Published on Oct 10, 2000
The more I write about the blues, the more it seems like the
discs I review have their basis in tragedy.
Last Call, a new release featuring recordings from the final
concerts by blues pianist Otis Spann, is no exception. Recorded
less than a month before his death, it is a miracle that these
songs can be heard at all.
Lost for 25 years, the tapes from Spann’s final gig at Boston
Teaparty (this particular show recorded April 2, 1970) were
discovered in storage in California, not too much the worse for
wear. On these can be heard the man whom some call the greatest
Chicago blues pianist… something I’m not too sure about.
Oh, don’t get me wrong; I’m not calling into question the man’s
abilities or decrying his performances here on
Last Call. But Spann’s piano work is often lost in the mix,
buried behind the two-guitar attack of Peter Malick and Luther
“Snake” Johnson or the vocals of his wife Lucille and Johnson.
(Spann’s illness left him unable to sing, according to Malick’s
liner notes.) Yes, it’s amazing that these tapes defied the odds
and are still with us today. But when I’m listening to the last
musical testament of Spann’s, I’d like to have heard more of what
made the man so special. (I also found it strangely interesting
that Lucille Spann makes the claim from onstage that her husband
was suffering from “laryngitis”, which is why he wasn’t singing.
Maybe the fact the man was dying was no one’s damn business.)
On the average, the blues presented on
Last Call is more plodding, though the band knows how to
kick up the energy when needed (“Get On Down To The Nitty Gritty,”
“I Got My Mojo Working,” “Stomp With Spann”). Word of advice: if
you have a splitting headache, skip “My Baby,” featuring the blues
shrieks of Lucille Spann. I made that mistake, and undid the work
of two industrial-strength Tylenol caplets in just seven
minutes.
Tacked on to the end of this show is “Blues For Otis,” a song
Malick recorded for his 1998 release
Wrong Side Of My Life. At first, I questioned its
appearance. I mean, this is Malick’s label and all, but isn’t its
inclusion more of an advertisement for his own disc? And yet, this
track seemed to belong, as the piano line on it tended to invoke
Spann’s ghost. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear it was Spann
himself tickling the keys.
Last Call is an interesting, yet sad, portrait of another
blues artist who didn’t earn his proper acclaim in his lifetime.
And yet it seems like Spann takes the back seat so the other
musicians in his band could have a chance to shine. Who knows?
Maybe Spann would have wanted it that way.