The Jimmy Dawkins Band – Blisterstring – Delmark Records DE-641

Riding on the heels of his freshman Delmark Records 1969 release, Fast Fingers, an outing that announced that yet another of Chicago’s west side blues guitarists was going to stir the modern blues pot with a louder and brasher form of the music, this 1996 CD re-release of an original 1976 collection affirmed that Dawkins was a major force in the blues realm.  This CD release includes four additional cuts that were not on the 1976 LP.

The day’s westside Chicago blues sound was a more red-hot, flowingly free-form, even jazz-inspired, wallop of reverberation that may too have comprised full horn aggregations.  It was a version of the Chicago blues modernized to expose the substances of the urgency and insistence that were components of the day-to-day actuality on Chicago’s west side.  It was noisy, it was lashing, and it was a move away from the country blues beginnings of the Chicago blues to that juncture.  The west side Chicago blues bellowed and screamed its weights to the world; it replicated the gravities of Chicago life for west side Blacks.  It was an obligatory new reading of the blues.

We find Dawkins here as the sole writer on four originals, and credited as a co-writer with fellow Delmark label mate Jimmy Johnson on a fifth.  The remaining five selections include tunes attributed to a variety of artists and their respective musical genres, including bluesman Chick Willis, jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell, jazz bandleader and trumpeter Dave Bartholomew, pianist Carl Hampton, blues giant Little Walter, and singer-songwriter Bobbie Gentry.

Dawkins is confidently poignant with his vocal excursions depending upon a particular blues’ backdrop, while his guitar is expressive, biting, resolute, and adventurous.  It tears and slashes when necessary, finds a melancholy stance as required, and melodically bounces and shuffles as commanded. 

Framing Dawkins’ blues visions are pianist Sonny Thompson, low-end bass man Sylvester Boines, and drummer Tyrone Centuary.  Jimmy Johnson also weighs-in with rhythm guitar efforts on this release.

Dawkins’ work with Delmark Records continues to stand as some of the finest the label ever produced, and though he recorded for a number of other imprints throughout his long blues career, dollar-for-dollar, his work for Bob Koester’s Delmark Records label is, in this reviewer’s opinion, his best, and was instrumental in helping to define Chicago’s west side blues identity along with Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, and Freddi King, among others.

Essential blues, indeed!