Barrelhouse Chuck With Erwin Helfer – Prescription For The Blues – The Sirens Records SR-5044

Barrelhouse Chuck electrified fans the world over with his absolute dedication to the blues, a contract he made so many years back when he traveled to Chicago to plunge himself in the domain of not only his respected and admired blues piano idols, but the blues culture of the great city itself.  Barrelhouse did it in the correct manner, earning the confidence of the blues piano giants who were still exercising their extraordinary heights of skill in venues all over late 1970s Chicago.  He took residence with them, absorbed lessons of exclusive individual techniques from them, soaked up their stories, tales, and advice using their counsel as he navigated the blues world, and the world in general, turning them into life frameworks.  However, Barrelhouse didn’t solely limit his drives to blues piano icons; no, he made it his vocation to make committed long-term bonds with Chicago’s crowded accumulation of all blues artists, attaining valued understandings of their pasts and the great worth of their insights. 

Over many years, Barrelhouse, along with the revered Erwin Helfer, grew to be the remaining duo of a very unique institution of blues piano in Chicago, as gradually, goliaths such as Sunnyland, Blind John Davis, Big Moose Walker, Little Brother Montgomery, Detroit, Jr., and Pinetop Perkins, among others, performed their final keyboard flourishes.  And when Barrelhouse passed away much too soon in 2016, blues fans on around the world who knew the remarkable man and character that he was, and of his massive blues keyboard proficiencies, wept and reflected, and the blues world was indisputably emptier. 

Erwin Helfer remains an illustrious Chicago boogie woogie, blues, and jazz piano connoisseur, though now he is in that “lion in Winter” stage of life.  Helfer’s individual keyboard panache is steeped with so many diamonds as his keyboard magic incorporates and produces the delicious elements of his many inspirations, including those of Jimmy Yancey and Albert Ammons, stride music (a piano style that has its origins in jazz), New Orleans piano sensibilities, pop standards, swing, and effectively nearly every form of music conceivable.

Helfer’s recital and recording background comprises times with boogie woogie piano man Cripple Clarence Lofton, Chicago vocalist Estelle Yancey, one-time Chicago blues patriarch Sunnyland Slim, the great blues piano colossus and singer Blind John Davis, piano superman Speckled Red (he of “The Dirty Dozens” fame), Chicago piano master Jimmy Walker, the original wandering bluesman Big Joe Williams, blues slide guitar artist Homesick James, and obviously Barrelhouse Chuck, among countless others. 

The captivating aspect about Helfer’s piano virtuosity is that he seems to present all of his combined stimuli upon any creative musical undertaking he is contributing to; purely, his musical products are ceaselessly enjoyable, expertly lustrous, and bordered in an unashamed fondness and obligation to excellence toward whatever variety of music he is recording and performing.  In short, Helfer maintains high deference for the heritage of whatever genre is his motivation, and also for those artists who came earlier than him that shaped and nurtured those musical categories. 

In summation, this reviewer has never been retiring in his fervent certainty Barrelhouse and Helfer were and are the supreme of the modern-day blues and boogie piano players in Chicago.  Again, while Barrelhouse is now departed, having Helfer still with us crowns him as the surviving ideal of Chicago keyboard masters, and for that we must all be blissful.

On this 16-cut July, 2022 release, The Sirens Records, under the extreme dedication to capturing the classic enduring blues of Chicago’s piano ranks, an effort led by Dr. Steven Dolins (who, by the way, should be roundly applauded for his passionate musical drive), delivered yet another gem to the blues-loving world.

Barrelhouse was at the uppermost of his game on this peerless outing, and true to his resolute ambition, it bestows his blues concepts in their best lights, suiting of the man whose commitment to the art form never, ever wavered.  On this outing, Barrelhouse clearly plays and sings imprinted with the artistic influences of his stable of mentors, though his is his own man in his own time continuing to thank those who laid the groundwork for his labors.  He weighty tribute here, and across the landscape of this sterling disc, I rejoiced in his honors and absorbed its blues might.  As I did so, a pair of highly respected blues giants and their musical impacts upon Barrelhouse repeatedly came to me over and over again; Leroy Carr and Little Brother Montgomery, two of his paramount blues and life influences.

Barrelhouse’s rock-solid left-hand excursion, his bright right-hand forays, his defined, explicitly distributed lyrics, and his on-point song readings allow no doubt as to his lifelong pledge to the blues and its solemn significance to him.

On the three numbers with the always-engaging and wildly gifted Helfer, the two seem as one with their joys and visions, as theirs was a deep friendship in addition to a working relationship grounded in deep admiration.  Together, Barrelhouse and Helfer’s synthesis was substantial.

I miss my friend Barrelhouse Chuck; but then again, many people, I am sure, feel that identical melancholy.  He was a vivid light for a Chicago blues piano institution that was, and is, sunsetting.  Without any reservation, this collection is one to relish.  And if you can find a way to get a message to Helfer, perhaps through The Sirens Records online site, send him your heartiest conveyance of appreciation for all the great music he has provided us.

This CD belongs on the shelves of your blues collection. 

Essential blues!