Blues with a Feeling

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For the Taj Mahal album, see Blues with a Feeling: The Very Best of Taj Mahal. For the Steve Hackett album, see Blues with a Feeling (Steve Hackett album).
"Blues with a Feeling"
Single by Rabon Tarrant with Jack McVea and His Door Openers
A-side"Slowly Goin' Crazy Blues"
ReleasedAfter May 10, 1947 (1947-05-10)
RecordedLos Angeles, 1947
GenreJump blues
Length3:00
LabelBlack & White
Songwriter(s)Rabon Tarrant

"Blues with a Feeling" is a

B-side of "Slowly Goin' Crazy Blues". Although the original release was commercially unsuccessful, the song later became an important hit for Little Walter
, with whom it is usually identified.

Walter transformed the tune from Tarrant's

blues harp
players.

Original song

Rabon Tarrant, a drummer with saxophone player Jack McVea's band, wrote "Blues with a Feeling" and also provided the vocals.[2] The song was performed as a mid-tempo twelve-bar jump blues that features sax and trumpet soloing over a strong backbeat. The opening verses reflect on lost love:

Blues with a feeling, that's what I have today
Blues with a feeling, that's what I have today
Gonna find my baby, yes if it takes all night and day.

In its "Advance Record Releases" column,

Open the Door Richard" exited the chart.[3][4] However, "Blues with a Feeling" did not reach the chart.[4]

Little Walter rendition

Little Walter follows much of McVea's verses and arrangement, however, he updates the song in his own style.[2] It is performed as a slow blues with Walter playing a distinctive harp intro and accompaniment to his vocals.[2] When Little Walter recorded "Blues with a Feeling" in Chicago on July 23, 1953, he was backed by one of the classic Chicago blues bands.[5] Sometimes known as the Aces, Dave Myers and Louis Myers (or possibly Jimmy Rogers) provide guitars, with Willie Dixon on upright bass, and Fred Below on drums.[5] Walter biographer Tony Glover notes the "nice interplay between the guitar and the harp ... with Below providing momentum with his shuffling brush work, and an effective stop-time vocal verse from Walter near the end".[2]

R&B charts on October 10, 1953, eventually reaching number two on the Juke Box chart and number six on the Best Seller chart.[4]

The song is found on many Little Walter compilations, including his first,

Best of Little Walter (1958), the comprehensive The Essential Little Walter (1993),[5] and, as a part of The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection, His Best (1997). An alternate take, recorded in September 1953, was released on Blues with a Feeling: Chess Collectables, Vol. 3 (1995).[6] Unlike most of Walter's alternate takes, this later recording differs little from the original.[6]

Legacy

Little Walter's adaptation of "Blues with a Feeling" has been identified as a

blues standard and a "necessary passage of every beginning harmonica player" by blues historian Gérard Herzhaft [fr].[7] Music writer Mary Katherine Aldin notes that it "has been cited by a number of his imitators as the song that inspired them to take up harmonica".[6] Harmonica instructional book author Winslow Yerxa identifies it as one of the best-known "tried-and-true harmonica tunes" and one of six blues favorites.[8][9]

Although "Blues with a Feeling" was written and originally performed and recorded by Tarrant, Little Walter usually receives the credit for the tune.[6] Many subsequent releases also credit him, leading Aldin to call it "maybe Walter's most covered song".[6]

References

  1. Open the Door, Richard". See also Billboard
    , May 10, 1947, page 122.
  2. ^ a b c d e
    ISBN 978-0-415-93711-5
    .
  3. ^ a b "Advance Record Releases – Race".
    ISSN 0006-2510
    .
  4. ^ a b c
    ISBN 0-89820-068-7
    .
  5. ^ a b c d Snowden, Don (1993). The Essential Little Walter (Album notes).
    OCLC 29365560
    . CHD2-9342.
  6. ^ a b c d e Aldin, Mary Katherine (1995). Blues with a Feeling (Album notes). Little Walter. Universal City, California: MCA Records/Chess Records. p. 11. CHD2-9357.
  7. ^ Herzhaft, Gerard (1992). "Blues with a Feeling". Encyclopedia of the Blues. Fayetteville, Arkansas:
    ISBN 1-55728-252-8
    .
  8. ^ Yerxa, Winslow (2015). Harmonica For Dummies (2nd ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. p. 299.
    ISBN 978-1-118-88076-0
    .
  9. Juke"; Sonny Boy Williamson II's "Bye Bye Bird" and "Help Me"; and Jimmy Reed's "Honest I Do" and "Bright Lights, Big City
    ". Yerxa, page 299.
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