1973 Luther Allison Blues Musician - 2-Page Vintage Article

Description

1973 Luther Allison Blues Musician - 2-Page Vintage Article
Original, Vintage Magazine article
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm)
Condition: Good
There have been lots of articles about established artists
telling about their early days and their paying the dues. But,
since most magazines only print material on well-known
musicians, the paying of dues is almost always in the past
tense.
Right now, a man named Luther Allison is paying some
heavy dues playing blues guitar and singing in gigs primarily
around the Midwest. He moves most of his own equipment
and does most of his own driving from city to city, while
doing an average of four gigs each week.
And, financially, he’s hurting. “I got ripped-off, all my
equipment, just two years ago,” he says. “Right now, I don’t
even have a truck. So I’m renting a U-Haul trailer, y’know,
because I can’t afford a truck and besides, if I had one I
wouldn’t have nowhere to park it. You understand what I
mean?”
“I’m 34 years old but sometimes I feel like I’m about 60.
Because you can never sleep during the day and you’re up at
night. I average about four to five hours of sleep.”
But now, there’s fresh hope that Allison will soon be
nationally recognized for the talent he is with the release of
an album on Motown’s Gordy label called BAD NEWS IS
COMING. Before, he had just LOVE ME MAMA and was on
two tracks of SWEET HOME CHICAGO, both albums on the
Delmark label in Chicago.
4—F
Allison was born in Mayflower, Arkansas, on August 17,
1939, and his large family moved from Forrest City to
Chicago in 1951. From 1954-57, he watched as one of his
brothers played in a band on Chicago’s South Side. Soon
after, Allison formed his own group, The Four Jivers, and
was playing lead guitar and singing.
He also got to know bluesman Freddie King. “My first
relation was with Magic Sam,” he recalls. “Like we really
got to be tight. Then through Sam I was introduced to Freddie
and Freddie was playing basically in my neighborhood like
three or four blocks from my house and he got to know me
and what I was tryin’ to do and offered me a gig with him to
be called Freddie King Junior, which I wouldn’t ac-
cept....Freddie’s a good cat. He’s a hell of a bluesman, let
me tell you that.”
For five years in the 60’s, Allison’s band played clubs on
Chicago’s West Side and Luther built up a reputation as one
of the finest young bluesmen around. He gigged outside
Chicago in the late 60’s, gaining acclaim at the first Ann
Arbor Blues Festivals, at the Fillmore West in September
1970, at the Fillmore East in February 1971, and at the 1972
Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival.
Then, about a year ago, Allison signed a contract with
Motown. Without an album since 1970, Allison had been
in a fix before: “I played to at least 2,000,000 people in the last
year, but those people can forget when there’s nothing out on
the market...Now I need that power over the record fans.
You’ve got to have that. Y’know, people say. ‘Yeah. I’ve
heard of you. What do you have out?’ So hopefully the one
that’s out can give me another start.”
About the LP. he said: “By me going with Motown, that
didn’t change my thing. I’m not doing a lot of original stuff,
but the fact is I’ve gotta get my foot in the door before I can
think about that so I can see where they’re goin’. But, it’s
blues. I don’t have horns on the album. I have a harmonica on
a couple of cuts, but other than that, it’s just me and my
guitar, y’known, and it’s blues.”
On the album are two originals, two tracks by Willie Dixon
(Little Red Rooster and Evil Is Going On), one by B.B. King
(Rock Me Baby), Elmore James’ Dust My Broom and Mel
London’s Cut You A-Loose. Allison said that he has quite a
few original songs that he hasn’t used on stage yet: “A lot of
’em I won’t expose because I don’t have ’em copyrighted and
I don’t know what the market will be by the time I’m ready to
record them. So, I have to worry about that. But I do have
quite a large repertoire of original material. And I don’t want
nothing to get ripped-off from me anymore. I’ve been ripped-
off enough.”
I knew after watching him perform a number of times that
his album would be a solid set of gut-blues and intense
slashing guitar. And, perhaps the best thing for the future is
that his originals here are really fine!
+ +
Nightclub scene. Between two of Allison’s sets, we sit at a
small table: Luther, myself, and his lovely wife, Fannie Mae.
We talk about his past, his present, and what he wants for a
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