Mose Allison 1927 – 2016

By , November 20, 2016 10:38 am

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Mose Allison, chilling in his far out chair, in the woods…

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Listen/Download – Mose Allison – The Seventh Son

Listen/Download Mose Allison – Young Man (Blues)

Listen/Download Mose Allison – I’m Not Talking

Listen/Download – Mose Allison – Baby Please Don’t Go

Listen/Download – Mose Allison – I Love the Life I Live 

Listen/Download – Mose Allison – Your Mind Is On Vacation

 

Greetings all

 

This is a repost/augmentation of a post I wrote back in 2013. Last week was an especially heavy one for music lovers, with the loss of Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, Billy Miller of Norton Records and lastly (but never leastly) the mighty Mose Allison.

Mose was 89 years old and had only recently given up playing live.

He was one of my all time favorites, a foundational artist in my sensibility and an absolute master.

I’m adding a couple of other Mose classics to the links below.

If you know, dig. If you do not get familiar.

I’ll see you on Wednesday – L

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Have you heard about Mose?

Allison, that is…aka the Sage of Tippo…aka the smoothest badass to ever prop himself up at a piano and lay it down.

If you – like me – has made a study of the roots of rock, especially the British Invasion, or just surveyed the history of coolness, then you have certainly crossed paths with the mighty Mose.

Mose Allison has the kind of voice/manner that immediately brings to mind the black-and-white, beatnik cool of the 1950s. Jack Kerouac’s America, in which one was free to roam the highways and back roads of this great country, partaking in, and becoming part of the great tableaux, digging and being dug in equal measures.

Mose Allison – born and raised in Mississippi – sat himself down at the piano and made his first record in 1957, and hasn’t stopped being one of the coolest of cats since then.

I don’t think I heard Mose until I was all but drowning in the British beat/R&B thing, up to and including the sounds of Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, which is important because if Mose Allison had never recorded a note, old Clive Powell would likely disappear from the face of the earth.

The first time I heard Mose, an overloaded socket in theback of my brain threw sparks and I realized how much Georgie idolized and emulated him, as well as all of the Brits who looked to him as a songwriter and interpreter of songs.

It was Mose that wrote ‘Parchman Farm’ (John Mayall and everyone else with a blues fetish), ‘Young Man Blues’ (the Who) and ‘I’m Not Talking’ (the Yardbirds) among many others, and laid down what I would consider to be the definitive interpretation of Willie Dixon’s ‘Seventh Son’.

I’m including the last three tunes here today, so that you might head out and dig for your own stack of Mose Allison records, that you can whip out and impress the ladies at your next soiree.

Both ‘Young Man Blues’ and ‘The Seventh Son’ hail from Allison’s landmark 1963 ‘Mose Allison Sings’ LP for Prestige.

‘Young Man Blues’ – clocking in at less than a minute and a half – is a laid back meditation, barely a whisper compared to the angry box of TNT that the Who detonated on ‘Live at Leeds’.

Mose’s take on ‘The Seventh Son’ is a masterpiece of relaxed, swinging Zen, every note perfectly placed, a wonder. He takes the Mississippi hoodoo boasts of the OG and delivers them in a matter-of-fact way that puts the text in boldface.

‘I’m Not Talking’, from 1964’s ‘The Word From Mose’ on Atlantic, is once again, the placid, almost dehumidified-it’s-so-dry foundation on which the mighty Yardbirds built a souped-up, nitro-fueled funny car with which they blew the doors off of the ‘For Your Love’ album in 1965.

The grooviest thing of all is that for all of the influence he pushed out, Mose himself was always more like a shadow, hanging back, just being, than anyone who took their marching orders from his records. He spent the last 50-plus years making music of high quality, crossing the border back and forth between the blues and jazz, always being more himself than anything else and that was all he ever needed to be.

If you’re not hip to Mose, get there.

That is all.

Keep the faith

Larry

 

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived!

The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock.

They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US).

Click here to go to the ordering page.
Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).

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PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

3 Responses to “Mose Allison 1927 – 2016”

  1. jb says:

    Thank you sir. I have listened to a bit of Mose over the years but clearly must do more, and this is an excellent start.

  2. Dennis Roberts says:

    Georgie Fame and John Mayall were the portal through which I encountered the world of Mose Allison, for which I’m ever grateful. Even to this day, my first love from Mose’s catalogue is ‘You’re Mind’s On Vacation’ and I’ve never forgotten an interview ‘back then’ where Mose explained it’s origins. A much loved classic here and an enduring memory of the man. Respects

  3. Larry says:

    Thank you gentlemen!

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