Lookin’ good (encore)

Sunday lineup: Crudup, Dawkins, Sykes, Luther, Big Joe, Magic Sam, Big Mama, Freddy King.

Riviera and a Bud 

Ads in the Berkeley Barb, 1968.

— Magic Sam Blues Band New Orleans House Berkeley

August 16–17, 1968 (with Milkwood) December 18–19, 1968 December 20–21, 1968 (with Stained Glass) July 18–19, 1969 (with The Year Four)

South Side and West Side, opening for Manchester

-- John Mayall, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters with Otis Spann & Magic Sam (and Jerry Abrams' Head Lights) Winterland Ballroom San Francisco March 27–29, 1969

Ten-gallon Magic

The Old Grey Whistle Test London July 31, 1973

Freddie King (guitar), Deacon Jones (organ), David Maxwell (piano), Benny Turner (bass) Originally produced and broadcast for BBC2

— A few years after Magic Sam played “Lookin’ Good” for his encore at the 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival, Freddie King (whose set at Ann Arbor followed Sam’s) cut a boogie instrumental of his own at the sessions for Texas Cannonball, his second album for Shelter Records. 

Recorded in February 1972, “Boogie Funk" stayed in the vault until 1995 (when EMI released King of the Blues, an anthology of King’s Shelter material). But onstage it was the band’s regular drum solo number. (On video releases, it’s sometimes called “Blues Band Shuffle.”)

According to Otis Grand, “If you listen to it, you know it’s the same tune [as ‘Lookin’ Good’], except Sam’s got more class. So I would say Freddie’s amongst us who copied it off Sam.”

Guitar World's Andy Aledort seems to agree, although he points out the common John Lee Hooker influence in both songs.

When you hear modern guitarists tackle “Lookin’ Good,” it’s not uncommon for them combine it with the more flamboyant "Boogie Funk," especially in the transition leading up to the IV chord. (Both Enrico Crivellaro and Noah Wotherspoon follow this arrangement.)

Paul Rishell (guitar) and Annie Raines (harmonica) Goin' Home Rykodisc 17306

--  West Side Soul diehards are quick to praise the clarity of Magic Sam's guitar tone on the record, but the reality is it's rarely emulated by the guitarists who cover "Lookin' Good." Most prefer the snarly, overdriven tone that Sam unleashed on the Ann Arbor version (and the Stuttgart version).

Chicago Defender July 15, 1959

-- Whenever I hear the term “Chicago blues,” I have this vision of Billy Boy Arnold rolling his eyes.

The Alex Club Chicago November 1963

Magic Sam (guitar), Eddie Shaw (vocal, tenor sax), Mac Thompson (bass), Rob Richey (drums) Recorded by Pete Kroehler

— The ’63 Alex Club version of “Lookin’ Good” first appeared on record in 1981, on Side B of Magic Sam’s Live double LP (DL-645/646). It was dropped from the album when the tapes were remastered for CD in 1990, but it resurfaced in 2002 on Rockin’ Wild in Chicago, a compilation of live performances recorded at the Alex Club, the Copacabana, and Mother Blues. 

The Alex Club tapes are the earliest document of Magic Sam playing in the clubs; this was about six years after his Cobra single “All Your Love" — seven after Vee-Jay released Billy Boy Arnold’s "Kissing at Midnight.”

If the West Side Soul version of “Lookin’ Good” stands as the polished masterpiece, then the Alex Club rendition is an early discarded draft. It’s possible Sam had been messing around with the “Kissing at Midnight” riff as early as 1956, but what we hear at the Alex Club is more of an off-the-cuff jam than a structured song. (And who knows — maybe the whole point of playing it back then was to provide Eddie Shaw a groove with which he could take over the mic for part of the set.)

In the original “Kissing at Midnight,” Billy Boy Arnold’s lyrics and harp breaks help to punctuate the song, giving it a beginning, a middle, and an end — all of which are lost once you distill the song down to just the guitar riff. To get some of that structure back, Sam had to find new embellishments. Eddie Shaw was one, and the fade-ins/outs are another. (You can hear both in the Alex Club version.) 

But there’s still plenty missing from this version: the cadenza breaks, the drony guitar improvisations around the A7, and the brief chord change to the IV.

By February of 1966, when Sam recorded the first studio version of “Lookin’ Good,” a lot had changed: the tune was no longer Eddie Shaw’s voice accompanied by guitar — it was a full-blown guitar instrumental. It was still missing the IV-chord “Boogie Chillen” reference, but the thing now had a structure and a serious groove.

A common refrain you hear about “West Side” guitarists like Magic Sam and Buddy Guy is that their style developed out of the need to make a three-piece band (which was often all they could afford to bring to a gig) sound like five or six pieces. Maybe having to play “Lookin’ Good” in a trio format eventually forced Magic Sam to rethink and adapt it. Or, maybe it was done by committee; Mac Thompson, Freddie King, Mighty Joe Young, Shakey Jake — any of those guys could have suggested a change here or a tweak there.

R.L. Burnside, “Poor Black Mattie” (1984)

— Did the groove start with Black Mattie?

Bob Koester shrugged when I brought up the hazy origins of “Lookin’ Good”/“Kissing at Midnight” — with Bobby Radcliff pointing the finger at Syl Johnson, Paul Rishell at Bukka White, Billy Boy Arnold at either Floyd Murphy or Matt “Guitar” Murphy…

"You are dealing with urban folk music," Koester said. "Lots of problems there. Like you got Steve LaVere getting rich over the idea that Robert Johnson actually wrote all those songs. In several cases, he didn’t. And ‘Dust My Broom,’ I doubt that anybody who wrote it is still alive, or has been alive for the last 50 years. That could go back to slavery times.”

…and yet to me, hearing Syl Johnson on the phone singing “Dealing with the Devil” (a song neither Murphy brother seems to have recorded) and then diving right into “Old Black Mattie” still offered a kind of clue. The syncopation was different, but the melodies stayed on the root, at the same tempo. Similar groove.

Similar enough? Well, after binge-listening to the Burnside versions (from 1968, 1978, 1984, 1992, 1994, etc.), plus the versions by Robert Belfour and Teddy Williams…

The Butterfield Blues Band, Magic Sam, Ike & Tina, Kalediescope, and Steve Miller Shrine Exposition Hall Los Angeles August 4, 1968 Ad design by John Van Hamersveld