Johnny Shines
Court Coffeehouse
Tacoma WA
30 Nov 70

01 Intro/ Instrumental 02 Sweet Home Chicago 03 Nameless Song 04 Tell me Baby (Pony Blues) 05 Ground covered with Snow 06 Little Girl 07 Stormy Monday Blues 08 Shake ´em on Down 09 What´s the matter Now 10 I´ve got the Blues 11 Instr. 12 I love the World 13 Worried Blues 14 What´s on Your Mind 15 Rollin´& Tumblin´

01 Instr. 02 Hello Centrum 03 You don´t have to Go 04 Gonna surprise me Baby 05 High Road 06 What´s on your Mind (Milk Cow Blues) 07 Top Cat 08 Try a little Tenderness 09 Instr. 10 Crossroads 11 Terraplane Blues 12 Statesboro Blues 13 Hound Dog 14 Dust my Broom

Sony PR-150 tape at 3 & 3/4 IPSMaster Reel rec. on Sony TC-355 reel machine- Playback on Revox A 77 & Sony TC-377- Phillips CDR 785-CDR-
My CDR- EAC-Cool Edit Pro- flac

This is the only known circulating live show of one of the last great Delta Bluesmen, Johnny Shines! Many, Many Thanks to Taperpat for his excellent taping, for preserving this great recording all the years and DocTinker for sharing it with all of us via Dime-A-Dozen!

Johnny Shines started playing in 1932! His main influences then, were Blind Lemmon Jefferson, Lonny Johnson, Scrapper Blackwell and Charlie Patton!  Arround 1934 he met Robert Johnson and travelled Arkansas,Tennessee and Missouri, working the Country Suppers and Dances, sometimes playing together and sometimes playing opposite each other. They split up a few months before Robert´s death.

Johnny left for Chicago in 1941, where he formed his own group. Disgusted with the record business he stopped being a proffesisonal musician in the 50´s.  Arround 1965 he was rediscovered and did some fine albums: " Last Night´s Dream" in 1968 (Blue Horizon) w/Otis Spann & Shakey Horton,
and two great 1974 Albums: "Country Blues"(XTRA) and " Johnny Shines"(Advent) among others.

In Tacoma 1970,  he played a solo accoustic on Set 1 and was accompanied by an unknown washtub bass player on the 2nd set.  Johnny´s playing here is an absolute outstanding lesson in country-styled Blues.  Contrary to too many other Blues players , his playing here is not the usual sloppy blues style with ridiculous key changes (ala Buddy Guy), but very distinguished, you wont hear him hit a wrong note! In some ways, it's a lot like an early Jeff Beck. It seems that the phrasing and notes are all in the absolutely correct spots. More would be crowded; Less would hollow out the song. His singing here is outstanding and there are a few moments (especially on the Robert Johnson songs) where you can imagine how the great Robert Johnson might have sounded recorded with great equipment.

Here are Taperpat´s own comments about the recording: This show was recorded on a Sony TC-355 reel to reel, using Sony PR-150 tape at 3 & 3/4 IPS. I used two Sony ECM f-98 microphones. One I taped to Johnny's vocal mic, the other to his guitar mic. I didn't know about soundboard outputs at that time in my recording career. Chris Lunn, the promoter was very helpful to me during the evening and my thanks go out to him. The Cds were made on a Phillips stand alone burner (CDR 785). The tape was played back on a Revox A-77 reel. Side 2 of the reel started squeaking so I switched decks to a Sony TC-377 which fixed the problem. There is a slight residual squeak on part of "Crossroads". I did not attempt to "bake" the reel.

Enjoy this incredible piece of Blues history! Close your eyes and jump inside this time machine.

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