Jon Lord & The Hoochie Coochie Men - Live At The Basement (2003) Limited Collector's Edition [3 CD]

The story so far…

When Bob Daisley returned to live in Sydney, Australia in 1997, he soon re-established a connection with Tim Gaze. They'd been in Kahvas Jute together in 1970 and Bob had always rated Tim as a very good guitarist and kept in touch over the many years. Tim had a blues band called The Blues Doctors at the time and invited Bob to do some gigs with them.

Bob picks up the story from here…

I've always been a fan of the blues. I agree with the great Willie Dixon when he said "Blues is the roots, everything else is the shoots". Soon after the first few gigs that we did, Tim asked me to join as a permanent member, which I agreed to do. At that time the line-up was Tim on lead vocals and guitar, Rob Grosser on drums, Jim Conway on harmonica and yours truly on bass. I suggested that we start afresh with a new name and suggested The Hoochie Coochie Men, after the Willie Dixon penned song "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man", an old blues standard.

In 2000 we recorded our first album "The Hoochie Coochie Men" with the above line-up. We did various gigs, clubs, restaurants etc. but had a pretty non-eventful year during 2002, until in January, 2003 I got a phone call from Drew Thompson who working with Jon Lord on his tour in Australia.

His first question was, "do you know Jon Lord"? I told him that I did and asked him why. He told me that Jon was in Sydney to play at the Opera House and that he wanted to do some other shows as well. As it happened, Jon was staying just down the road from where I live so I phoned Jon, arranged a dinner and chat and gave him a copy of The Hoochies' album, after which Jon and I discussed doing some shows with The Hoochies. Now at that stage, we, THCM, hadn't played together for about a year so we got together and rehearsed in preparation for some shows with Jon as "The Hoochie Coochie Men featuring Jon Lord". We did one show in Melbourne where, at the sound-check, we did our first and only rehearsal with Jon - but that night all went well.

The next day we flew up to Sydney to play at The Basement that night. We did a sound-check in the afternoon and then headed over to the ABC television studios to play a couple of songs live on the show "The Fat", then straight back to The Basement to be filmed doing our two one-hour sets there, the result being the live DVD and CD "Jon Lord with The Hoochie Coochie Men Live at The Basement".

That night at The Basement, Jimmy Barnes, a friend of us all, got up and sang a couple of songs with us, "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man" being one of them. We did one more show at Coolum in Queensland where Jimmy attended and got up with us once more and fun was had by all, we had a ball (or two).

The DVD and CD were both received well so I spoke to everyone about doing a studio album, which all were keen to do. Tim, Rob and I got together whenever possible during the end of 2005 and throughout 2006 to write, arrange and record at Rob's studio Disgracelands with Rob as engineer.

When the recorded songs were in good enough shape I took them over to London to record Jon's keyboard parts at Olympic Studios in Barnes, with first-class engineer Darren Schneider from the U.S. Later in 2006 we had the pleasure of including three other guest vocalists on the record, Jimmy Barnes sang on two tracks as did Ian Gillan and Jeff Duff.

As producer, I am more than happy with the end result, a blues album that packs hard-rock punch with well thought out arrangements and Tim singing and playing better than ever. The mix was done by Steve Scanlon in Melbourne, a fine job he did I must say. There'll be a few sore bums around with this kick-arse rhythm section too! Everybody played and sang great, well done evryone! By the way, it's entitled "Danger: White Men Dancing."

I hope you all enjoy our new record when it's released this year.

All the best, kind regards,
Bob Daisley

Recorded live at The Basement, Sydney, Australia on 7th February 2003, ex-Deep Purple keyboard player and legend Jon Lord treats us to a lavish selection of blues classics. Taking on both acoustic and electric blues, it's mainly the Australian Hoochie Coochie Men who do the job whilst Lord adds his unique Hammond playing to the songs. When one says blues there's mainly a harmonica there, which here is played in a very warm way by Jim Conway. Legendary artists such as Little Walter, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Jimmy Smith and Willie Dixon all see some of their compositions treated with utmost respect. This kind of material most certainly wouldn't fare well when played in front of a large capacity. Instead the intimacy of the Basement club adds to the originality and bluesy nature of the songs.

Some well-known songs on display here are "Green Onions," as made immortal by Booker T; "Strange Brew," originally written and recorded by Cream; and "Dallas" by Johnny Winter. Although personally I would've loved to hear some well-known Purple classics given the blues treatment, only "When A Blind Man Cries" is offered here. None other than ex-Cold

Chisel singer Jimmy Barnes steps in as a guest singer, here adding his distinctive voice to the whole. During the intro for "Back At The Chicken Shack," Lord attacks his organ in the same vein as during the intro for Purple's "Lazy," but instead of delivering all of the Purple classic, he settles for the Jimmy Smith original instead. As happens with these kind of semi-improvised gigs, the crowd wants more but the setlist has been fully played. Instead of playing the same song twice, the band there and then decides to improvise and see how it goes. The endresult is "12 Bar Blow Jam," the only song credited to Barnes/Gaze/Lord/Daisley/Grosser. In the end, it sounds like the audience and the band alike had a wonderful evening resulting in a unique collaboration, and documents the very first time Jon Lord has played the blues since before founding Deep Purple.
ProgressiveWorld



Tracklist:
CD 1
1. Introduction 02:04
2. Hideaway 03:08
3. Lonesome Traveller Blues 03:30
4. Blues With A Feeling 06:19
5. You Got Good Business 06:51
6. Green Onions 07:49
7. 24/7 Blues 05:05
8. Baby Please Dont Go 03:59
9. The Money Doesnt Matter 03:12
10. Strange Brew 03:38
11. Dallas 04:39
12. I Just Wanna Make Love To You 05:52
13. You Need Love 05:52

CD 2
1. The Hoochie Coochie Man 08:21
2. New Old Lady Blues 04:21
3. Whos Been Talkin 07:08
4. Six Strings Down 05:44
5. Dust My Broom 05:19
6. Back at the Chicken Shack 09:26
7. When a Blindman Cries 06:48
8. 12 Bar Blow Jam 06:24
9. When a Blindman Cries (single edit) 05:45

CD 3
1. Jon Lord Interview by Phillip Kafcaloudes 05:29
2. Jon Lord Interview by Derek Guille 05:00
3. Green Onions (Melbourne rehearsal) 07:00
4. Chicken Shack (first Hoochie Coochie Men gig in Melbourne) 07:29
5. 24/7 (live at Fat TV) 04:11
6. Whos been talkin (live at Fat TV) 06:46
7. If this aint the blues (demo) 06:37
8. The Hoochie Coochie Men (demo) 04:36

Personnel:
Jon Lord - keyboards
Bob Daisley - bass
Tim Gaze - guitar & vocal
Rob Grosser - drums
Jim Conway - harmonica

Special Guest:
Jimmy Barnes - vocal

PART1
PART2
PART3
PART4
PART5
PART6
PART7
PART8
PART9
PART10
PART11
PART12
PART13
pass: Hoochie Coochie