WILLIE MABON/ Complete Recordings 1949-69
I guess everybody following this blog knows for sure that the post war Chicagoblues was not only Muddy Waters-Howlin' Wolf and such Delta blues transplanted in the WindyCity. Chicago had its own burgeoning R&B scene, jazz inflected blues and cocktail lounges bluesy music. Willie Mabon (born in Hollywood, Tn, near Memphis 24th October 1925) is certainly, in his look as well as in his music, closer to Charles Brown and the California blues than to the Delta-Chicago style. His laid back manners, his soft insinuating voice, his halftones blues with humorous lyrics put Willie Mabon apart from the other Chess artists of the 1950's. After his service in the Marines, Willie came to live permanently in Chicagoand embarked himself in a musical career. Influenced by Cripple Clarence Lofton, Roosevelt Sykes, Big Maceo and Sunnyland Sim, he developed a brilliant, classy piano style, also sometimes blowing a harmonica (his first instrument) on a rack. After being the pianist and sometimes vocalist of The Blues Rockers, Mabon waxed many records under his name and enjoyed some good hits (Poison Ivy, I'm mad, The seventh son, I don't know; I'm a fixer). But as so many bluesmen, he couldn't cope with the new Soul trends of the 60's and almost disappeared from the US blues scene. Thanks to French Black & Blue's Chicago Blues Festival tours, Mabon resumed his career in Europe after 1972, touring extensively and recording very good albums for French, British and German labels.
He died of illness in Paris, France, on 19th April 1985.
We have been able to gather all his USrecordings from his Blues Rockers' beginnings in 1949 to his last Checker session in 1969. Thanks a lot to Jose Yraberra, Marc D. and Tom Thumb for providing some rare records.
Gérard HERZHAFT
The complete Mabon's 1949-69 discography is on the comments' links
