The more I write about the blues, the more it seems like the
\ndiscs I review have their basis in tragedy.
\nLast Call<\/i>, a new release featuring recordings from the final
\nconcerts by blues pianist Otis Spann, is no exception. Recorded
\nless than a month before his death, it is a miracle that these
\nsongs can be heard at all.<\/p>\n
Lost for 25 years, the tapes from Spann’s final gig at Boston
\nTeaparty (this particular show recorded April 2, 1970) were
\ndiscovered in storage in California, not too much the worse for
\nwear. On these can be heard the man whom some call the greatest
\nChicago blues pianist… something I’m not too sure about.<\/p>\n
Oh, don’t get me wrong; I’m not calling into question the man’s
\nabilities or decrying his performances here on
\nLast Call<\/i>. But Spann’s piano work is often lost in the mix,
\nburied behind the two-guitar attack of Peter Malick and Luther
\n“Snake” Johnson or the vocals of his wife Lucille and Johnson.
\n(Spann’s illness left him unable to sing, according to Malick’s
\nliner notes.) Yes, it’s amazing that these tapes defied the odds
\nand are still with us today. But when I’m listening to the last
\nmusical testament of Spann’s, I’d like to have heard more of what
\nmade the man so special. (I also found it strangely interesting
\nthat Lucille Spann makes the claim from onstage that her husband
\nwas suffering from “laryngitis”, which is why he wasn’t singing.
\nMaybe the fact the man was dying was no one’s damn business.)<\/p>\n
On the average, the blues presented on
\nLast Call<\/i> is more plodding, though the band knows how to
\nkick up the energy when needed (“Get On Down To The Nitty Gritty,”
\n“I Got My Mojo Working,” “Stomp With Spann”). Word of advice: if
\nyou have a splitting headache, skip “My Baby,” featuring the blues
\nshrieks of Lucille Spann. I made that mistake, and undid the work
\nof two industrial-strength Tylenol caplets in just seven
\nminutes.<\/p>\n
Tacked on to the end of this show is “Blues For Otis,” a song
\nMalick recorded for his 1998 release
\nWrong Side Of My Life<\/i>. At first, I questioned its
\nappearance. I mean, this is Malick’s label and all, but isn’t its
\ninclusion more of an advertisement for his own disc? And yet, this
\ntrack seemed to belong, as the piano line on it tended to invoke
\nSpann’s ghost. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear it was Spann
\nhimself tickling the keys.<\/p>\n
\nLast Call<\/i> is an interesting, yet sad, portrait of another
\nblues artist who didn’t earn his proper acclaim in his lifetime.
\nAnd yet it seems like Spann takes the back seat so the other
\nmusicians in his band could have a chance to shine. Who knows?
\nMaybe Spann would have wanted it that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6438],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-36800","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-otis-spann","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36800"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36800"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}