TRYING TO MAKE A LIVING PLAYING MY GUITAR
LINER NOTES
Sam Cockrell & The SCB
Label: Teletone Records
When there has been a fourteen-year gap between a bluesman's second and third album, the imagination can supply all sorts of explanations, but singer-songwriter-bassist Sam Cockrell hasn't been incarcerated, or strung out, or selling dubious products, or even out of the music biz. After taking time out following the death of his father, not long after the 2001 release of his second album "Colorblind," Cockrell got tired of handling some of the problems of a band leader taking a band on the road, and started getting gigs where bands were provided for him. He worked a good deal in western Canada, with European tours from time to time. The music was solid; the money was good, and the people were nice, and after more than a decade, the problem Sam faced was a truly contemporary one: how to get out of your comfort zone and into something you know you need to do.
The result of that need is this CD, "Trying To Make A Living Playing My Guitar," Sam Cockrell's third blues album. Sam grew up in blues territory, Chicago's South Side, and he knew some of the area's biggest blues names, including Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, but blues wasn't his first music, and his early influences may not have been a blues researcher's dream. They included rock bands such as Grand Funk Railroad, Yes, The Doobie Brothers, and Steely Dan, as well as soul and R&B music stars such as Sly and The Family Stone, The Commodores, and Michael Jackson. From the beginning, before the expression "post-racial" was in use, Sam has been eclectic and open-minded, and unwilling to play, or not play, particular styles because of expectations of him simply based on his being black.
Sam recorded a few now hard-to-find singles with a band called Brothers Of The Ghetto in the 1970s. The group morphed into a band called Majik that recorded for the Hi label with famed producer Willie Mitchell, including the song "Back Into Your Heart" co-written by Sam, and later a successful dance 12-inch "You Gotta Get Up" with Sam playing a funky bass that anchors the piece. In 1999 he cut his first blues album "I'm In The Business" which included appearances by many blues luminaries, such as Carl Weathersby, Michael Coleman, Jimmy Johnson, Maurice John Vaughn, Mike Wheeler, and Billy Branch. Two years later, the aforementioned "Colorblind" offered some fine songs and guest appearances by Ronnie Baker Brooks, Joanna Connor, and Chico Banks, as well as the Memphis Horns, whom Sam met in 2000 at the International Blues Challenge, where he took second place. (I was there, and he was my pick for first place, though I wasn't a judge!)
On this album, Sam takes on issues that are both contemporary and age-old with sincerity and seriousness, leavened in places with humor and just plain old good-time spirit. A recurring theme is the question of how much of a deal does one agree to cut with the people in charge to get the success one wants. In "You're A Sellout" Sam offers some new twists on this; the old image of the "casting couch" where women were pressured to offer sex in exchange for a movie role is now also an issue for men. The issue is echoed in "You Can Have It If You Play The Game," while other vexing problems - - poverty and dishonest power-abusing leaders - - arise in songs like "This Ain't Another 'Baby I Love You' Song." The goal, which hopefully is much closer for Sam with this album, is expressed in the title track, the chance to make people happy with music and succeed in the business without sacrificing one's principles, musical or otherwise. It's a goal we are invited to be part of, on this appealing and high-spirited album of 21st century blues.
-Jonny Meister, February 2015
