Blues, Boogie & Bebop: Meat's Too High

Blues, Boogie & Bebop: Meat's Too High

• Shrink-wrapped

The two studio sessions here were recorded in London in 1980 and 1982 and find our man still at the height of his powers. Born in Houston, Texas in December 1917, the young Eddie Vinson heard itinerant blues singers and sang in church himself, before starting on the sax at the age eighteen playing commercial ballads. Early on, while in a 'kid band', he met and played with T-Bone Walker, then joined the Milt Larkin band alongside such other big sax names as Illinois Jacquet and Arnett Cobb. He them moved to Cootie Williams. During a spell in New York he came into contact with bebop and absorbed it, but he also toured with Lil Green and Big Bill Broonzy, the latter leaving a mark on his blues repertoire. In 1945 he formed his own band and made such hit records as 'Cherry Red Blues', 'Somebody's Got To Go' and 'Old Maid Boogie' (the latter two revisited here). He was also one of Johnny Otis's 'national treasures', but astonishingly he retired after making an album in 1961 with Cannonball Adderley. In 1967 he was back and three years later he took part in the Johnny Otis package at the Monterey Festival, which may have started the 1960s Rhythm & Blues boom. He appeared with B. B. King and at the Montreux Jazz Festival, participating with Oliver Nelson and Gato Barbieri on the gargantuan 'Swiss Suite'. In the mid-eighties, the R&B boom in the UK was taking off and Eddie was aware of the renewal of interest in his music; he had recorded with revivalists Roomful Of Blues, and the younger audience thronged to hear him. In later years, he liked to recall his friendship with Fats' saxman, Lee Allan, John Coltrane (... he worked for me), Charlie Parker (I like Bird, he played the Blues, a comment often heard from R&B saxmen) the big bands (they were good days), and played golf with Pee Wee Crayton. Eddie Vinson died in Los Angeles, California, on 2nd July 1988. Releases such as this CD mean though, that his music is still around for everyone to enjoy.