James Cotton Band - 100% Cotton - 1974 (2005)

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James Cotton Band - 100% Cotton - 1974 (2005)

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The James Cotton Biography: James Cotton's hard-driving, powerful harmonica performances have earned him a reputation as a foot-stomping, infectious good-time entertainer. "We're talking about the blues, loud and fast and often get-down dirty; we're talking about James Cotton, a singer, stomper and harp-player extraordinaire," says the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS. In the course of his career, James Cotton has racked up an impressive series of ten critically-acclaimed albums. In 1984, Alligator Records released the successful HIGH COMPRESSION. His next album, LIVE FROM CHICAGO…MR. SUPERHARP HIMSELF!, came out in 1986 and was his second album on Alligator Records. Recorded at the Chicago showcase club, Biddy Mulligan's, before a sold-out and sweaty crowd, James and his blistering eight-piece band rocked the house for three consecutive nights while the tapes rolled. The sessions celebrated Cotton's 20 years on his own as a bandleader, after l2 years as Muddy Water's harp player. Cotton's musical career began in 1944, at the age of nine, when he left home in Tunica, Mississippi with his 15¢ harmonica in search of his harp-playing idol Sonny Boy Williamson. Cotton found Sonny Boy at the West Helena, Arkansas radio station KFFA where Sonny Boy hosted the popular King Biscuit radio show. Cotton passed himself off as an orphan, and the legendary blues harpist took him home to raise as a son. Cotton stayed with Sonny Boy, learning the harp and the rigors of the bluesman's life, until the age of 15, when he resolved to travel his own road. Cotton's first stop was West Memphis, Arkansas, where he played harp for four years with another blues great, Howlin' Wolf. While with Wolf, he hung out with the fledgling Sun Record Company's crowd, jamming with the likes of Bobby "Blue" Bland, B.B. King and the only white face in the crowd - Elvis Presley. Before hooking up with the famed Muddy Waters, Cotton wrote and recorded such classic blues as “Feelin' Good,” “Cotton Crop Blues,” “Hold Me In Your Arms” and the Ike Turner collaboration “Rocket 88.” The blues rocker classic “Rocket 88” (both the Blues Brothers and Sha Na Na performed this tune as their opener) remains a Cotton concert favorite. However, it was the gig with Waters - a job a budding blues harpist could only dream of - that brought Cotton the big career break. Cotton reigned supreme in Muddy's band for nearly 12 years. His powerful stage presence and aggressive harp playing contributed to Waters' reputation as well as his own. Cotton recorded with Muddy such classic tunes as “I Got My Mojo Working,” “Nineteen Years Old,” “Walking Through The Park,” and “You Can't Lose What You Never Had.” When he left Muddy's band in 1966 to strike out on his own, Cotton's reputation was expanding beyond the blues world. His influence on the new generation of musicians included teaching the harp to Paul Butterfield and Peter Wolf. Boz Scaggs, Mike Bloomfield, Steve Miller and Bonnie Raitt all name Cotton as a major influence on their music. Cotton was the only musician ever to have the honor of touring with Janis Joplin more than once. Joplin, the consummate performer, demanded a high energy opening act and only Cotton could deliver the goods night after night. The seventies were a prolific time for Cotton. He released albums produced by Mike Bloomfield, Todd Rundgren and Allan Toussaint. In the late seventies, he recorded with Johnny Winter and Steve Miller and toured with Winter and Muddy Waters. Throughout the eighties, Cotton and his eight piece band were one of the busiest blues acts around. They played festivals around the world, to audiences ranging in size from 40,000 at the annual Juneteenth Festival in Houston to the more intimate 600-seat clubs like the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. In 1985 they toured for two triumphant weeks before packed halls throughout Japan. Cotton's harmonica virtuosity continues unparalled. His harp techniques run the gamut from punching out piercing high register runs to a full-blown tonal range and makes the simplest riff a toy to be played with, turned inside out and altered in rhythm and intensity. "On some nights I suck the keys right out of the harp and spit them right in my hand," he laughs. During one recent session he blew the top right off his harmonica - "just getting warmed up" said Cotton. As evidence of his power, two bulging 30-gallon Hefty bags full of ravaged harmonicas sit in his basement.

"I'm a blues singer and harpist," says Cotton. "But no matter what category you stick it in - rock, blues, soul, jazz - it's still dance and party music. A lot of times people come expecting sad music - I like to change their minds 'bout the blues. I also want to let them know where I'm coming from, so I mix some older things in that young audiences might not know. I feel like, I got to teach the blues, to carry it on."

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James Cotton Band - 100% Cotton - 1974 (2005)

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Product Description: One of James Cotton's best known and loved albums, 100% Cotton is a reference point for all fans of high voltage R&B. The ebullient Chicago harp wizard was at his zenith in 1974, when this cooking album was issued on Buddah. Matt 'Guitar' Murphy matched Cotton note for zealous note back then, leading to fireworks aplenty on the non-stop Boogie Thing, a driving How Long Can a Fool Go Wrong, and the fastest Rocket 88 you'll ever take a spin in.

Review: James Cotton is another of those blues artists that deserves much wider recognition. He has recorded and played live close to 60 years. I was fortunate enough to meet him in the mid 1970's when he was touring. I was an immature, drunk idiot yet he treated me graciously like the true gentleman that he is. The music on 100% Cotton is modern blues that is always grounded in the delta (where he was born - in Tunica, Mississippi, in 1935). He learned harp listening to Sonny Boy Williamson, backed Muddy Waters in the late 1950's following Little Walter Jacobs. James Cotton has recorded some remarkable albums. It's a shame that his 1971 album 'Taking Care of Business' has never been released on CD. It was produced by Todd Rundgren (who contributes some excellent guitar work) with guest appearances by Johnny Winter and Mike Bloomfield. It's a further example of the high caliber of work that James Cotton has always put forth…from his first Sun recordings in the late 1940's, and thankfully up to now.

Note: Credit to "Macchia", the original uploader.

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James Cotton Band - 100% Cotton - 1974 (2005)

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James Cotton Band - 100% Cotton - 1974 (2005)

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James Cotton Band - 100% Cotton - 1974 (2005)

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