(Modern Electric Chicago Blues) Luther Allison - Underground - 2007, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Release Notes

By the end of september Ruf Records sent out a press release that mentioned the find of 'historical recordings by Luther Allison, found in a safe by Bernard Allison in the house of his mother Fannie Mae Allison'. Furthermore it was mentioned that the recordings dated from a session done in the Wonderful Studio in Chicago in 1958.
I checked my record collection and found out that Luther had made his first recordings at - indeed - the Wonderful Studio in Chicago on March 8, 1967. Those were released on the Delmark-anthology 'Sweet Home Chicago' (Delmark LP DS-618/CD DD-618).
After putting the message regarding the '1958-sessions' on the post-war-blues discussion-group post-war-blues@yahoogroups.com it became quickly evident that the eight songs on the Ruf-album 'Underground' were more likely recorded almost a decade later. Some of the listmembers had bought the bootleg-LP titled 'Underground' in the early seventies.
I consulted Delmark-owner Bob Koester about it and he replied that he believed that the recordings were made during the term of Luther's exclusive contract with Delmark which was registered with the Union, so Luther was aware of the fact that he could have been fined if he had these recordings released anywhere commercially. Koester saw no sense in making a complaint, because, as he writes 'you cannot force creativity and we might have gotten a record even worse than the one he bootlegged. Luther wanted a more 'produced record' so he was apparantly happy with the Motown-stuff'. Luther recorded his first album 'Love Me Mama', his only one for Delmark, (Delmark LP DS-625/CD DE 625) in 1969.
Upon request Koester gives some more details about the Wonderful-studio. 'It was owned by the brothers Ernie and George Leaner, who owned United Record Distributors. They distributed labels like Prestige, Savoy and various r&b/jazz/gospel product'.
The Leaner's also had their own labels, such as One-Derfull and Mar-V-Lous. In their second location (1827 S. Michigan) they had their own studio. The book 'The R&B Indies' learns that the company existed from 1962 untill 1968, so the session organised by bandleader/bassplayer Bobby Rush must have taken place before the company folded in 1968.
Considering the sound after hearing the recordings there are more cues that lead to the conclusion that it's impossible that these recordings should date from the late fifties. There's no fifties sound at all on the record and the recordings of 'Cut-You-A-Loose', 'You're Gonna Miss Me', 'Rock Me Baby', 'Easy Baby' and 'Driving Wheel' sound like demo's made prior to the versions of the same songs that Luther would record in the first half of the seventies for Motown. 'Cut-You-A-Loose' has almost an identical arrangement as the version that Luther recorded for Motown.
Outside that it is very unlikely that Luther would have come up with the idea to record a funky version of Sonny Boy Williamson's 'Don't Start Me To Talking' in 1958 or that he would have recorded 'Cut-You-A-Loose' almost four years prior to the version of the originator of the song, Ricky Allen.
Finally the sticker 'first time ever released studio recordings from 1958' on the jewel box on this cd-release might raise a few eyebrows, since the label of the original bootleg-LP 'Underground', obviously pressed in the early seventies, has been printed on the inside tray-card.

Rien Wisse,
publisher Block Magazine,
The Netherlands
www.blockmagazine.nl

original release notes:

The discovery and release of Luther Allison's 1958 debut recording represents a blues find that surfaces with all the excitement of some long forgotten historical document. After sitting for 50 years in the home of Luther's wife, Fannie Allison, Luther's son Bernard unearthed these monumental recordings to show the music world the portrait of this artist as a young man.
"I look at this as discovering something like Robert Johnson's lost songs," said Bernard. "I think a lot of Luther's fans are going to be so amazed with what he was playing at 18. This half hour is Luther Allison raw and pure. It's the birth of what was to come. You can hear the artist portraying what he was about to do."
Imagine it's 1958 and Luther Allison is 18 years old. He's playing guitar in a local Chicago blues band. The band leader, a more experienced 25 year old named Bobby Rush, had access to Wonderful Records' studio and offered Luther the opportunity to record. Unsure of himself, but with a burning intensity within, he and Bobby go in to the studio, cut songs, and cull about 30 minutes worthy to press onto a demo record. Then the record is joked about, stashed away and ignored until Luther's young son Bernard discovers the vinyl in his mother's effects. Prodigy like Ken Griffey Jr. learned their father's trade by sitting with him, absorbing lessons, and going onto the field to practice. Growing up in Peoria, Bernard's instructions from his dad Luther were condensed into one 30 minute record by Luther. This record wass Bernard's locker room.
"I learned everything note for note. When I was 12, I told him I learned guitar from this record," Bernard continued. "He told me that Underground was the first thing he ever recorded. Actually the first recording I did with Pops when I was 12. We did a live thing in Peoria, and we played "You Don't Love Me" from these recordings together. We played it exactly like the way it was on this Underground record."
Almost 50 years later, only Bobby Rush can shed light on this discovery. "Luther was about 18-19 years old," remembered Bobby. "He was playing in my band. I think it was probably the first band he'd ever played in. We got together and went down to Wonderful Records and just started fooling around with some songs and it just come out. We didn't know how good it was. It was just what went down. Luther was on guitar and singing, I was on the bass, and we had another bass player we called Mule also with us on bass. He was green in the studio and I was green as a producer. Back then I didn't know how to produce like I do now. But Luther believed in me and knew I could get it done.
"We were young and didn't have any money for the studio time. I worked out a deal with the guy who was running the studio for some time at night because we couldn't get it during the daytime and afford the day rate. I negotiated with Wonderful because I knew some of the people there," continued Bobby. "We just played off our stomachs. It wasn't any particular songs. We're just going in there to do what we would do on the bandstand at night. Cutting the kinds of things that we were playing for audiences every night. At that time, you just turned on the tape. If you were wrong, you didn't stop the tape. You had to live with what you had. We cut the thing in one take because we didn't have the money to do things better."Some of it was unfinished, some of it was OK and some wasn't. After Wonderful folded we didn't know what happened to the tapes from those recordings."
Bobby remembers Luther as an artist with huge potential, yet feeling self conscientious about emerging into the spotlight. "I kinda pushed him to do this. He was the kind of guy who'd be sayin' that he wasn't good enough to record. But I was always telling him that he had the talent to record and sing like everyone else," remembered Bobby. "I knew that he was talented, but he wasn't confident to do it. He said, 'Do you think I can pull this off?' and I just told him to go into the studio and play like B.B. or Freddie or Elmore. I encouraged him to do better then them cats. He was just as good or better on that day. Once he heard himself on the tape, he knew he could do it. By recording him, I could give him a shot like I had. I knew if I could let people I knew hear him that he could take it further then I could take it."
Though most of us knew Luther Allison as an energetic 50 year old whose four hour, non-stop shows were legendary, through this discovery, we can hear Luther as a hot blooded young gun, ready, like every invincible 18 year old, to take on the world. What do Bernard and Bobby hear in this back to the future vinyl. Bernard: "You definitely know it's Luther when you hear this. I hear a lot of where he was headed. Once I got to Europe and got into the band, I always told him to go back and listen because what he was playing at 18 was amazing. Musically, his guitar playing didn't change much. Over the years, it improved in that it's more consistent and he worked on his tone, but I hear where he was going." Bobby:"I could see when he was 17 what he would be at 50. I could foresee where he was going. The potential of a guy who's growing into something great. You can hear that it's raw Luther. It's not manufactured, it's him. He was doin' stuff off the top of his head, playin' whatever he felt. There are mistakes, but we lived with them. If I'd told him that some things he was doin' weren't right, he'd have lost confidence in himself. I tried to let him feel himself out and learn through his mistakes."
Like a Dick Waterman black and white photo from Newport, this is an important record of the non-Chess music that was popular in Chicago blues saloons. These werre the head cutting songs that guitarists like Otis Rush or Hound Dog Taylor or Freddie King took on new comers with. These were the songs Buddy Guy or Paul Butterfield might have heard in places like Sylvio's or Pepper's Lounge.
In this world of Youtube videos that capture children playing their first scales or cell phone cameras recording every human movement, we tend to forget how many careers in the past went undocumented. This vinyl turned digital captures a passionate voice from the past destined to become the soul of modern blues.
One researcher note. The first tune here is titled "Hide Away." Research shows that Freddie King took portions of "Hide Away" from Hound Dog Taylor instrumental and that King didn't record that song until 1960. Could this then be the first recorded version of "Hideaway"? Gentlemen, start your search engines.

Art Tipaldi

Art Tipaldi is a Senior writer for Blues Revue and Blues Wax and also author of the book, Children of the Blues which profiles 49 blues musicians including Luther Allison, Bernard Allison, and Bobby Rush.

People should just know better.

In this day and age, you might be able to get away with faking something's provenance for a little while, but with information being so readily accessible and data so easily checked you're going to get caught out one way or another. What's amazing about the circumstances surrounding the supposed lost Luther Allison recording Underground is how close they did come to getting away with it.

No one is pointing any fingers at anybody, and maybe it can all be put down to an honest mistake, but recordings claimed to be from a private session Luther Allison did in 1958 seem to really have been made at least ten years later in 1968-69. It wasn't until after Thomas Ruf, and Ruf Records had released the 10-track CD and begun promoting it as the lost recordings of Luther that Rein Wisse, publisher of Block Magazine in the Netherlands, smelt something wrong.

Once the can of worms was open it didn't take long for the truth to come out. Ruf has published on its site Wisse's article on his investigation. Aside from subjective statements, "it doesn't sound like it was recorded in the '50s," the fact that "Cut You Loose," a song originated by Ricky Allen, appears on the '1958 recording' is enough to create serious doubts about the discs authenticity as it wasn't recorded by Ricky until four years after that date.

It wasn't just Thomas Ruf who was fooled by these recordings either. Both of Luther's sons, Bernard and Luther, genuinely believed they had unearthed a treasure in their father's collection.

Bernard is quoted as saying the songs on that disc were the first ones that he and Luther Sr. had jammed to when he was 12. What is true about these recordings is Luther did go into a studio by himself and laid down ten tracks in the late 1960's while he was under contract to Delmark Records

In fact there are quite a few people out there, including the above mentioned Wisse, who own bootleg recordings of those sessions. Instead of some third party making money off the deal like is normal in these situations, Allison himself was selling them. Delmark Records knew what was going on, but turned a blind eye to his breaking their contract.
Almost lost in the confusion are the actual contents of the disc. There's only about 30 minutes of music on Underground and as is to be expected the sound isn't of the greatest quality. The material itself though is an interesting mixture of instrumentals and songs that give the listener a good idea of the sound Luther was after in those days.

It's no wonder he was recording this on the sly behind Delmark's back, as it wasn't stuff they were going be overly interested in recording or publishing. You can hear Luther's interest in the rockier side of things on some of his instrumentals, (remember this is the guy who played guitar with his teeth as much as Hendrix did), but you can also hear his affection for the smoother sound of R&B coming through.

What I found the most interesting about these recordings is just how laid back they are. All descriptions I've heard of Luther, and any other music I've heard of his, has been driven and intense. Normally he played like he was propelled by Rocket fuel, but here it sounds like he's just kicking back and exploring some mellow licks with Bobby Rush's band.
If one were to believe Bobby Rush, this is the work of an 18-year-old Luther Allison, unsure of himself and his abilities. But even before I had heard the revised history of these recordings I had a hard time matching what I heard to that description. Nothing about these recordings, from the vocals to the guitar work sound tentative.

Insecure guitar players in my experience don't normally play leads near the tuning pegs; they usually go for the flash of bending notes high up the neck by the body of the guitar. Luther uses his whole fret board when picking out leads on this disc and puts on a clinic for anybody wanting to learn how to build a lead. (It's easy to believe that Bernard Allison taught himself to play using this record when he found it floating around his mother's house) While there are 18-year-old guitar players who can play hot licks, there aren't many who can apply the same intensity to playing slowly.

That's what distinguishes the playing on this disc, is Luther Allison's ability to enjoy a note. Sure he could play fast but so could a million other people; on Underground you have the opportunity to hear him play slow and relaxed, maybe something you've not heard before.
Thomas Ruf's commitment to expanding and developing the Blues in Europe and around the world is well known. Ruf records was awarded the Thomas Handy for "Keeping The Blues Alive" in 2007, the first European record company to be recognised in that manner. For someone to take advantage of Thomas' personal affection for Luther Allison by attempting to pass off a late '60s bootleg as an early previously unreleased recording is disgusting.

If anything Underground shows how seriously Thomas Ruf and Ruf Records take their responsibilities as a record company. Instead of trying to deny the controversy or try to discredit information that is embarrassing, they have openly admitted there are questions in regards to Underground's provenances.

If it were really from 1958, it would be an interesting curiosity, but if, as it appears to be, merely a bootleg that was recorded in 1968, it's of little significance. All that it has served to do is embarrass a company that has given a home to Blues musicians across North America when no one else was signing them while developing new talent both there and in Europe.

It's a shame that Luther Allison, the man who encouraged Thomas Ruf to follow his dreams and form Ruf Records, has had his name used in such a way as to cause them embarrassment. I'd like to think he'd be royally pissed off.