Walking the Blues

Walking the Blues

• Music

This 1961 Candid session reveals an artist who at 30 posessed a full-grown style. His experience had mostly been with the Muddy Waters troupe - a wonderful place to be, but with such a charismatic leader, scarcely a place in the sun. Nevertheless he took command of his own session. Even when he fell into the role of accompanist, as he does on four tracks here behind the singer James Ogden (St. Louis Jimmy), he was not in the least anonymous. This CD brings out much of what was best and most characteristic in the music of Otis Spann - it's some of his finest work.