Soul fixer

After 20 years, it's finally Luther Allison's time

by Bill Kisliuk

Luther Allison is no magician, and the past 20 years or so have not been a disappearing act. But it sure might seem that way to American blues fans, who barely registered the dynamic Chicago blues guitarist and vocalist after he set up shop in Europe in 1979 and faded from stateside view.

These days, Allison has rematerialized on our radar like a meteor, with a headlong momentum that matches his furious musical strengths. Oodles of new and old Allison recordings are in the racks, and North American tours and festival stops have rekindled his reputation as an incendiary live performer.

His resurgence has also been marked by some timely fanfare, including a 1996 Blues Entertainer of the Year Award and four other W.C. Handy Awards that seem to be belated acknowledgments of his lifetime achievements. The recently dubbed "New King of the Blues" is actually a 57-year-old juke-joint veteran whose fundamentals -- primal intensity, rugged vocals, and keening guitar work direct from Chicago's legendary West Side -- have been more or less present since the late 1960s.

"Everyone knows I won five W.C. Handy Awards last year," says Allison, speaking on the telephone from his home in Paris. "But I'm not playing anything different." Different or not, he's been on a hot streak in his home country for about three years. In 1994 Chicago's Alligator Records issued Soul Fixin' Man -- his first American disc in nearly two decades. Originally rejected by another American label, Soul Fixin' Man (a play on Allison's youthful avocation as a shoe repairman) is a smoldering blues-and-soul set that captures him in an uncluttered, funky setting. Then came 1996's Blue Streak, which rocked a little harder and grabbed a bunch of blues awards. And now Alligator has shot another new Allison work to the bins, Reckless. Like Blue Streak, Reckless is a chugging, churning blues-rock assault. With the exception of a tasty acoustic duet ("Playin' a Losing Game") with his son Bernard, he rarely lets up on the throttle, squeezing piercing solos from an array of Gibson guitars and wailing into the microphone with his roughhouse mix of blues, soul, and rock and roll.

Had the flurry of new recordings not shaken off the years of obsolescence, Allison's live performances surely would have brought hardcore blues fans back up to date. He regularly grinds out high-volume, three-hour-plus sets at clubs and festivals, pushing crowds to exhilaration and exhaustion with the able backing of the Minneapolis-based James Solberg Band.

"I go for it," he says. "I'm what you call an Evel Knievel. I take chances." Born in Arkansas in 1939, Allison performed with his family's gospel group, the Southern Travellers, then moved with his family to Chicago in 1951. Musical friends and relatives had him brushing with the likes of Muddy Waters -- the man most responsible for creating the bedrock Chicago sound -- when Luther was still in his teens. By his early 20s he was gigging with Magic Sam Maghett and Freddie King, who -- along with Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, and Albert King -- were steering blues guitar on its crash course with rock and roll. When Freddie King started to hit it big with instrumentals like his oft-covered "Hideaway," he left a small West Side joint called Walton's Corner and his group in Allison's hands. Luther was still working the vibrant Chicago club scene in 1969, when promoter John Fishel invited him to perform at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival on the University of Michigan campus. Legend and liner notes have it that he turned the festival upside down. Allison himself says, "That was a very important moment for me. We played on like a Monday night. First set, there was nobody. Nobody knew who we were. Second set was jam-packed. At the end of the night the promoter came up and asked, `Where can we find people who play like you all do?' I said, `Down in Chicago.' "

"I think I would like to go back home and stay in a beautiful neighborhood where everybody is all friendly: no racism, good fishing, and a place to play tennis. And a nightclub big enough to have all kinds of music."

Fishel also fronted the money for Allison's first LP, Love Me Mama. The album, re-released on CD last year with a few extra tracks, captures Luther's raw talents in a pure state, as he howls madly on blues standards like B.B. King's title tune and Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster" while picking his way imperfectly to tough, passionate instrumental peaks.

"When I make a mistake, I make a mistake," he says, almost proudly. "I don't think music should be played perfect. The fact is, you just play the instrument. You get as much out of the instrument as possible."

A few years after Love Me Mama, Allison recorded for a subsidiary of Motown Records, though his unfiltered West Side blues sounded like little else recorded for Berry Gordy's R&B hit factory. These searing performances have also been repackaged on CD, as The Motown Years 1972-'76, offering a mix of Chicago standards and originals; there's just a trace of the soul conventions of the day. You can almost hear the signature B.B. King note, a bent high note that Allison imitated to good effect as a youngster, turn into his own nastier, scratchier signature.

In the mid 1970s, Luther went to Europe to back John Lee Hooker at the Montreaux Jazz Festival and found easier acceptance and a better life than he had at home. Around 1983 he settled in Paris, a good base for his busy European performing schedule. He now plays regularly at a Montparnasse club called the Petit Journal, works on his tennis game, and helps his son Bernard develop his own guitar chops.

"If I was in the states, I'd be hanging out, drinking and smoking and losing all my rest," he says. "But I think I would like to go back home and stay in a beautiful neighborhood where everybody is all friendly: no racism, good fishing, and a place to play tennis. And a nightclub big enough to have all kinds of music."

Allison has recorded extensively while overseas, though many of the recordings from his European years are rambling and unfocused. His awesome voice and piercing guitar are usually intact; what's sometimes missing is inspiration. When I ask about this lackluster period, he racks it up to changes in location, record labels, musical fads and fortunes. But comments here and there about drinking (check out "Cherry Red Wine" on Blue Streak) hint at one possible symptom of what he says was a gnawing frustration with his career.

"If the trees don't give the fruit, you're going to have to wait until the next season," he says. "It wasn't Luther Allison's time. I remember sitting with Buddy Guy, on a barstool at his club [in Chicago]. We were saying, `I done what I do. I'm not going to change.' "

Clearly he would rather talk about how he's now spinning 20 years of straw into gold. Collaborating with longtime accompanying guitarist James Solberg, Allison is writing tons of new material, blistering crowds with his intense performances, and seeing the sun shine down on the same musical path he has walked for many a year.

"I've waited this long," he says. "If it [recognition] comes tomorrow, fine. And if it's another 40 years, believe me, I think I'm going to have my say."