Magic Sam: Sliding Back To The Past
On Sunday February 14th,2010 Magic Sam would have been 73 years old… The following is my memory of this blues legend.
FLASHBACK TO 1968
My family never spoke much, but you could always hear the tunes playing in the house. As a result, even though I was only eight years old in 1968, I developed an appreciation and love for music well beyond my years.
The Beatles, Stones, Monkees and The Byrds would be playing in my sister’s room. My father would play Krupa, Goodman and Frank Sinatra in the family room… However, the blues were the first audible sounds that I recall.
I shared a bedroom with my brother who was a musician. And he would play guitar all night every night until the wee hours in the morning. Since my days in the cradle like nursery rhymes, blues and jazz guitar licks were laced into my mind.
At the time, my brother was in a blues band. And my parents allowed him to rehearse with his friends in the basement on Saturday afternoons. There were other things I could have been doing, but I loved hanging out during rehearsal. They had a fully staged setup in that basement. This gave me the opportunity when no one was around to fool around with all the gear…
In the basement we also had a console turntable/sound system and my brother kept some specific vinyl records down there for rehearsals. I was forbidden to touch any of the LP’s or instruments. But I had trouble understanding this notion.
So whenever no one was around, I’d cue up the turntable, grab my brother’s guitar, sit down and plug his axe into his champ amp. One of the songs on an album in my brother’s collection caught my attention. The album is entitled West Side Soul and the song is called “All Your Love”. There was something about the song I found really cool… So I started to play.
Samuel Maghett
was born near Grenada, Mississippi, on February 14, 1937 into a sharecropping household. Even though his family had no musical background, the youthful Sam was intrigued by the sounds he heard playing at local parties and picnics.
He would create his own makeshift guitars from cigar boxes, and by the time his family relocated to Chicago in 1950, Sam was already quite proficient playing the guitar. Soon he began to play professionally, first with the gospel group The Morning View Special and then with the popular Homesick James Band.
Sam’s tone and finger-picking style was an entirely original concept when he premiered it on Eli Toscano’s Cobra label in 1957. The guitarist had been gigging as Good Rocking Sam, but Toscano wanted to change his nickname to something else. Eventually he would become known as Magic Sam; a play on words based on his real last name.
His Cobra debut single, “All Your Love,” was an instant local sensation. “Everything Gonna Be Alright” and “Easy Baby” borrowed much the same melody but still remained very powerful.
Cobra achieved local success, but they didn’t find much recognition outside of Chicago, and by 1960 the company closed its doors. After Cobra folded, Magic Sam didn’t follow musicians Otis Rush and Magic Slim over to Chess. Sam’s life took a different turn as he was drafted into the Army. Several weeks after being drafted, he deserted and returned to Chicago and recorded some tunes for the Chief label. The Army would eventually catch up with Magic Sam and sentenced him to a military prison. After 6 months he received a dishonorable discharge in 1961
Returning again to Chicago, he renewed his work with Willie Dixon and recorded a cover of “Hi Heel Sneakers” for CBS and a few selections for Crash Records. Sam grew tired of just releasing singles and wanted to do a full-length album.
In 1967 he finally caught the attention of Bob Koester owner of Delmark Records. Koester was enjoying the success he obtained with Junior Wells’ “Hoodoo Man Blues” and signed Magic Sam to a contract, giving him the opportunity to do his first album.
Magic Sam created two landmark albums for Delmark Records; 1967′s West Side Soul and then Black Magic the following year. Both of these LP’s showcased Sam’s immense talent and will go down as some of the finest blues ever recorded.
In the late sixties, Sam’s reputation was sky rocketing, and at the height of his career, he would amaze an overflowed crowd at the 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival. As he headed for international stardom, heart problems took their toll on Sam’s health, and an awesome talent and major inspiration was gone. Many years later in 1982 Magic Sam was honored by being inducted into The Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame.
West Side Soul will always be one of those albums that will hold a very special part of my early memories. It is an absolute must-own for anyone interested in the blues. Magic Sam knew how to blend all the right ingredients into one tasty soulful package.
Back In The Basement
I believe in my mind I came pretty close to nailing the song. It really didn’t matter, I wasn’t playing for anyone but my own imagination… And although at that moment, I wasn’t really interested in being a musician, something inside of me knew music was going to be a big part of my life.
How familiar are you with Magic Sam? Did you know that West Side Soul was recently re-released on vinyl? Please feel welcome to make any comments below.
The Blues Blogger
