Review: Blues Incorporated - Red Hot From Alex (1964)
Tracks: 1) Woke Up This Morning; 2) Skipping; 3) Herbie’s Tune; 4) Stormy Monday; 5) It’s Happening; 6) Roberta; 7) Jones; 8) Cabbage Greens; 9) Chicken Shack; 10) Haitian Fight Song.
REVIEW
This studio album was recorded at Olympic Studios in London over three days in March 1964, almost one month after Blues Incorporated’s show at The Cavern in Liverpool which would go on to become the band’s second live LP; however, Red Hot From Alex got an earlier release date, which is why we shall briefly deal with it first (not that any of these details ever mattered, since no record put out by Alexis Korner had ever gained any commercial or critical prominence). With the band being a constant revolving door, the lineup gathered here in March ’64 is not only completely different from the 1962 lineup, but is even almost completely different from the lineup responsible for the Cavern show in February ’64: besides Korner himself on electric guitar, the players are Barry Howten on drums (know nothing about this guy otherwise), Danny Thompson on bass (one of the UK’s most famous folk bass players, later a member of The Pentangle), Ron Edgeworth on keyboards (later a husband of Judith Durham from The Seekers), Dave Castle, Art Theman, and Dick Heckstall-Smith on saxes, and American blues and gospel singer Herbie Goines on vocals — added to this gentlemanly UK team for an extra touch of African-American authenticity, I suppose, though this is by no means knocking the man’s professionalism and dedication.
Unfortunately, professionalism seems to be the key goal of this relatively tepid studio release, which has neither the energy nor the risky exuberance of Korner’s live shows. This attitude was, of course, consistent with the then-current practice of putting on a polite and gallant face in the studio while leaving all the stop-pulling business for the live environment — putting tightness, discipline, and cleanliness of sound at the forefront, all of which seems quite logical to observe when a good studio actually allows you to practice all these values, unlike the live setting.
That said, a tight, clean, and well-disciplined Blues Incorporated at best comes across as a respectable backing band for some high profile jump blues artist like, say, Louis Jordan. In particular, check ʽSkippingʼ, a tightly played piece of fast-paced R&B in which Ron Edgeworth’s organ, Korner’s electric guitar, and the three sax players form five near-ideal pieces of the puzzle, yet fail to complete the experience with the secret special ingredient — because not one of the players is ever ready to let his basic instincts take over, as if feeling afraid that something will fatally fall out of place. At one time during the groove, Korner takes the lead, but plays it feebly and falteringly, without any signs of imaginativeness or wildness, and it looks as if he does not even try, being subconsciously terrified of ending up looking stupid or something. It is precisely this aspect, I think, that separates Alexis from the likes of Keith Richards, even if some of the allegedly «red hot» licks he plays here are formally reminiscent of Keith’s «anglicized» Chuck Berry style.
Likewise, the short version of the instrumental ʽHerbie’s Tuneʼ (ironically titled, since it is one of the few numbers on which Herbie does not sing) is all «academic», slow, and stiff compared to what they did to the composition on stage — where the saxophones would screech and whine like an agonizing pig under the knife, while here the pig in question is more prone to lazily grunting and snorting in the comfort of the trough. This lack of excitement essentially nullifies the fact that the sound mix is unquestionably better, with all the different instrumental parts well defined and working as clearly individual parts of a collective whole, and that Edgeworth’s organ does add one more layer of depth that was lacking at The Cavern; none of that matters, because on the whole, the tune just creeps and crawls on, slowly and painfully, on the formalistic strength of its metronomically rising and falling groove, without any involving dynamics.
Stylistically, the album is mostly divided between 12-bar blues (T-Bone Walker’s classic ʽStormy Mondayʼ, a major favorite of all UK blues-based bands; Korner delivers a shrill, echoey, stinging guitar solo, fairly decent and expressive for the pre-Clapton era) and, in a relatively surprising new twist, classic jazz (covers of Duke Ellington’s ‘Jones’ and of ‘Chicken Shack’ credited to Johnny Smith — can’t really identify the original; the Graham Bond original ʽIt’s Happeningʼ). The latter artistic decision seems rather unfortunate to me, because this particular incarnation of Korner’s band is simply too heavy-footed to get a proper jazz groove going on — listen to Duke’s band performing ‘Jones’ on any of his live or studio records, almost literally flying above the ground; Blues Incorporated, in comparison, tread upon the ground heavily, with the rhythm section almost jackhammering the tune under the soil. The only time they succeed with their jazz ambitions is with the cover of Mingus’ classic ‘Haitian Fight Song’ (from The Clown), given that it is a dark and menacing groove which needs to be trampled underfoot, and Korner’s little band of sax players forms a convincing cutthroat outfit with the rhythm section. Everything else here needed to be delivered with smiles on faces and helium in the lungs, when in reality we get morose seriousness and a solid dose of lead poisoning.
Apparently, Korner had also become seriously infatuated with the sound of Booker T. & The MG’s, ripping off ʽGreen Onionsʼ on his poorly masked ʽCabbage Greensʼ — formally, he gets the groove right, but then he goes on to transpose it to a different tonality which completely removes the foreboding, devilish menace of the original (precisely the element that made it so unforgettable and popular) and basically just relieves it of any emotional impact. Just compare the organ riff from the original and whatever Edgeworth is doing here — the former makes you hug the sidewalk and dive into a side alley, while the latter might make a nice relaxing soundtrack for a tanning session at the beach.
Still, even if Red Hot From Alex should rather read Stone Cold From Alex, I admit that there may well be people to whom this academically sterile take on rhythm & blues will be far more palatable than dirty, sloppy, emotionally charged garage rock. On an objective scale, the album does have the distinction of being the first well-produced, clear-sounding record to come out of Alexis Korner’s camp (London’s Olympic Studios did deliver easily the best produced pop music of the time), sort of like Manfred Mann without the irritating nursery pop ditties — a serious, but fully accessible mix of blues, jazz, and dance music whose only fault was in that nobody in the whole wide world really needed this kind of music from Britain at the time, not even Britain itself. Even if he wanted to (which he allegedly did not), Alexis Korner could never become part of the «British Invasion» — his entire schtick was strictly for internal consumption, and even then, only as long as the US import market still remained relatively underdeveloped. Only in a long-term retro perspective is it possible to see that the artist was honestly trying to reinterpret his influences rather than simply copycat them — unfortunately, his talent was simply not enough to make this effort work.
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