Happy playing the blues

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Happy playing the blues
November 4, 2011
Larry Schwartz
theage.com.au

OHN Hammond laughs, remembering "amazing times" when he first encountered pre-World War II bluesmen tracked down by enthusiasts in the early 1960s.

"I thought they were so old," says the singer, guitarist and harmonica player, who was this year inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. "Here I am, almost 70, and I chuckle at that."

He's performed with Nehemiah ''Skip'' James, ''Bukka'' White, Son House, John Hurt, Fred McDowell and Big Joe Williams. "I worked with all these guys," says Hammond, who celebrates his 69th birthday on tour in Australia this week.
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Inspired at 16 by the combination of harmonica and guitar played by Jimmy Reed one night at Harlem's Apollo Theatre, Hammond went on to record versions of blues songs from the Mississippi Delta to the South Side of Chicago and beyond.

Early in his career he was struck by the talent of close friends. "I hung out with guys who could write extraordinary songs," he says. "Guys like John Sebastian and Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs … it just rolled off their fingers, you know."

He says he wrote two "very dumb songs". "I knew so many great blues songs that were unknown to 'most everybody that I was playing for, I didn't feel the need to write songs."

Four decades on, he covered his friend Tom Waits's songs on all but one track on the acclaimed 2001 album Wicked Grin and his wife, Marla, suggested he come up with something of his own for the follow-up album.

Hammond obliged and Ready for Love in 2003 featured Slick Crown Vic, about his first car, a 1955 Ford Crown Victoria. "She said, 'Why don't you write a song for this project and we might make some extra money?'" says Hammond, who has composed for subsequent albums. "I couldn't think of a reason not to do it."

John Paul Hammond is the son of John Hammond, the producer and talent scout celebrated as "discoverer" of artists including Billie Holiday, Charlie Christian, Count Basie, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

To avoid confusion with his father, who initially thought his career choice a bad idea, he is invariably referred to as John Hammond jnr. "My father was John Henry Hammond jnr," he notes. "[So] actually, my dad was Junior."

His parents' marriage ended relatively early and he saw little of his father. But they shared a passion for musicians, including Delta blues genius Robert Johnson.

The elder Hammond was among the first to champion Johnson and had planned to feature him in the landmark From Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall in late 1938. He went on to oversee the first King of the Delta Blues Singers collection in 1961.

The younger Hammond would host a 1991 British documentary about Johnson and has an album of his covers of Johnson songs. He first heard Johnson on a late 1950s record compiled by author Samuel Charters.

Oblivious to his father's role, he once asked if he knew of Johnson. "He said, 'Funny you should mention him'." The producer gave his son two 78s and arranged for a Columbia archivist to record a tape with 14 Johnson songs. "I was the first one to have this stockpile of these great songs."

Dylan, dismissed as "Hammond's folly" by detractors after the producer signed him to Columbia, has written of the influence on his work of "a thick acetate" of the yet-to-be released 1961 Johnson record Hammond's father gave him.

Hammond once invited Dylan to a recording session for his 1965 album So Many Roads. Among the musicians were Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm from the group that went on to become the Band. "I told Dylan, 'Hey, come over and check these guys out','' he says. ''Bob flipped out and the next thing I know they were playing with him."

He once had both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton back him at the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village. He'd met Clapton on a British tour with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.

Hendrix was repaying a favour. When they first met, Hendrix was known as Jimmy James - and desperate for a gig. "We had this week at the Cafe Au Go-Go and it was packed out every night. Chas Chandler from the Animals came to see the show and offered him an air ticket and a recording deal in England … I said, you've got to do it."