Live On Maxwell Street 1964 [Live]

Robert Nighthawk | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 14, 1992)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Live
• Label: Rounder Select
• ASIN: B0000002V9
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #445,877 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Goin' Down To Eli's

2. Mr. Bell's Shuffle

3. The Time Have Come

4. Yakity Yak

5. Nighthawk Shuffle

6. Take It Easy Baby

7. Maxwell Street Medley

8. Burning Heat

9. I Need Love So Bad

10. Excerpts From Interview

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Seldom has a title for any album been so literal: Live on Maxwell Street was recorded, for the most part, live on an actual street--background noise includes cheers from bystanders, people passing by, and cars driving past. The informal setting and necessarily unideal recording circumstances don't detract one bit from the material here, which represents some of the elusive Robert Nighthawk's best material. Recorded in 1964, with sparse instrumentation--rhythm guitar, drums, and some excellent harmonica from Carey Bell--the recording includes some great guitar soloing on "The Time Have Come" and the "Maxwell Street Medley," which combines "Anna Lee" and "Sweet Black Angel." Other highlights include the smooth, active "Take It Easy Baby" and the slow moaner "I Need Love So Bad." Despite the highly unofficial nature of this recording, what's on here is more than worth hearing--including a 13-minute interview with the musician. --Genevieve Williams

From Grove Press Guide to Blues on CD

Live on Maxwell Street is as good an impromptu album as one is likely to come upon, with all the exciting, loose esprit de corps among singer/slide guitarist Robert Nighthawk (Robert Lee McCollum) and his Flames of Rhythm that made their Sunday street performances so agreeable to Chicagoans. Captured on fan Norman Dayron's tape recorder in 1964, the Helena-born patriarch of city blues rough-hews Little Junior Parker's "I Need Love So Bad," Big Joe Turner's "Honey Hush," and seven others, cutting single-note runs from the same bolt of cloth as B. B. King without compromising his own amplified guitar poetics. Also heard are thirteen minutes of an interview with the underappreciated musician (encompassing a reluctantly delivered song) that was conducted by a respectful Mike Bloomfield. -- © Frank John Hadley 1993

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great music with a sad history, August 4, 1998

By 

C. Talcroft (Santa Rosa, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Live On Maxwell Street 1964 (Audio CD)

This disc contains extraordinary music. It contains the first known recordings of Carey Bell (who was about 28 in 1964). It contains one of the very few glimpses we have of Robert Nighthawk in an informal setting. Highlights include Nighthawk's growling guitar work on "Goin' Down To Eli's;" some of the most extraordinary electric blues guitar playing ever recorded on "I Need Love So Bad;" Nighthawk doing the two songs that brought him his first real fame--"Annie Lee" and "Sweet Black Angel" (here listed as "Maxwell Street Medley"); and a lively rendition of "Take It Easy Baby." Not to be overlooked, however is fine harp work by Carey Bell doing "Juke" (here erroneounsly entitled "Mr. Bell's Shuffle"). In short, this music captures the excitement of raw, live blues on Chicago's Maxwell Street in its heyday. Sadly, it is not widely known that the material presented on this disc was bootlegged ! by Mr. Dayron, who did his recording while working for Mike Shea while Shea was making his now-legendary Maxwell Street documentary "And This Is Free." Fortunately, an official two-CD release of all of the "And This Is Free" material is in the works. The discs will include this music and much more, and they will tell the true story of the making of "And This Is Free." They will also include some of the wealth of band chatter, crowd sounds, and ambience of Maxwell Street that was captured on the original tapes (but cut out of the release reviewed here) back when the likes of Nighthawk, Carey Bell, Johnny Young, and Big John Wrencher could be heard live for a dime in a hat--literally.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gritty, honest and raw, August 11, 2000

By 

T. K. Schonhoff (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Live On Maxwell Street 1964 (Audio CD)

This kind of blues is like the record of a lost civilization - gone so long that we've almost forgotten how much it accomplished in its prime. In the 36 years since this album was recorded, electric-guitar blues has been buffed and polished to a high shine but we've lost too much in the process. The rough edges that got sanded away took with them the very texture of the blues - leaving the listener with nothing to hold on to.

If that strikes a chord with you, grab this CD - and let it grab you right back. It's rough, raw and gritty - a musical snapshot of the streets on which it was recorded. As I listen to it again and again, I find myself listening *through* it, hoping to to catch the sounds of the city and the very moment in which it was recorded. This is the blues stained with sweat, nicotine and cheap beer on a hot summer afternoon - and it's intoxicating.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars adding to Mr.CTalcroft reveiw, March 1, 2000

By 

Mark S. Vaughan (N.California USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Live On Maxwell Street 1964 (Audio CD)

Mr. Alcroft is exactly right this disc the double version is already avaible as a Japanise import its a little pricy but worth double or triple the asking price as I said before its down and dirty blues that you can feel down to your bones its sends shivers up your spine and transports you to a place called Maxwell street I give this 6 stars