TEASIN’ YOU
Johnny Heartsman
Eaglin is a New Orleans legend who was a force in the 50s-era Crescent City R & B explosion and has since become a mainstay on the blues festival circuit, though he’s never really been a household name outside Louisiana. Self-taught, eclectic in his choice of material nearly to the point of mania, he’s built a reputation in a city known for its free spirits as a flamboyant musical maverick. It’s sometimes forgotten, though, that he’s a serious and dedicated musician capable of taking the most outrageous chances and pulling off apparently impossible stylistic juxtapositions with almost insouciant ease. Teasin’ You, Eaglin’s new offering on Black Top, showcases him near the top of his form as a thoroughly modern guitarist with deep blues roots. Although he’s spent virtually all his life in New Orleans, he’s managed to absorb several regional styles and fuse them in his own distinctive sound.
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Lloyd Price’s “Baby, Please Come Home,” the opener, sets the tone for the entire disc. It kicks off with a gritty string bend, then jumps into a joyful Gulf Coast-style shuffle, while Eaglin’s vocal “wah-wah” chorus provides a delightful example of New Orleans R & B’s love of nonsense syllables. Eaglin sings a young man’s music in an old man’s accents, and his guitar sings with an ageless spirit. He scatters dirty chords amid crisp, tubular leads, supple bends, and lithe, wide-fingered excursions through the registers. Tenor man Grady Gaines weighs in with a juicy, economical sax break; behind him the tightly arranged horns, with their sharp attack and roistering harmonies, provide an echo of the parade music that gave rise to New Orleans jazz and strongly influenced the Crescent City R & B style.
Eaglin treats Muddy Waters’s “Red Beans” like a flat-out rocker. As the band riffs ecstatically behind him, his solo rises from a dense pack of rowdy chords into a series of buzzing rock-and-roll choruses; finally the band falls into place alongside him, contributing their own damn-the-police-let’s-shoot-out-the-lights mayhem. The horns ride the bass line on this one in the patented New Orleans R & B style.
The Touch, Heartsman’s new offering on Alligator, was lovingly produced by Chicago’s Dick Shurman, Heartsman’s longtime friend and admirer. The mix is clear and spacious, leaving plenty of room for the multitextured subtleties of Heartsman and his band.
“Attitude,” a full-bodied shuffle complete with horn section, is more completely realized. This kind of jaunty jump is right down Heartsman’s alley, and here his vocals fit perfectly. The lyrics bite–“Blamin’ everyone but you for your luck / Better stop your whinin’, sounds like your record’s stuck / It’s your attitude, it’s your attitude . . . / I’d punch you if you were a dude, it’s your attitude”–but Heartsman’s delivery smooths over the barbs without destroying their meaning.
