John Hammond was a white blues musician in the early 1960s, a time period when the blues were not commercially successful or white. For better or worse, he is also the son of legendary Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame producer John Hammond Sr. who signed such artists as Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Pete Seeger, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Bruce Springsteen.<\/p>\n
Hammond began his career in the Greenwich Village club scene of the early 1960s and helped pave the way for a generation of blues artists who would follow. To date, he has released 34 albums, most of which have already been reissued except for 1967\u2019s Mirrors, <\/i>which now returns in a remastered form.<\/p>\n
Hammond released some of his strongest albums for the Vanguard label during the mid-1960s. His 1963 self-titled debut, 1964\u2019s Big City Blues, <\/i>and 1965\u2019s So Many Roads <\/i>are considered classics of \u201860s traditional blues. As he was leaving the label, Mirrors <\/i>was assembled from the outtakes of his previous three albums. Side one (CD tracks 1-6) are electric and side two (CD tracks 7-13) are acoustic.<\/p>\n
The album contains three Robert Johnson compositions, all recorded at a time when Johnson was all but forgotten. \u201cStones In My Passway\u201d and \u201cWalking Blues\u201d are sparse acoustic interpretations that retain Johnson\u2019s power. \u201cTravelling Riverside\u201d is an electric extravaganza featuring a number of young musicians who would become famous, including harpist Charlie Musselwhite, \u00a0guitarist Robbie Robertson, drummer Levon Helm, and Mike Bloomfield on piano.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet Right Church\u201d is a traditional gospel tune made famous by the Staple Singers. Hammond strips it down to basics with just his voice and guitar.<\/p>\n
\u201cStatesboro Blues\u201d and \u201cKeys To The Highway\u201d have been recorded dozens of times, most famously by the Allman Brothers and Eric Clapton, respectively. It is interesting to hear Hammond\u2019s early, electrified versions of these old blues staples. <\/p>\n
As good as the electric tracks may be, the essence of John Hammond\u2019s music is acoustic performances like \u201cDeath Don\u2019t Have No Mercy,\u201d \u201dWhen You Are Gone,\u201d and \u201cRock Me Mama.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hammond has never veered from the blues. Mirrors <\/i>may have never been reissued in any form and may not be a cohesive album given the various sources of the material, yet it contains a number of performances worth hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":32924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9912],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-44698","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-john-hammond","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44698","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44698"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}