Bobby Bland: Squallin' with the Boss of the Blues by Bob Merlis
Here's the Man! None other than Mr. Bobby "Blue" Bland, the reignin,' squallin' "king of all blues singers." It's not specifically known who conferred the title on him, but here in this ghettodelic New Orleans joint way off the tour bus path, the former Robert Calvin Brooks has no challengers. Midway through tonight's after-hours set, the downhome sovereign is approached by a lithe young female admirer so engaged by the smoldering soundstorm pouring from the legendary larynx that she jumps onstage to gyrate before him as he wails "I'll Take Care Of You." Next, in an apparent act of supplication, she becomes intimate with the regent's pant leg. Bobby Bland can, quite literally, move an audience.
Years earlier, during one of his famed Christmas Eve gigs at Houston's Civic Auditorium (where his Duke Records labelmate Johnny Ace lost that last round of Russian roulette), another facet of Bland's crown shines forth. At the prelude to prayer passage in "St. James Infirmary" (sung "St. Jameses'"), Mr. Triple B goes full Method, dropping dramatically to his knees, then pausing to check himself -- the trouser crease sharp enough to cut timber, his haberdashery so immaculately turned out -- he stops mid-crouch, the orchestra vamping on, then carefully unfolds his breast-pocket handerchief (cravat-coordinated, of course), and drops the silk square to the stage floor -- to assure a hygenic landing place for the royal kneecaps when the much anticipated moment of funky pathos finally arrives. Style, or what?
No-Juice Adonis
Though hardly handsome by conventional standards, Bobby, with his majestic "conk" hairstyle, manicured digits and casually confi- dent microphone caress, has been, almost from the start, a romantic figure who, as the New Orleans scenario proves, gets over with the gals. The phenomenon is illustrated on the cover of his classic Call On Me album, which depicts a bevy of Blan- dished beauts accessing Bobby on their rotary phones. The die for the smoldering stud character played to varying effect by Teddy Pendergrass, Barry "Beluga" White, Al Green, and even caucasoid crooners like Robert Palmer and Michael Bolton, was, for all intents and purposes, cast by Bobby "Blue" Bland decades before many of these pretend-ers experienced their first schoolboy crush. His facial features may be on the coarse side, his physique distinctly non-Adonis, and his approach low key, but the Blue One's got It, and the big girls understand.
Maybe, too, he's king because he's so far removed from the stereotypical blues singer: a wizened geezer with a beat-up guitar, porkpie hat, a juice jones and a repertoire rerunning that durable dum de dum de dum de dum dum dum dum pilot first screened eons ago in that cottonfield south of Clarksdale. Bland broke the mold and cast himself as a sophisticate, thus infusing the rural-route genre with the kind of upscale, urban class more often associated with Tony Bennett or Billy Eckstine than Lightnin' Hopkins.
In by Ten, Out by Four
If he were just so much style without the content, Bobby'd be a mere poseur with a heavy dry-cleaning habit, but the truth is: musically he's sayin' more than a little taste. The secret of his success: "the Squall" -- his uncanny ability to wring transcendent testifying from a unique epiglottal gargle. Many have imitated the Squall and some have come close (Little Milton; BBB impersonator Geator Davis), but most walk away from the attempt with sore throats and empty clubs. The fact that the Squall even has a name (like guitarists tagging their axes "Lucille") underscores its independent nature. Hearing the Squall isolated from a song, one could be excused for thinking its origin not human. Scary stuff... what you'd call "big mojo" if you didn't know any better. (And we haven't even brought up the Squall's mutation into porcine root-riffing on the chorus of "Sunday Morning Love.")
Obviously, there's more to Bland's art than phenomenal phlegm juggling. His blues include echoes of T-bone Walker's jazz- tinged approach, especially on cuts featuring the guitar of the great Wayne Bennett. The omnipresent, fiercely arranged brass accompaniment also set him off from his Chicago-based contempo- raries who tended to limit themselves to harmonica or a single sax. Credit here goes to longtime Bland bandman/ orches-trator Joe Scott. Dig the buildup and spooky drama of his "Blind Man" arrangement, those contrapuntal horn fills that set off the fiery "That Did It" and the smoldering "I Pity The Fool." In the presence of greatness, everybody's inspired.
Though gospel (through Brother Ray, the Isleys, etc.) is credited with laying the structural groundwork for Sixties soul, Bobby Bland's boss blues furnished much of the emotional underpinning. In the pre-Soul period of 1961-63, half a dozen of them became Top 50 pop hits, a crossover fantasy few other Delta cats dared dream. Today, while most bluesmen who haven't been relegated to obscurity altogether work predominately white crowds, Bland holds his black demogs. The appeal of a disheveled wretch wailing about how his baby left him is simply no match for the eternally suave lothario Squallin' out "Turn On Your Love Light," "Don't Cry No More" and the cosmic inevitability of "Ain't Nothin' You Can Do." And there ain't. You either get Bobby "Blue" Bland or you don't. Take it from The Man himself. In his live shows, after an effusive intro delineating his many accomplishments, delivered in rapid-fire Federal Expressive succession by the emcee, he takes the stage, brings the band down, and confides to the anxious audience, "It's time to get down to cases..." * * * *
Bobby Bland drives several hundred miles a year bringing his blues to a club, concert hall, hotel ballroom or chicken shack near you. See him. Till then, try these:
The Anthology (MCA). 50 essential tracks spanning 1952-82.
The 3B Blues Boy: The Blues Years (1952-1959) (Ace UK import). This 25-track cd chronicles his early heavy blues sides, some only recently unearthed.
His California Album (MCA). Originally on ABC, the post-Duke era's most consistent set; tasty production and gobs of (under- stated) Squallin' Soul.