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Cover

Story

Cotton explodes with harmonica blues

Continued from Page 9

By Peter Shapiro
In 1944, at the age of nine, James
Cotton left his home in search of his
idol, blues harmonica legend Sonny
Boy Williamson. After ten years of
Williamson's tutelage, Cotton
recorded the ferocious blues record,
Cotton Crop Blues. The 1954 al-
bum, produced on Sam Phillips'
Sun label, was a scathing summary
of Black life in the Deep South.
Like Robert Johnson's Sweet
Home Chicago, Cotton Crop Blues
perfectly captured the alluring mys-
tique of the northward migration.
The instrumentation was sparse and
brutal; the guitar and harmonica were
amplified with almost painful levels
of sustain so that the song always
threatened to lose control and col-
lapse on itself. Although not widely
known, the record stands as perhaps
an even better example of the meta-
morphosis of Delta blues into
Chicago blues than Howlin' Wolf's
historic Memphis recordings.
But James Cotton is not merely
an important transition figure in the
history of American music. Cotton's
harmonica playing has colored, pro-

pelled and inspired one of the most
important musical legacies that any
culture has to offer- Muddy Waters.
Cotton played in Waters' band
from 1954 until 1966, when he
struck out on his own. During that
time, Waters played some of his
most enduring music- "Hoochie
Coochie Man," "She's Nineteen
Years Old," and "I Got My Mojo
Working." The insistent edge on
those records was due in large part to
Cotton's fierce harmonica playing
that seemed to express the misogyny
lying deep beneath the surface of
Waters' boastful songs.
When Cotton left Waters' band,
he immediately recorded a couple of
songs for Samuel Charters' The
Chicago Blues Today albums on
Vanguard. Recorded at a time when
bands like the Rolling Stones, The
Yardbirds, and The Animals domi-
nated the musical consciousness,
Cotton's reworking of Jackie
Brentson's "Rocket 88" was nothing
short of a revelation. The manic pace
of the record was easily the equal of
anything off of The Rolling Stones
Now. Cotton's harp solo made Keith

Relf's meager attempts at hotness
sound foolish, and Eric Burdon
couldn't possibly match the ebul-
lient enthusiasm in Cotton's call to
drunken automotive mayhem. Cot-
ton's "Rocket 88" is easily the
greatest driving song of all time, its
only rival being Chuck Berry's
"Maybellene."
The hellacious fire that burns in
Cotton's music puts him on the
threshold of violence. On his best
records, one hears a man on the edge,
threatening to explode at any time.
He is a frightening figure until he
gets out on stage. In live perfor-
mances, Cotton takes all of his terri-
fying impulses out on his harmon-
ica. He chokes the harp with a men-
acing grin on his face, he drips with
sweat, his veins bulge, and he blows
with energy, passion, and commit-
ment until nobody can dance, let
alone stand anymore, nor do they
want to. The audience has done the
exploding that Cotton always threat-
ens to do. U
James Cotton will have two
shows at the Blind Pig, 206 S. First
St. Saturday night, at 8 and again at
11 p.m. You must be 19 or older to
enter, and tickets are $12. Tickets
may be purchased at the Michigan
Union Ticket office, or at the door.

hassle they associate with downtown
shopping. "I like [Briarwood] better.
Compared to the big cities its like
home town, a lot friendlier," says
Bob Miller 26, an employee at Book
Inventory Systems
"When I'm in a bad mood, I
come here and get frozen yogurt. I
go [to the mall] just to get away and
walk around," said Tanya Brown of
Saline.
"Some come here to shop, but
most come to walk around," Mays
said. Sears employee Erika Bolden,

an Eastern Michigan University stu-
dent, concurred, "People come here
to hang out more."
"You can relax at the mall, its
replacing the park," added Mays.
"Everything's convenient, ev-
erything's here, there's no hassle."
-Tanya Brown
The popularity of the mall is an
extension of our modern personas.
We like things fast and easy. Why
cook dinner when it's easier to nuke

a Le;
York
day?
or bW
your
Why
there
"1
ing a
good
from
for ar




Two patrons shop the mall for various items.

Tis Week:
ButthoeSurfersI
"Widowermaker"
12" & Cass. $3.99 I
C.D. $6.99 / I
NIrvana I
"Bleach"I
C.D. $12.99
Prhmitives re Co r ds
"Pure"
I LP. & Cass. $6.99 611 S. Forest I
Rate Bush
"Sensual World" Behind Village Corner
I LP. & Cass. $6.99 (313) 7476026I
C.D. $12.99 |
Rolling Stones '89' Tour Shirts Hour|:
$10.99 each Noon - Midnight, Mon - Sat I
wAd Noon - 8 p.m., Sun__I
-. -.-..U

James Cotton explodes with energy on the harmonica.

Has-been or legend? With
Tull, it's all a roll of the die

Faculty and Students:
Do you ever need Money
Orders, Western Union, Telex,
or Fax?

By Andy Deck
Jethro Tull will play at Hill Au-
ditorium tomorrow night. Thrown
once, the dancing die of truth says,
"Gee, Hill is an awfully good place
to see Tull; and, if one is inclined to
enjoy the music of Tull, one
mustn't miss this performance."
But hark! Thrown a second time,
the randomizing polyhedron tells a
contrary tale: "Tull hasn't put out a
successful album since... ? (Well,
they put out six top-ten albums be-
tween 1971 and 1975, but that's
pushing birth-date vintage for first-
year students). The only adjectives
that apply to Tull now are 'veteran,'
'classic' and 'influential'- all
euphemisms for 'old,' 'once was,'
'has been,' and 'not now."'
Roll, roll, all-wise die of tum-
bling truth, say, is it thus? Up falls
side the first "Tull can still kick out
the distinctive rock that made them
famous; and, as for resting on their
laurels, they won a Grammy last
year and put out a new album, Rock
Island, this year."
Oh! Tumult of incongruous
truth! What will another roll reveal?
Antistrophe: "The crowd at the
Grammy Awards booed. The only

No matter what you
think, it can't be
denied that Jethro Tull
was an eighteenth-
century agriculturalist
who invented the seed
drill
people who listen to any Tull be-
sides the six or seven songs that still
get air play are a strange breed of
Jethrophiles, generally cases of ar-
rested development."
In a flash of smoke the die is
wrenched from its stasis, settling on
the antipodean face: "Blasphemous
false shade of knowledge! Through-
out the many years that there has
been a Tull (21 to date), the illustri-
ous Mr. Anderson has striven, with
his entourage of band members (21
to date), to grind a biting rasp of
broken-lunged emotion, spitting up
social comment with mellifluous,
locomotive breath."
Surely this is Truth! Truth this is
Surely! Could such profundity be re-

pudiated? The die is moved to speak,
again: "When in the year 1988
Jethro Tull played mount Knob,
those in attendance saw before them
a music drama segment. In it a
scantily clad woman walked on
stage, opened a refrigerator and bent
over to search for something
(apparently difficult to find produce,
since she maintained this probing
posture for one minute and six sec-
onds), then waved vigorously as she
left the stage."
Thus has the dancing die of truth
spoken.
Pausing before this die must we
conclude that the Truth of the Tull is
inescapably bipolar? Fear not. Spit
upon, and shaken thrice our die re-
veals the value-neutral, primal Truth
of the Tull: "Jethro Tull was an
eighteenth-century agriculturalist
who invented the seed drill." U
Jethro Tull and all their facets
will be at Hill Auditorium Saturday
night for an 8 p.m. performance.
Tickets are $20 and $18.50. Tickets
may be purchased at the Michigan
Union Ticket Office or at the door.

from Ypsilanti, agreed the mall has
lost some of its spunk. "There used
to be lots of fights, a lot of break
dancing."
Kids like Canfield and Moore are
more commonly referred to as "mall
rats," "mall crawlers," or "mallies."
In fact, almost anyone who grew up
with easy access to a mall probably
has some mall-influenced days in
their past. Darla Nintemen and
Melissa Litwick, both 17-year-old
high school students, said they used
to be mall-rats. "When we were in
junior-high... we used to hang out,
it was the in-thing to shop in a
mall." What then drew these two
back to Briarwood today, they said,
was because "there was no school."
High schoolers Tarl Ford and Ja-
son Williams came to Briarwood for
a special reason: "We have friends
working here getting us in to the
movies." This was the first time the
two had tried this tactic, but the pair
confessed, "if it it will work, we'll
do it more times."
"There are different ways to talk to
girls at the malls."
-Warren Mays, an LSA soph-
omore from Parkside, New York
Mays has the art of talking to
girls at the mall down to a science:
-"If she's dressed up and all that,
you've got to be polite and say
'excuse me Miss."'
-"If she doesn't look as classy with
gold earring and shit, you say 'Don't
I know you?"'
-"If she's working behind the counter
you ask where something is and then
start a conversation."
Mays seemed incredibly versed on
the subject of girl-watching at not

only Briarwood, but at a host of lo-
cal malls. "Fairlane is equal to Bri-
arwood," Mays said. He went on to
explain, in between eating several of
the free bags of potato chips given
out that day by the mall security
guards, "Northville is more like a
community, all the people come
from around the area... Briarwood is
more for like the Yuppie and differ-
ent styles.
"While Northville is fast and
wild, Briarwood is calm and kosher,"
Mays confided.
Mall romances can happen at any
age. In a recent episode of TV's "The
Wonder Years" 13-year-old Kevin
was struck by Cupid while hanging
out with Paul at the mall. Of course,
this all came to a crashing halt when
his brother Wayne showed up and
started acting like a jerk. Young
mall love is not only reserved for the
TV. Twelve-year-old Dan Callahan,
a seventh grader from Milan, pro-
fessed to meeting his girlfriend at
Briarwood.
"When you're alone and life is
making you lonely you can always
go downtown... How can you lose?
The lights are much brighter there,
you can forget all your troubles,
forget all your cares, and go down-
town."
-Petula Clark, singing
"Downtown"
Today's Clark, say Tiffany,
would be more likely to sing about
the qualities of the mall. The
auburn-haired pop star, in fact; first
gained her popularity duringw a
whirlwind tour of this nation's
shopping malls. People would rather
go to the mall than deal with the

+ MONEY ORDERS
No checking account? Money
Orders are an inexpensive
alternative to checks.
" WESTERN UNION
Get information or money to
its destination in 15 minutes,
or less.

+ TELEX
For sending information to
hard-to-reach parts of the
world.
Send or receive Fax anywhere
in the world, cheaper than
Overnight Mall.

INDEPENDENT POSTAL SERVICES
747-7900 M-F: 8-7
FAX 747-8519 Sat: 9-3

CLASSIFIED ADSI Call 764-0557





-U


Page 6

Weekend/November 10, 1989

Weekend/November 10, 1989