Album review: Putumayo Presents Blues Café

(This review was first published in the May-June 2022 issue of Living Blues.)

Putumayo, one of the leading independent purveyors of folk and traditional musics from around the world, revisits the blues on “Putumayo Presents Blues Café.” This release follows in the footsteps of previous blues-oriented compilations including “Mississippi Blues” (2002), “American Blues” (2003), “African Blues” (2012), “Rhythm & Blues” (2013), and “Blues Party” (2016). They’ve also released an acid-blues collection, “Blues Lounge” (2004), and a Cajun and zydeco set, “Louisiana Gumbo” (2000).

While Putumayo founder, owner and executive producer Dan Storper has a well-documented affection for New Orleans that generally leads to a Crescent City tilt to many of Putumayo’s compilations, this release is fairly light on music from the Big Easy. In fact, if anything, this album leans toward the traditional Piedmont style of the Carolinas, coastal Georgia and Virginia — although there are also strong examples of Chicago and Texas blues as well.

There is nothing newly released here — all tracks are taken from existing, available recordings.

While serious blues fans will have most of these tracks, it’s as solid an introduction to the music for friends or family who don’t “get” your blues habit as could exist for a music as varied and broad as the blues.

The collection begins strongly with a 1965 track by Lightnin’ Hopkins, “Found My Baby Crying” from his Jewel LP “Blue Lightnin’.” It’s classic Hopkins, with his world-weary tale delivered in a relaxed, almost conversational vocal, punctuated by some brilliant guitar lines. Elmore Nixon adds some well-placed fills on piano as well.

The second track could well have come off of the 2006 Putumayo release, “Blues Around the World” except it was only recorded five years ago. Arnaud Fradin & His Roots Combo hails from the Brittany region of western France. The four-piece acoustic outfit is fronted by Fradin’s vocals and guitar, along with Thomas Troussier’s diatonic harmonica. Their cover of Luther Allison’s “Good Morning Love” is reminiscent of the albums Roy Rogers and Norton Buffalo did for Flying Fish in the ’90s — a modern, bright take on the Piedmont style.

The real Piedmont style is front and center on the next song, “Walk On” by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. This exact same version was included on “The Blues Collection 39,” and is credited in the Putumayo liner notes to a 2006 compilation from Fuel Records — but a fairly detailed search through discographies failed to yield the original recording date. This particular take features a spoken intro from McGhee and Terry before the duo tackles the song in a highly spirited vein, with McGhee’s vocals soaring alongside Terry’s harmonica. It is Terry and McGhee at the peak of their prowess, and is a definitive reading of one of their signature songs.

Next up is a slice of Chicago blues courtesy of Junior Wells and Buddy Guy, 1965's “In the Wee Hours” from “Hoodoo Man Blues” (Delmark). A slow, jazzy number, it showcases both Wells’ lyrical felicity on harmonica and his warm vocals. Guy alternates chordal strumming with quick runs on guitar — but is far more muted in his presence here than he would be on later collaborations with Wells.

Illustrating just how long Delmark has been documenting Chicago blues is Lurrie Bell’s “Blues In My Soul,” the title track from his 2013 release. A slowly percolating urban blues imbued with as much soul jazz as straight-ahead blues (check out Roosevelt Purifoy’s organ solo with its obvious Jimmy Smith influences), Bell also shows his deft touch at crafting guitar solos that aim for taste more than pyrotechnics.

Alto saxophonist and singer Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and his quintet then provide a nice side journey into Texas jazz blues with “Somebody Got to Go.” Bridging the generations of T-Bone Walker and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Cleanhead had put together a band in 1982 that was equal parts jazz and blues - befitting an outing titled “Blues, Boogie and Bebop.” Electric guitarist Les Davidson takes the opening lead in a deep Texas vein (a cross between jazzster Herb Ellis and the blues of Roy Gaines) before handing it off to Vinson’s patented singing. Stan Greig plays piano in a Kansas City boogie woogie style, offering a near-perfect complement to both Vinson’s singing and tenor sax.

Alabama Slim and Little Freddie King, cousins originally from Alabama and Mississippi, respectively, made their separate reputations playing the club scene in New Orleans. Still, “I Got the Blues” from a 2007 album for the Music Maker Foundation, stylistically hearkens more to their roots in their home states than it does New Orleans. It is a modern blues with a foundation in the first-generation electric blues of Delta expatriates like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. With their guitars split between the left and right channel, it’s a fun experience to listen to them play off each other.

North Carolina’s John Dee Holeman was, according to the liner notes, only rarely able to earn his living from music — mostly pursuing a career in construction (although he did record a half-dozen albums, beginning in 1991). The song “Comin’ Home to You” from a 2007 outing, is another example of the Piedmont style; here, Holeman is backed by Australian folk-rockers The Waifs (who, much like The Yardbirds did in backing Sonnyboy Williamson II on tour in 1965, wholly adapt to the star’s blues style). Holeman sings with a pleasant tenor voice, and his guitar solos alternate both block chords and linear picking.

“The Blues Never Die” features Otis Spann backed by an originally uncredited Muddy Waters on guitar, and James Cotton on harmonica (basically the Muddy Waters band with Spann as leader). This 1965 session is a nice ensemble arrangement, with Spann alternating between taking the lead on piano and then shifting to comping behind Waters’ guitar or Cotton’s harp.

The album closes out with yet another under-recorded exponent of Piedemont blues, Algia Mae Hinton. “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad” was from her 1999 release, “Honey Babe.” The bare-bones recording of just her acoustic guitar playing and singing nevertheless presents a full sound. She picks out both the lead and rhythm on her guitar simultaneously, and her singing voice is deep and rich.