AIN’T THAT LOVIN’ YOU BABY
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No musical genre ever linked itself so closely to special sorrows; the torch song or blues ballad glows with pain. And since it all goes right into the notes, you can’t fake it. Jimmy Reed knew that. Called the “Big Boss Man” of the blues, he was a Chicago legend, launching hit record after hit record (12 between 1955 and 1961) and inspiring the use of blues traditions in soul, rock ‘n’ roll, and country and western. Reed was the first blues act to play Carnegie Hall, and among those who recorded–or stole–his songs were the Rolling Stones, Ike and Tina Turner, Elvis Presley (“Baby, What You Want Me to Do”), Muddy Waters, Freddy King, Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin (“Honest I Do”), and the Chambers Brothers. Last month Reed posthumously entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
If anyone had a right to sing the blues, Reed, who picked cotton as a boy in Mississippi before joining the Navy, did. As they say, “He made it, played it, and drank it.” Despite the best efforts of his wife Marylee and his manager, jazzman Al Smith, Reed was a chronic alcoholic. He was often late for concerts; when he showed up after a binge, he was sometimes too drunk to remember the songs or their keys. During recording sessions Marylee sometimes had to whisper the words to him.
If Hytower’s musicianship outweighs his acting–he plays a drunk but barely suggests inebriation–the show rewards the emphasis. Tearing into “Bright Lights, Big City” or “Going to New York,” Hytower shows the all-embracing blues bravado he brought to his portrayals of Muddy Waters, Otis Redding, and Jerry Butler. He’s clearly a power in his own right.
