Blues All Day Long - the Jimmy Rogers Story by Wayne Everett Goins

 

Jimmy Rogers was, of course, the guitarist in Muddy Waters' ace backing band at its peak, along with Willie Dixon, Little Walter and Elgin Evans, before he moved on to a successful solo career and he is still known as one of the legends of the Chicago music scene. Goins realized that there was not a true biography on this man despite most of his comrades receiving acclaims regularly and he decided that he should be the man to fix this glaring omission. 

Rogers' childhood is a bit confusing as his parents did not stay together long and he was sent to live with his grandmother and her large family, who he would refer to as siblings instead of aunts and uncles. Considering that his sir name varied from his biological father to his step-father to his grandparents' names, this became even more obtuse. Goins does his best to straighten out this tanglement and give us as clear of a picture as possible.

Because he traveled a lot as a child - his grandmother worked and traveled on the railroad and he would often accompany her - Rogers was mostly a loner, although he had a few close friends. I find it wild that he was childhood buddies with Snooky Pryor, who ended up as another Chicago blues great, of course, and Rogers' nickname originally was Snooky, and Pryor was Bubba! As children, their parents did not approve of their interest in the "devil's music", but they managed to see a number of the early greats by sneaking off to whatever juke joint they were playing in. As he grew older, he would sit in with the giants on both guitar and harmonica and created a name for himself in the region and eventually moved permanently to Chicago.

And man, what a time to be in Chicago! So many legends were on the scene and they were playing together, drinkin' together, gamblin' together and hangin' at each other's houses - almost gives me chills to think of all these cats in the same place'n'time, just diggin' the music. Jimmy joined forces with Muddy Waters and eventually brought Little Walter into the fold and proceeded to produce some of the most enduring blues music ever recorded. Each man eventually went on their own and with the entrance of rock'n'roll on the scene, their stars began to diminish. In fact, Rogers, dropped out of music altogether for most of the 60's to support his family and wouldn't return until the 70's. But, his return began his most productive period of his career - regular gigs in Chicago (man, I wish I had been a few years older and knew about all these cats playing in clubs!), recording, and even touring Europe.

While there are some fun tales of this time, and it's nice to know that Rogers was acknowledged for his contributions to the blues, a good portion of this period is simply Goins listing the various musicians coming'n'going from the band and the gigs that they played and tours that they embarked upon. Certainly there are some hip anecdotes - the band plays with the Exploited at one point! - and Rogers reunites with other Chicago legends for recordings and concerts, it just isn't as captivating as the early days. In fact, most (not all) of the recordings that Rogers is involved in seem to simply be him revisiting his old songs over'n'over with various sidemen, even as he attains higher levels of acclaim than ever before. In fact, just before he died he was busier than ever, with a star-studded album being released just a short time after he was taken by cancer (same as his old boss, Muddy) at 72.

Regardless, I had a good time with this - worth delving into for the vast amount of info on the old days and Goins does his best to set the record straight throughout Jimmy's history.