FLOYD McDANIEL with DAVE SPECTER & THE BLUEBIRDS

West Side Baby

Delmark

By Liz Mandeville

This live, 11-track disc is so easy to listen to you’ll want to put it on a loop. The late Floyd McDaniel, a lifelong musician with a career that spanned decades and includes an enviable resume of conspirators that reads like a who’s who of music history, teamed up here with Chicagoan Dave Specter to trade some of the hippest licks this side of Coolville.

In the 1980s, Floyd McDaniel had a long standing Wednesday gig at the B.L.U.E.S., Etc. club that used to be just west of the el on Belmont. There he played his great big hollow body Gibson along with a swinging horn and rhythm section (aptly named the Blues Swingers) led by sax man Dave Clark. One of a handful of bands in that decade that employed a horn section, The Blues Swingers were the only group in town playing swing and jump style music, years ahead of the great swing craze of the 90s. Floyd had been playing that music since it was invented! He was always dressed in a smart ensemble complete with matching beret, charming his audience with friendly banter and easy grooves. Listening to this disc is like taking a trip back in time to those halcyon days.

The entire disc was recorded one night in 1994, in Bremen, Germany. It’s virtually a flawless recording that captures each instrument in the perfect balance and aptly demonstrates Floyd’s easy way with the crowd (whom he amiably refers to as “gang”), dispensing wisdom, offering encouragement and playing effortless classic riffs on his guitar. They repay him in kind with lots of warm and well-earned applause.

Floyd has a mellow baritone voice he uses to coax the nuance from a lyric. He and Dave Specter support each other so brilliantly in their guitar work it’s hard to tell who’s playing what part. The rhythm section, Mike McCurdy on bass and Mark Fornek on drums, play exactly what’s required of the song, with no showboating or hot dogging here. This is a tasty, understated exercise in how it should be done. Periodically the group is joined by Tad Robinson whose blues harp is the icing on this sweet offering.

The disc opens with an instrumental verse and then a nice relaxed version of “Saint Louis Blues”. Even though a lot of these songs are old chestnuts, nothing about them seems stale or dated. They are more like putting on your favorite jacket, the one that makes you look and feel good. Nothing is hurried here and every note is played for a reason.

They follow it up with the song Floyd says he hopes will be a classic, title track “West Side Baby”. Floyd croons “I love my West Side Woman more than all the gold in the world / There’s one thing I know, lord she’s mine, mine, mine, she’s my girl!” Dave Specter adds a melodic guitar solo that gets a nice response from the crowd.

For the next track, Floyd reminds the audience that, although it is indeed a “Mean Old World,” when things get tough “think of the fellas before us, they handled it, we can too.” Then he slips into the coolest rhumba beat you’ve ever heard. Floyd hollers, “I drink to keep from worrying and I smile to keep from crying. That’s to keep the public from knowing what old Floyd got on his mind.” Tad Robinson steps in to blow his harp, adding enough Little Walter inspired 1^st position piping to put your hair in a conch.

Track 4 is an easy swinging version of “Route 66;” the arrangement is attributed to Floyd’s school buddy, Nat King Cole, featuring another Tad Robinson solo. Tad’s approach, both melodic and chordal, bounces through the changes leading directly to a deliciously rhythmic guitar solo by Floyd. T-Bone Walker would dance to this stuff!

They change gears for the moody “Evenin’,” with Floyd taking the tune down in the alley to really get his blues on.

Gene Ammons is the author and inspiration for “Red Top,” a wonderful jazzy swing version of the classic instrumental. In the middle of “Red Top,” Floyd tells the crowd that “this may sound jazzy, but jazz came from the blues” and demonstrates by singing a few verses of “Everyday I Have the Blues” over the “Red Top” changes.

“Backwater Blues” is the blues at its best -- a lament about a lost home and a lost love. With a nice interchange between the guitars, it ambles over the changes, tipping its hat to the West Coast swing-blues that epitomizes both Floyd and Dave’s styles. Tad Robinson punctuates the two guitarists, putting in his two cents with a 1^st position chorus that sounds like a crying child, alternating with a lower register moan that brings to mind a cold night wind or a far away freight train.

They swing into “Every Day I Have the Blues” where Mark Fornek gives us an imperative back-beat on both snare and symbol, driving this classic offering. It wasn’t until I’d listened to the disc for five or more times that I noticed Floyd had done these lyrics on “Red Top”, meaning, even though this disc is swing heavy with two guys that play guitars like twins, it never seems repetitive. Each time I listen to it, I hear different things and I like it better and better.  In fact there is a whole crowd of young guitar players I’d love to gift with this marvelous musical example that demonstrates:  how to play with another guitarist, how to play behind a singer and, most importantly, how to play the BLUES!

“Every Time,” a moderate tempo blues, starts with a great solo guitar chorus from Floyd who punctuates each line of vocal with the perfect fill and then storms into a testy solo. With perfect backing from Specter and Fornek’s relaxed, rim-shot, back beat (with eighth notes on the high hat) setting up the tempo, the tune is timeless.

“Sweet Home Chicago,” the unplanned jam on this disc, is a joyous romp. Tad Robinson chimes in with his marvelous tone and it’s a trip to Chicago that everybody enjoys.

The disc wraps up with Bill Doggett’s timeless instrumental, “Hold It,” and I just want to play the disc again. I’m not joking when I say this is happy blues played by a master and his apt flag men. It would be remiss not to put this little gem in the holiday stocking of every blues lover on your list. Highly recommended.

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