“You’re Doin’ Fine” is the latest release from the Owsley Stanley Foundation, named for the famed sound man and chemical wizard (also known as Bear) who, aside from his mass production of LSD, developed the infamous wall of sound for the Grateful Dead. Owsley amassed a treasure trove of live recordings in the San Francisco area and these are being released by the Foundation in the series called Bear’s Sonic Journals. Always sumptuously packaged, previous releases have featured not only the expected Haight Ashbury elite but also acts such as Johnny Cash, Ali Akbar Khan and Doc & Merle Watson.
This latest release is a three CD set featuring John Hammond, one of the key players in bringing the sound of the delta blues to white audiences in the early 1960s. He was introduced to the blues at the tender age of seven when his father (also John and famed for his role in producing acts as varied as Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen) took him to a Big Bill Broonzy gig. He went on to collect blues recordings and taught himself to play them and in 1962 he was signed to Vanguard Records having become one of the forerunners in the Greenwich Village scene, hobnobbing with Dylan. His subsequent records saw him backed by early prototypes of The Band and The Paul Butterfield Blues Experience but live he thrived on solo performances and it’s a particularly vibrant live solo appearance which is captured here on subsequent nights in San Francisco’s Boarding House.
On the 45 songs featured on the three discs, Hammond digs deep into rural and city blues, covering songs by Robert Johnson, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, Tampa Red, John Lee Hooker, Elmore James and numerous others. Playing an acoustic resonator guitar and wailing on harmonica he is pretty much on fire throughout, listen to disc three’s rendition of ‘Ride ‘Til I Die’ for affirmation of that, it’s like Hooker and Heat without either Hooker or Canned Heat being present (although it happens that John Lee Hooker, along with Tom Waits, was in the audience that night). Hammond had been living with these songs for over 20 years and had inhaled their essence. That old canard regarding white men singing the blues is pretty much ripped apart here as Hammond dives into the songs so far you fear he will never come up for air. Robert Johnson’s ‘Drunken Hearted Man’ reeks of self misery while Slim Harpo’s ‘King Bee’ has a degree of menace in its sting and it’s quite grand to hear Hammond’s rendition of Chuck Willis’ ‘It’s Too Late, She’s Gone’, a song popularised at the time by its inclusion on “Layla”, the Clapton led Derek & The Dominos album. By 1973, many of the pioneers championed by Hammond were much better known to rock audiences and he was being outshone by the likes of Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal but he certainly rocks here.
There’s a 60 page booklet wrapped around the discs which includes an interview with Hammond on the recordings, tributes to him from Tom Waits and Jorma Kaukonen (of Jefferson Airplane) and an explanation of sorts about Owsley’s recording techniques. It’s fair to say that the Bear captures the live ambience (capturing the juice he would say) quite wonderfully but this means that while Hammond’s guitar is well to the fore, his vocals are not always distinct and his in between song chatter is far too low in the mix. A minor quibble really on a fine historic release.
