Cary Baker is a well-known figure in the music biz, formerly helming the publicity departments at labels such as Capitol, Discovery, and IRS Records and working with artists like REM, Bonnie Raitt, Steve Vai, and Cheap Trick before striking out on his own and forming his Conqueroo PR firm. The man is well steeped in musical currents, and holds an across-the-board knowledge of rock and blues music. Baker grew up in the Chicago area during the late-1960s/early-70s, an era of great blues and rock artists.
Down On Maxwell Street
As a kid in suburban Chicago, Baker would often travel to the city's Maxwell Street to visit the flea market and watch street musicians perform. Among his favorites was Blind Arvella Gray. A larger-than-life figure that played slide on a National Steel guitar, Gray sang a mixed repertoire of traditional blues, folk, and hillbilly music.
Long story made short (you can read it in full in the album's liner notes), as a teenager, Baker arranged for Birch Records, a small local Chicago label, to record what would become Gray's debut album, The Singing Drifter. Released in a limited edition of 1,000 rapidly sold-out copies in 1972, The Singing Drifter became a much sought-after collector's item on both sides of the Atlantic, the enigmatic Gray's lone album remaining an elusive find for the hardcore blues fan.
Baker evidently woke up one morning and, realizing that The Singing Drifter had never been released on CD, made it his quest to do so. With some heavy footwork and a lifetime of industry contacts, he tracked down the album's producer and Birch Records label head David Wylie, and set into motion the resurrection of Blind Arvella Gray.
The Singing Drifter, reissued by Baker's own independent Conjuroo Records, is at once both a marvel and a revelation. For those of us who lived hundreds of miles away from Chicago and Maxwell Street, the album preserves the spirit and legacy of a beloved local character and musician.
Blind Arvella Gray's The Singing Drifter
The Singing Drifter is fairly representative of Gray's wide-ranging and diverse musical songbook. It includes, of course, what would become his signature tune - a lengthy, customized reading of the traditional "John Henry" - as well as Gray's unique versions of the ragtime standard "When The Saints Go Marching In" and the gospel classic "Take Your Burden To The Lord."
Gray's original songs, like "Those Old Fashioned Alley Blues," "Gander Dancing Song" and "What Will Your Record Be," may be based on the blues and field hollers of his youth, but they're also timeless bridges between the Delta blues of the 1920s and '30s and the Chicago tradition of the '70s...and they sound fresh and vital even today.
Arvella's voice takes some getting used to, not as warm as contemporaries like Muddy Waters, but nevertheless friendly and perfectly suited to his talking blues performance style. An unusual guitarist, due to the loss of two fingers on his left hand, Gray played slide on his National Steel guitar rather than playing the Chicago-styled electric blues of the era, fashioning a lively and unique individual sound that must have blasted above the din on Maxwell Street back in the day.
Of all the bluesmen these ears have heard, Gray reminds me the most of Peg Leg Sam, another infrequently recorded artist that hailed from the Piedmont area, performing a similar mix of musical styles.
The Reverend's Bottom Line
Gray's The Singing Drifter is an infectious collection, seldom challenging but always an enjoyable listen, an invaluable documentation of a deserving artist; kudos to Cary Baker and David Wylie for preserving the legacy of Blind Arvella Gray with their restoration and reissuing of these classic performances. (Conjuroo Recordings)
