Otis Spann

• Walking the Blues [Candid, 1960] A
• Walking the Blues [Barnaby, 1972]  

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Walking the Blues [Candid, 1960]
I once asked Nat Hentoff, "supervisor" of a one-day 1960 session I've loved ever since it was finally released in 1972, how he got master Chicago blues pianist Spann, second-generation Delta blues guitarist Robert Jr. Lockwood, and Nashville-born blues songster St. Louis Jimmy Oden to groove so easily. His answer: "I rolled the tape." On Spann's solo recordings with main man Muddy Waters, he's a strong, mellow, generic Chicago blues vocalist who was seldom as spare or sharp as he is on the captivating "It Must Have Been the Devil" opener, and while somewhere in his unkempt catalogue no doubt dwell solo instrumentals as virtuosically understated as "This Is the Blues" or as definitive as "Walking the Blues" itself, I doubt they're any better. And then there's what makes the session: four primitivist St. Louis Jimmy features that play his croaky drawl for laughs, as must have happened a lot. Take for instance that "Monkey Face Woman" who "got what I lack": "She's cute when she walks, she wobbles all over the street/She's cute when she walks, she wobbles all over the street/She's got little bird legs and them oversize feet." A

Walking the Blues [Barnaby, 1972]
[CG70s: A Basic Record Library; CG80: Rock Library: Before 1980]