and
Lenoir was all but forgotten at the time of his death, and continues to be too little-known, even in the
blues community. His last recordings, including the enticing fragments found on
Alabama Blues, are arguably his best, outlining a focused, socially committed direction for the
blues. ~ Steve Leggett
