Hoodoo Man Blues
| Hoodoo Man Blues | ||||
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| Studio album by Junior Wells' Chicago Blues Band | ||||
| Released | 1965 | |||
| Recorded | September 22–23, 1965 | |||
| Genre | Blues | |||
| Length | 46:30 | |||
| Label | Delmark | |||
| Producer | Bob Koester | |||
| Junior Wells' Chicago Blues Band chronology | ||||
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| Allmusic |   |
Hoodoo Man Blues is the 1965 debut album of blues vocalist and harmonica player Junior Wells, performing with the Junior Wells' Chicago Blues Band, an early collaboration with Grammy Award-winning artist Buddy Guy. Released on LP by Delmark Records, the album has been subsequently reissued on CD and LP by Delmark and Analogue Productions.
The album of Chicago blues music was solicited by Bob Koester, the founder of Delmark Records, who liked Wells' music enough to give the musician considerable freedom on the album in spite of concerns of commercial response. The resultant innovative album became Delmark's best seller, establishing Wells' career and receiving critical acclaim as being among the best albums Wells ever produced and even among the greatest blues albums ever made being included for preservation by the National Recording Registry.
Record producer Bob Koester, the founder of Delmark Records who is credited with discovering Wells along with producer Sam Charters, recalls that at the time he was considering releasing an album by Wells, he was anxious about both the audience for Wells' music and the expense of studio time and sidemen, but that he liked the music too much to resist. Wells was given the liberty to select his own sidemen and track list, without the usual limitation of songs two or three minutes long, and the album that resulted became Delmark's then best-seller, a distinction that had not been surpassed as of 2003.
Koester remembers particular complications working with Guy, who was incorrectly believed to be legally entailed with Leonard Chess of Chess Records. Chess approved Guy's participation on the album, but refused to allow Guy's name to be listed in the credits until it was realized that his participation was not contractually disallowed. Guy was, at the time of release, credited as "Friendly Chap", a name proposed by Peter Brown, who later founded Down with the Game Records in the UK, with the explanation that "A buddy is a friend, a guy is a chap". For parts of the session, Guy's guitar amplifier was not working, and his guitar was wired instead through the Leslie speaker of the studio's Hammond organ. Koester said, "I've always been amazed at how rarely reviewers commented on the guitar-organ tracks".
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