Robert Nighthawk - Ramblin' Bob (CD)

All Music Guide

Depending on the perspective, Robert Nighthawk was either a minor major bluesman or a major minor one who never recorded enough to receive breakthrough attention in his own right. Label or genre anthologies have been the best bet for finding his cornerstone pieces "Anna Lee" and "Sweet Black Angel", songs that provide an unusual roots link between the Muddy Waters and B.B. King branches of the Delta blues tree.Part of the profile problem is that he first recorded as Robert Lee McCoy doing acoustic, Deltarooted blues accompanied by the first Sonny Boy Williamson and Big Joe Williams in the late ‘30s. After dropping out of sight for roughly a decade, he resurfaced as Robert Nighthawk for a few sessions of a smooth brand of electric slide blues in the early Chess days and then cut more jumping material for United in the early ‘50s. Ramblin' Bob combines all three phases so it's a definitive collection by default, the single Nighthawk disc any comprehensive blues collection needs. The soun...d quality may not be pristine since the early material is probably taken from 78s (a dead giveway is the runoff groove sticking on "Friar's Point Blues").The McCoy tracks are classic examples of preWorld War II Delta blues, with themes and images drawing from animal metaphors, going back down south, trains and back door man action and there's a healthy variety in the music. "Prowling Nighthawk" (the obvious source of his phase two surname) is an excellent celebration of the rambling blues life and "Take It Easy Baby" is springy and upbeat with very prominent harmonica.Williamson is completely integrated into the music, employing different harp sounds from the high registers on "Mamie Lee" to the rough and tumble, bassheavy rhythm with (probably) Speckled Red on piano for "Every Day And Night." Sonny Boy chips in with answering vocals on "NextDoor Neighbor" while Red's piano strides out and though the guitar doesn't sound like it's in tune, the music still works. "Take It Easy" and "Ol' Mose" are almost ragtime tracks that suggest Nighthawk's unusual smoothness may spring from a suave vocal style that owes more to jazzy styling than rough blues shouting.That smoothness shows up on the electric Nighthawk sides, trio sessions with bass and piano that are his bestknown tracks and classic examples of the early Chess sound. The clarity of the recorded sound is noticeably better and the shift from chordal guitar comps to single string lines answering the vocals is obvious, but the United tracks are something else again.These are his first studio sessions with a drummer and Jump Jackson and Roosevelt Sykes' piano dominate "Kansas City Blues" and "Take It Easy Baby." His slide guitar is more evident on "Crying Won't Help You" and "Feel So Bad" but Sykes takes the solo. Maybe that was the United way because Curtis Jones is as prominent in the mix as Nighthawk on "Bricks In My Pillow," another example of bedrock Delta imagery. "You Missed A Good Man" looks back to the Chess era, while highstriding piano and Clifton James tomtoms generate a momentum on "Maggie Campbell" not unlike Muddy's "Got My Mojo Workin'" would a few years later. Read more Less