"Baby Scratch My Back" by SLIM HARPO – September 1966 US Second Album on Excello Records in Mono – Inside "Buzzin' The Blues: The Complete Slim Harpo" fearturing Rudolph Richard, James Johnson and Al Foreman on Guitars, Lazy Lester on Percussion and Jay Miller Productions (March 2015 GERMAN Bear Family LP-Sized 5CD Box Set of Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

 

"...Good Man Gone..."

 

Slim Harpo's Second Album from September 1966 

Inside "Buzzin' The Blues: The Complete Slim Harpo" 

March 2015 GERMAN Bear Family 5CD Box Set of Remasters)

 

 

Like so many Blues and Rhythm and Blues albums in the early to mid Sixties – the second platter "Baby Scratch My Back" from our hero SLIM HARPO (issued September 1966 on Excello Records in Mono) wasn't a conceptual LP of free standing at all - but six singles and their equally marketable flip-sides strung together in one place for ease of punter access. "Baby Scratch My Back" was a compilation in short – but a bloody good one at that.

 

Championed by The Rolling Stones as far back as their April 1964 British debut album "Rolling Stones No. 1" LP on Decca where they had covered the slick and sexy Harmonica brilliance of Slim Harpo's "I'm A King Bee" from 1961 - they would return to Slim on their sprawling yet utterly brilliant double-album "Exile On Main St." in 1972 where their Side 1 cover version of his 1966 classic "Shake Your Hips" made him famous all over again. 

 

And that song brings us to the album containing it - "Baby Scratch My Back" – and the best place to contain it (and frankly everything else by him) in exceptional remastered audio. Neither a single 'Best Of' nor Bear's own 'Rocks' CD compilations can offer the full LP – so I splashed out the requisite wheelbarrow of cash for Bear Family's magnificent "Buzzin' The Blues: The Complete Slim Harpo" 5CD Box Set. To the details and the scratchy bits...

 

Released March 2015 in Germany on Bear Family BCD 17339 (Barcode 5397102 173394) – "Buzzin' The Blues: The Complete Slim Harpo" by SLIM HARPO quickly became an industry Blues Reissue of the Year winner. It is housed in an LP-Sized Box Set with 106-Page Album-Sized Hardback Book and 142 Remastered Tracks stretching from his March 1957 sessions in Jay Miller's Studios in Louisiana up to home demo in January 1970.

 

CD1: 86:42 minutes (33 Tracks)

CD2: 84:42 minutes (28 Tracks)

CD3: 70:46 minutes (27 Tracks)

CD4: 80:30 minutes (30 Tracks)

CD5: 87:34 minutes (24 Tracks)

 

And if you want to sequence James Moore's second LP "Baby Scratch My Back" from that Box Set, use CDs 1 and 4 as follows (30/1 = Track 30 on CD1, 14/4 = Track 14 on CD4 etc)...

 

Side 1:

1. Shake Your Hips (30/1)

2. Midnight Blues (31/1)

3. Harpo's Blues (26/1)

4. Buzzin' (19/1)

5. My Little Queen Bee (14/4)

6. I Love The Life (I'm Livin') (18/1)

 

Side 2:

1. Baby, Scratch My Back (28/1)

2. I'm Gonna Miss You (Like The Devil) (29/1)

3. Rainin' In My Heart (2/4)  

4. Wonderin' Blues [as "Sittin' Here Wondering" on 45-single] (25/1)

5. We're Two Of A Kind (22/1)

6. I Need Money (21/1)

The "Baby Scratch My Back" by SLIM HARPO was released September 1966 in the USA on Excello LP 8005 in MONO. 

 

There was an Electronically Reprocessed Stereo variant of the LP put out in fake Stereo in 1968 on LPS-8005 using the same artwork as the Mono 1966 LP - but Bear have had the good taste to leave such audio horrors alone. And as was the norm for R 'n' B LPs of the period – 11 of the 12-tracks on "Baby Scratch My Back" were made up of US 7" single sides tried and tested between 1963 and 1965 nestled alongside a new Alternate cut of his oldest and most popular hit "Rainin' In My Heart" (see NOTE)...

 

45s on the "Baby Scratch My Back" Mono LP:

Shake Your Hips [30/1] b/w Midnight Blues [31/1]

June 1966, Excello 45-2278 A & B-sides

 

Harpo's Blues [26/1]

February 1965, Excello 45-2265, A-side

 

I Love The Life (I'm Livin') [18/1] b/w Buzzin' [19/1]

October 1963, Excello 2239, A & B-sides

 

Baby Scratch My Back [28/1] b/w I'm Gonna Miss You (Like The Devil) [29/1]

December 1965, Excello 45-2273, A & B-sides

 

Sittin' Here Wondering (as Wonderin' Blues on the LP) [25/1]

November 1964, Excello 2261, A-side

 

We're Two Of A Kind [22/1] (July 1964, Excello 2253, B-side of "Still Rainin' In My Heart")

 

I Need Money [as "I Need Money (Keep Your Alibis)"] [21/1] (March 1964, Excello 45-2246, A-side)

 

NOTE: The version of "Rainin' In My Heart" on Side 2 of the "Baby Scratch My Back" album (Track 2, CD4) is a very different Alternate Version to the 1961 original. The original is Track 12 on Disc 1 in this Box set.

 

Mastered to perfection by MARCUS HEUMANN from original master tapes, I cannot stress enough how good and alive the audio is on this set – thrilling and present – song after song. To the album and its chunes... 

 

His Harmonica backed up by Lazy Lester's percussive taps comes sailing out of your speakers with stunning clarity as he launches into the Bo Diddley magic groove-type-thang of "Shake Your Hips". That's followed by its bopping flipside "Midnight Blues" – a Rhythm and Blues shuffler with startling Harmonica clarity laid down at Jay Miller's Studios in Louisiana in January 1965. Al Foreman provides the zippy-licks guitar opening for "Harpo's Blues" (from September 1963 sessions) – Slim glad to be back home and away from some other gal's evil ways (good choice mate). "Buzzin'" is a guitar-dominated instrumental shuffler stabbed throughout with his trademark Harmonica warbles – very cool indeed. Side 1 ends with a mixture of two paces – the bopping "My Little Queen Bee" and the none-too-convincing shuffler "I Love The Life (I'm Livin')" where he sings/talks his way through some terribly sappy lyrics.

 

Side 2 opens with a proper winner, the snakelike wiggle of the title track – James Johnson playing lead guitar for "Baby Scratch My Back" – a baby get too it plea for our man out on a chicken limb. Definitely one the LPs better cuts, "I'm Gonna Miss You (Like The Devil)" is a hip-swaying mama – the kind of song you might hear in a bar and rush to the jukebox to find out what/who it is. The LP's non-45 odd-man-out is an Alternate of "Rainin' In My Heart" done as far back as November/December 1959 sessions at Jay Millers Studios which appears to be finally making its CD appearance in this Box set. 

 

Both Rudolph Richard (Lead) and James Johnson (Rhythm) play superb guitar moments on "Wondering Blues" – Lazy Lester backing them up on Drums and Percussion. The final two are echo-shufflers where Slim drops up and down on the vocals for "Two Of A Kind" – his baby arguing when he starts in on the loving - again with superb lead guitar from Richard Rudolph and gorgeous audio. It ends on a manic Harmonica and Drums shuffler "I Need Money (Keep Your Alibis)" that you suspect was placed at the end of Side 2 because it's the poorest recording on the album – great atmosphere – but slightly muzzled on the Production front.

 

Born in Lobdell - Louisiana's James Moore passed 31 January 1970 aged only 46 - with the last song on this box set called "There's Nothing As Sweet As Making Up" apparently recorded only a week before he succumbed to a heart attack.

 

In a typically respectful gesture to an artist and his co-musicians BF clearly admire - someone who subliminally influenced so many that followed in his swamp-cat footsteps - Bear Family have given his large Memorial Plaque a full-page photograph on Page 104 so you can read all of its details.

 

I suppose buying Bear Family's gorgeous 5CD mega-work is hardly a budget-conscious way to acquire one obscure 1966 R&B album - but Slim Harpo's wonderful catalogue is genuinely worth splashing out the cash for.

 

So much to love and so much to savour (ask Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones) - just hide the receipt from your queen bee...