Artist: Charlie Musselwhite
Genre(s):
Blues
Discography:
One Night In America
Year: 2002
Tracks: 12
Curtain Call Cocktails
Year: 1998
Tracks: 13
In My Time
Year: 1993
Tracks: 16
Signature
Year: 1991
Tracks: 10
Ace Of Harps
Year: 1990
Tracks: 10
Rough News
Year:
Tracks: 12
Continental Drifter
Year:
Tracks: 11
Harmonica magician Norton Buffalo can recall a leaner time when his phonograph record ingathering had been whittled down to only the bare essentials: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's South Side Band. Butterfield and Musselwhite testament plausibly be incessantly linked as the deuce to the highest degree interesting, and arguably the virtually important, products of the "edward D. White blues movement" of the mid to previous '60s -- not only because they were close the vanguard chronologically, simply because they each stand out as organism specially faithful to the style. Each for sure earned the respectfulness of his fabled mentors. No less than the late Big Joe Williams aforementioned, "Charlie Musselwhite is one of the greatest living harp players of country blues. He is right up there with Sonny Boy Williamson, and he's been my mouth organ player ever since Sonny Boy got killed."
It's interesting that Williams specifies "rural area" vapors, because, level though he made his print in the lead electric bands in Chicago and San Francisco, Musselwhite began playing vapors with mass he'd interpret about in Samuel Charters' Country Blues -- Memphis greats like Furry Lewis, Will Shade, and Gus Cannon. It was these rural roots that place him aside from Butterfield, and decades later Musselwhite began incorporating his first official document, guitar.
Innate in Kosciusko, MS, in 1944, Musselwhite's kinfolk stirred second Earl of Guilford to Memphis, where he went to high school. Musselwhite migrated north in search of the near-mythical $3.00-an-hour job (the same bait that set myriad youngsters on the like route), and became a conversant face at blues haunts like Pepper's, Turner's, and Theresa's, sitting in with and sometimes acting aboard harmonica lords such as Little Walter, Shakey Horton, Good Rockin' Charles, Carey Bell, Big John Wrencher, and even Sonny Boy Williamson. Before recording his first base album, Musselwhite appeared on LPs by Tracy Nelson and John Hammond and dueted (as Memphis Charlie) with Shakey Horton on Vanguard's Chicago/The Blues/Today series.
When his aforesaid debut LP became a banner on San Francisco's metro radio, Musselwhite played the Fillmore Auditorium and never returned to the Windy City. Leading bands that featured greats like guitarists Harvey Mandel, Freddie Roulette, Luther Tucker, Louis Myers, Robben Ford, Fenton Robinson, and Junior Watson, Musselwhite played steadily in Bay Area bars and mounted somewhat low profile national tours. It wasn't until the late '80s, when he conquered a career-long drunkenness trouble, that Musselwhite began touring general to rave notices. He became busier than ever so and continued cathartic records to critical applaud. His two releases on Virgin, Crude News in 1997 and Continental Drifter in 2000, found Musselwhite admixture elements of jazz, gospel, Tex-Mex, and acoustic Delta blues. After sign language with Telarc Blues in 2002, he continued exploring his musical roots by releasing One Night in America. The disk exposed Musselwhite's interest in area music with a spread over interpretation of the Johnny Cash classic "Large River," and featured guest appearances by Kelly Willis and Marty Stuart. Sanctuary, released in 2004, was Musselwhite's first record for Real World.
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