It Hurts Me Too

Rip It Up, Issue 121, 1 August 1987, Page 4

It Hurts Me Too

John Hammond Jnr

In person John Hammond is footstomping, guitarcrushing excitement.

A handsome figure, usually in a suit (“Junior Walker told me to get a cheap suit with a good cut,” he laughs), he straddles a high stool and opens his throat to evoke the weird mysteries of the Mississippi Delta of long ago. All the while his left foot is pounding the stage in accompaniment to the compulsive rhythms of his guitars (regular six-string, a 12-string,

his beloved National steel for slide, and a racked harmonica). That Hammond, 43, the son of legendary record producer, talent scout and jazz critic John Hammond Snr, who died last month, is, as one might say, “good people,” is icing on a rich cake. Although Hammond’s father was responsible for issuing the seminal Robert Johnson King of the Delta Blues albums, he didn’t want his son to become a blues musician. Nevertheless hearing Johnson sparked young Hammond’s lifetime devotion to the blues. “In hearing Robert’s music,” he says, “I was moved so deeply that I felt changed inside. Something emerged in me

and built up ’til it just had to come out.”

From the early 60s Hammond has followed his own course as an interpreter of black blues. He has produced a steady stream of albums (for the Vanguard, Columbia, Atlantic, Capricorn and Rounder labels), some of which remain in print. Recommended records include Spoonful (an Edsel reissue of Atlantic sessions with Robbie Robertson, Bill Wyman, Duane Allman and the Muscle Shoals rhythm section), Fattening Frogs for Snakes (Rounder), and Footwork (late 70s Vanguard acoustic sessions with veteran blues pianist Roosevelt Sykes guesting). Hammond also provided the haunting music for Arthur Penn’s mythical western Little Big Man. I make no apology for having been a fan since I first heard the screaming electricity of So Many Roads, a mid-60s Vanguard album with backing from key members of Levon and the Hawks — who, through Hammond’s introduction, later became Bob Dylan’s Band. ' Naturally, not all my friends who like the blues care for John Hammond. The casting of a “white bluesman,’’ especially one from such a wealthy background as Hammond, will always be a stumbling block to some. Others, while acknowledging Hammond’s guitar and harmonica skills, scorn his vocals as “blackface.” Most of these criticisms were ventured years ago, but Hammond has kept honing his style, recording some songs (’I Wish You Would,’ ‘Who Do You Love?’) several times over the years. There was a special night at Melbourne’s Troubadour nearly two years ago when a soon-going-home Hammond played away from his core repertoire, dipping into such songs as ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo,’ ‘Junco Partner’ and Chuck Willis’s ‘lt’s Too Late’ with an aching slide part. The memory lingers. . For that and more I shall be seeing John Hammond again.

Ken Williams