December 1968 found Fleetwood Mac undertaking their second tour of North America. Opening with a show at the Fillmore East in New York the tour would include December dates in Austin, Dallas, Boston, Detroit, Miami, Philadelphia and Chicago. The tour would continue throughout January and February 1969 with shows in Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Fresno, Sacramento, Cleveland and closing in Detroit.
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During the bands time in New York they recorded songs for their next album and single at an unknown studio. Among the tracks laid down were Do You Give A Damn For Me, Like It This Way, Jeremy Spencer's rockabilly take-off, Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight and a new Peter Green composition, Man Of The World, a track they would work on again in London on their return to the UK.
The following day they were back in the studio, this time Tempo Sound Studios, backing Otis Spann on a session arranged by producer and Blue Horizon Records founder, Mike Vernon. The tracks recorded this day would be released later in the year on Spann's album The Biggest Thing Since Colossus.
However, it is another session undertaken during their time in America that we will be looking at in this article.
Mike Vernon and Marshall Chess, the son of Chess Records co-founder Leonard Chess, had arranged a session which would see the members of Fleetwood Mac recording with a number of Chicago bluesmen.
The session was booked for 4 January and would be held at the Ter-Mar Studios located at 320 East 21st Street in Chicago. The studio was named after the sons of Chess Records co-founders Phil and Leonard Chess, Ter(ry) and Mar(shall). The original Chess studios had been on 2120 South Michigan Avenue but they closed in 1966 and moved to the new address in September.
Not every member of the band were keen on the idea. Vernon recalled this years after the event, "Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea except for John McVie and Peter Green, who was sitting on the fence. I think they all thought the studio was going to be ramshackle and the real deal - the place where all those old blues records were made - but of course it was much bigger and more professionally run than they expected. And I think that was a let-down for them. It was also the middle of winter and Chicago was bloody cold." Fortunately they finally agreed.
Willie Dixon, Chess Records A&R man, was bought in and tasked with organising the sessions and hiring the musicians. Unfortunately many of the blues greats were unavailable due to being out of town. However, he did manage to acquire the services of both Otis Spann (piano and vocals) and Buddy Guy (guitar) along with Shakey Horton (harmonica and vocals), J. T. Brown (tenor saxophone and vocals), Honeyboy Edwards (guitar and vocals) and S. P. Leary (drums). As well as organising the session Dixon would play upright bass.
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| Photo (c) Jeff Lowenthal |
Mike Vernon produced the session alongside Marshall Chess while Stu Black was the recording engineer.
The sessions didn't go as smoothly as both Vernon and Chess had hoped for. There was some friction between the local bluesmen and the members of Fleetwood Mac, some of which can be heard on the track Rock Me Baby as featured on the The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions 1967-1969. However, the session did produce some great music with Fleetwood Mac obviously enjoying the chance to record with many of their idols and the artists that influenced their own style.
Throughout the session various members of the band and the blues musicians would step aside and recordings would often feature just Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, while others would find all the blues musicians accompanied by just one or two of the band.
They recorded almost thirty songs, many more than once. Several had been written by the blues musicians present at the session including I Need Your Love and I Got The Blues (Walter Horton), Someday Soon Baby and Hungry Country Girl (Otis Spann) and Black Jack Blues (J. T. Brown). They also turned to Howlin' Wolf for Sugar Mama and Ooh Baby, Memphis Slim's Everyday I Have The Blues and Little Walter Jacobs for Last Night.
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Vocals were handled mainly by members of Fleetwood Mac although Shakey Horton takes the lead for I Need Your Love and I Got The Blues, Otis Spann appears on Someday Soon Baby and Hungry Country Girl while J. T. Brown is the vocalist on Black Jack Blues.
The remaining songs are shared between Peter Green who delivers great versions of Watch Out, Ooh Baby, Last Night, Sugar Mama and Homework while Danny Kirwan records his own compositions Talk With You, Like It This Way and the Jimmy Rogers song World's In A Tangle.
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The highlight of the day is when Jeremy Spencer turns his attention to his favourite artist, Elmore James, and performs blistering performances of I'm Worried, I Held My Baby Last Night, I Can't Hold Out and Madison Blues. He also turns his attention to Memphis Slim's Everyday I Have The Blues.
Several instrumentals were also recorded including Walter Horton's South Indiana, Peter Green's Red Hot Jam, and Jeremy Spencer's Rockin' Boogie.
Mike Vernon recalled the sessions in 1999, "Memories of that day are still quite vivid although I have to be honest and say that I still cannot believe that we achieved so much in one day. I often ask myself as to whether we might not have actually taken two. I've even written to that effect but in truth I don't recall. We hardly ever did more than one take of any song so I guess the project could have been completed in one day." He went on to say, "I don't remember there being much sense of urgency although as the clock wound down I did push Peter and the lads to try and get a couple of other tunes in the bag before time ran out on us."
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Twenty-two tracks recorded on that cold January day in Chicago were released in the United Kingdom on Mike Vernon's Blue Horizon label in December 1969. Blues Jam At Chess was a 2-LP set in a gatefold sleeve and the inner sleeve featured several photos taken during the session. Interspersed between the tracks is studio chatter including conversations between the band members and producer Mike Vernon. Far from distracting the listener, these snippets are a welcome addition which gives an insight into the sessions.
On the album sleeve Buddy Guy is listed as Guitar Buddy and Mike Vernon recalled this in an interview, "Imagine my disappointment when I was told at a later date that I couldn't even use Buddy Guy's name even though the session had been co-produced by a member of the Chess family and cut in their own studio. Guy was instantly transformed into Guitar Buddy." Apparently it was due to Guy's battle with Chess over his contract and his reluctance to add too much to the sessions. He only plays second guitar and a few solos on the album.
In America the release history is far more complicated. Issued three times, in 1970, 1971 and 1975, the album had two different titles and three different cover designs.
The first release in America was as two individual albums with the titles Blues Jam In Chicago, Volume One and Volume Two, once again on the Blue Horizon label, and issued in June and October 1970. The covers featured colour images from the sessions.
In 1971 they issued the original 2-LP UK configuration on Blue Horizon with another different cover and title, Fleetwood Mac In Chicago.
To capitalise on the bands new found success with the Fleetwood Mac album, featuring new members Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, in 1975 a third variation was released. Using the same title as the 1971 issue, Fleetwood Mac In Chicago, the album featured plain artwork and was issued on the Sire label.
When Sony/Columbia released the 6-CD set The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions 1967-1969 in 1999 the two albums were presented in card sleeves with the original American artwork.
This set includes the most comprehensive selection of material recorded during the Chicago session. Alongside the twenty-two previously released tracks are a number of previously unreleased and alternate versions, including take 1 of Red Hot Jam, Bobby's Rock, two versions of Horton's Boogie Woogie, an earlier take of Sugar Mama, Honey Boy Blues, an unissued early take of I Need Your Love, Have A Good Time, That's Wrong and Rock Me Baby. A handful of the original tracks also feature some additional studio chat. There are also in-depth liner notes on the sessions.
Blues Jam At Chess, and the subsequent releases, failed to chart and received a mixed reception on initial release. However, over the years the albums have gained more positive reviews and mentions in the music press.
Writing in 1976 after the release of the bands then current album Fleetwood Mac, better known as The White Album, Greil Marcus wrote, "Thanks to the near-permanent success of the current Fleetwood Mac LP, virtually all the bands pre-Warner Bros. material - featuring guitarists Peter Green, Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer - is back on the market. The best stuff is to be found on Fleetwood Mac In Chicago (Sire), a double album cut in '69 at the Chess studios, with real-life black bluesmen sitting in... The Fleetwood Mac that cut this album was a rough, derivative band, full of enthusiasm and committed to their music... The shade of Elmore James smiled on the band, and never more so than on Chicago..."
"Put together on short notice, and recorded in one day, the sessions have something of a ramshackle feel, but the energy of the performances transcends any shortcomings on this date", is how AllMusic describe the album. They go on to say, "Given that the Peter Green-led Fleetwood Mac was already deeply rooted in Chicago Blues, the project proved to be a natural for the group."
Writing on Analog Planet, Michael Fremer said, "Whatever you think of the blues, you gotta love the sound of these recordings, and more importantly the spirited playing as the veterans join in the fun of playing with the white youngsters from across the sea. These are jams - surprisingly tight ones - with snippets of producer Mike Vernon's communication between the recording booth and the studio left in between the music to help give you an indication of how the tunes were conceived."
Rock Critic, Robert Christgau wrote about one of the re-issues, "Combining the recently released Vols. 1 and 2, this two-LP set lets five sincere but never sedulously irrelevant English lads explore their branches. It almost brings you back to those distant days when 'white blues' was more than a code for 'heavy.' Knowledgeable song selection, expressive playing - especially by Peter Green, who filters B. B. King through Santo & Johnny with a saxophonist's sense of line - and lots of help from Otis Spann, Willie Dixon, Shakey Horton, and others makes the thinness of the singing seem like a tribute to a new tradition."
The original albums featured almost 100 images taken during the sessions by Jeff Lowenthal, the only photographer present during the recordings. However, due to the size you would need a magnifying glass to really appreciate them. Thankfully you can now see the photos, along with many previously unseen images, in the new book Fleetwood Mac In Chicago - The Legendary Chess Blues Session written/compiled by Lowenthal with author Robert Schaffner and published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd. in Atglen, Pennsylvania.
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This beautifully produced coffee table book includes more than 160 colour and black & white images taken by Lowenthal during the session. Many are making their first appearance and even those that were featured on the album look so much clearer here and, of course, they are a much larger size. There are so many great images and it would take far too long to describe all my favourites but rest assured there are loads. Besides the musicians there are a few nice images of Mike Vernon, Marshall Chess and Stu Black working at the mixing desk and out in the studio directing the proceedings.
The image quality is amazing and despite the odd few that are slightly out-of-focus, a minor point when considering these are over fifty-years old, they really bring to life the session.
The photos are the main part of the book but they are interspersed with text, comments and interviews with a variety of people. Again the list is too long but includes Mick Fleetwood, John Mayall, Martin Celmins, Aynsley Dunbar, Buddy Guy and many more. Some of the interviews were held by Robert Schaffner.
The book includes forewords by both Mike Vernon and Marshall Chess along with introductions by Jeff Lowenthal and Robert Schaffner.
This is a wonderful book and deserves to be on the shelf of any Fleetwood Mac fan, of which I am one, and lovers of Chicago blues, again that includes me.
Pick up a copy of this excellent new book, put the CDs in the player, grab the headphones and relive that day in January 1969 when a band of British white blues enthusiasts teamed up with some of the legendary Chicago bluesmen to create a piece of music history.
With thanks to Harrison Lutz and Victoria Hansen at Schiffer Publishing Ltd for providing a review copy of the book.
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