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Freddy Robinson

In a career spanning 50 years, guitarist Freddy Robinson, played with Ray Charles, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter and dozens of lesser-known artists in blues and R&B. Thanks to an early exposure to jazz, he graduated from the ranks of "ear" players to more sophisticated musical company, but he retained an affection for his past and a pride in his early work.

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, but raised in Arkansas, Robinson had heard many locally famous bluesmen before he reached his teens, and was inspired by the guitar-playing of Joe Willie Wilkins to take up the instrument himself. In 1956, he moved to Chicago and began working with the harmonica players Birmingham Jones and Little Willie Anderson. In 1958, he was hired by Little Walter, a position that put him in the orbit of seasoned guitarists such as Luther Tucker and Robert Junior Lockwood. While on tour with Walter, he saw a jazz band playing from music charts, and was inspired to develop his own playing at the Chicago School of Music.

He was briefly employed by Howlin' Wolf, who distrusted what he thought were jazz leanings, but had the chance to leave a firm blues stamp on a few of Wolf's recordings, though it would be years before the guitar-playing on “Spoonful,” “Back Door Man” and “Wang Dang Doodle,” was acknowledged as his work.

Throughout the mid-60s, he played with the Chicago-based soul singer Jerry Butler, and later with Syl Johnson. While cutting some singles in his own right, he had met the keyboards player and arranger Monk Higgins, who recommended him to Ray Charles, whereupon Robinson relocated to Los Angeles. He remained with Charles for less than a year and had a minor hit with the instrumental “Black Fox,” which also became a favorite with guitarists at the time.

The early 1970s found him serving under the English blues bandleader John Mayall, a time he enjoyed. "We had total freedom. No rehearsals, no discussions." He played on Mayall's album “Jazz Blues Fusion” and LPs by the jazz trumpeter Blue Mitchell.

He also recorded a couple of albums in his own name for Enterprise, a subsidiary of Stax. In the relaxed blues ambience of tracks such as “Bluesology,” a memoir of nights playing at Theresa's Lounge in Chicago, and “At the Drive-In,” Robinson revealed a gift for wry narrative, after the manner of Charles's songwriter Percy Mayfield. But the chief point of the albums was to frame his refined blues-funk playing in arrangements by Higgins that also featured Joe Sample and Wilton Felder of the Crusaders. “At the Drive-In” and “Off the Cuff” were attractive albums that might have drawn more attention had Stax not gone out of business, leaving a third album unreleased for 25 years.

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Album Review

John Mayall: The First Generation 1965-1974

Read "The First Generation 1965-1974" reviewed by Maurizio Comandini


Se gli inglesi hanno soprannominato “The Godfather of the British Blues" l'imperturbabile John Mayall una ragione ci sarà... La malavita non c'entra nulla, per fortuna, ma c'entra tantissimo la buona musica e la capacità di organizzarla partendo da zero, o quasi. John Mayall è nato a Macclesfield, il 29 novembre del 1933. Siamo nello Cheshire, meno di trenta chilometri a sud di Manchester. Il padre è un chitarrista dilettante, appassionato di jazz e di blues e ...

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Extended Analysis

The First Generation 1965-1974

Read "The First Generation 1965-1974" reviewed by John Kelman


What do guitarists Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Jon Mark, Harvey Mandel and Freddy Robinson, reed/woodwind multi-instrumentalists John Almond, Ray Warleigh, Alan Skidmore, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Red Holloway and Ernie Watts, bassists John McVie, Jack Bruce, Andy Fraser, Tony Reeves, Stephen Thompson and Larry Taylor, drummers Mick Fleetwood, Keef Hartley, Aynsley Dunbar, Jon Hiseman and Collin Allen, trumpeters Henry Lowther and Blue Mitchell, and violinist Don “Sugarcane" Harris all share in common? They are but a few of the notable ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Bluesology

Ace Records UK
2003

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