RIP Otis Grand

 

RIP my old pal Otis Grand (on left), who passed away on June 7in London. Me in the middle, on vocals, on the right, Walid Boustany. We got our start playing 'unplugged,' in 1973. then got a full, electrified group going called Bliss Street Blues Band. On harmonica, George Bisharat, AKA Big Harp George. Bass: Todd/Craig Lichtenwalner. Drums, Raja Kawar.

Then we dispersed, Otis ended up in London, eventually started his own band, and was such a prodigious talent that he was voted 'Best UK Blues Guitarist' seven years running (1990–1996) by the British Blues Connection magazine. (After 7 years, his name was retired.) He issued lots of recordings, they are easy to track down. I'll have more to say about Otis in future.

Rachid Taha's new one

Rachid Taha has a new album out, called Zoom. It's available in Europe, but not issued yet in the US. Not even on iTunes or emusic. Damn. Based on this track, it promises to be a good one. (I wasn't so taken with Taha's last outing, Bonjour.)

The song is a basic blues, and the basic lyric goes, "I don't have a passport, I don't have a visa, I have nothing baby." The typical lament of the undocumented migrant. Love it.

Otis Grand on CNN: Beirut Blues

Otis Grand is one of the world's great blues guitarists. We were together at the American University of Beirut in the late sixties and early seventies, and I used to play music with him from 1972-1975, part of that time in the Bliss Street Blues Band. I was never a very good singer, but Otis was an awesome guitarist. He moved to London in 1976, and in the early 1980s started playing music professionally there.

He appeared yesterday on the CNN show, "Inside the Middle East," talking about his life and the blues, from Beirut. There is great footage of him playing. And, there are some photos of the Bliss Street Blues Band, as well as some footage. I'm the guy with the dishwater blonde "Afro." Check it out.

Turban'd Kim Wilson, Fabulous Thunderbirds

I finally found a photo of Kim Wilson in a turban. Kim Wilson, the great lead singer and harmonica player of The Fabulous Thunderbirds. The other guy is lead guitarist, Jimmy Vaughan, brother of the late Stevie Ray Vaughn. Jimmy plays in a more restrained style than brother Stevie, but is fully his equal. I used to see these guys play in clubs all the time in the late 70s in Austin, and they kicked ass. Best album from that era is their eponymous The Fabulous Thunderbirds (19779), and this one, What's the Word, is a close second.

Kim used to wear the turban in concert quite often, and he looked slick.

Kibbespotting: Rewriting the History of the Blues

No doubt almost anyone who reads this blawg heard this amazing story (Jan. 31) on NPR's Morning Edition: "Kibbe at the Crossroads: A Lebanese Kitchen Story." On the face of it, this is just a "food" story, a bit of NPR fluff. But it turns out that a story focusing on the mostly unknown history of Syrian/Lebanese cuisine in the Mississippi Delta opens up a history of Syrian-Lebanese immigrants in the Delta and their ambiguous position on the black-white color line. I love the image of Robert Johnson sitting under a sycamore at the legendary crossroads in Clarksdale, guitar by his side, eating barbecue he had procured from the nearby Abe's Barbecue, a restaurant founded by a Lebanese immigrant (Abraham Davis) from the Lebanese town of Zahle. (Probably he didn't eat kibbe, which seems at the time to have been "home" food cooked up on Sunday and not served in Lebanese-Syrian restaurants.) We learn too that Ike and Tina Turner worked for a Lebanese-owned grocery store in nearby Riverton. And we learn that during the days of the Civil Rights movement, Abe's Barbecue and the Lebanese-owned Chamoun's Rest Haven were among the only in the area that would serve blacks. (Without more evidence, I don't think we should generalize on the basis of this story about the commitment of Arab-Americans in the South to the Civil Rights movement. But I do have it on good authority from a friend who knew Ike Turner quite well that Ike always had kind words for Lebanese, based on his experience working for a Lebanese-American grocer.)

At one point in the story, Pat Davis, owner of Abe's, pulls out a CD and plays a song in Arabic sung by Danny Thomas, who was cited by those interviewed for the story as the preeminent Lebanese-American, and star of the very popular sitcom "The Danny Thomas Show," which ran from 1953 to 1964, and often featured Danny's fictional Lebanese uncle, "Uncle Tonoose" (played by Hans Conried--see photo).

The CD in question is The Music Of Arab-Americans, released by Rounder, and the song is reportedly the only recording in Arabic released by Danny Thomas. I highly recommend it, and Danny's song is one of the best on the CD. (The very informative liner notes were penned by ethnomusicologist Anne Rasmussen.)

And, read to the bottom of the "Kibbe" story for a useful discussion of the song, "Miserlou."