30-Day Song Challenge Day 16 – A Song with No Words

“I think there is a song out there to describe just about any situation.” (Criss Jami)

A friend and long-time loyal blog follower recently sent me a 30-Day Song Challenge meme in the hope that I couldn’t resist taking the challenge and blogging about it. Here’s Day #16 – A Song with No Words: Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Albert’s Shuffle.

Along with the blues songs on The Allman Brothers Live at Fillmore East, this was a song that introduced me to the blues. Albert’s Shuffle was the more significant, though. It was the first song on Al Kooper’s (not to be confused with Alice Cooper) famous Super Session album which also included two other incredible blues songs, Stop and Really. This was not just my introduction to the blues as music but it was my introduction to the legendary Mike Bloomfield which sent me down the lifelong rabbit hole of learning as much about the history of the blues and its important artists as possible.

Shortly after hearing Super Session, I came across another Al Kooper inspired album – Kooper Session – which featured child guitar prodigy Shuggie Otis playing some fierce blues on the album’s second side. Shuggie was the son of legendary rhythm and blues pioneer Johnny Otis. That album solidified my blues obsession.

Anyway, here’s Albert’s Shuffle.

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Honorable Mention which was the real winner but I wanted to tell the blues story since I told this story before: C-Jam Blues, Sonny Stitt, Booker Ervin and Don Patterson from the album Soul People. This was the song that got me into jazz. In an old blog, I wrote this:

As a teenager, I snuck into the forbidden treasure trove of my Dad’s jazz albums and found a record that changed the way I listened to music forever. This heavily blues-drenched jazz album both introduced me to jazz and paved the way for my eventual love of the blues. In my haste to hear what was on this piece of forbidden fruit, I inadvertently listened to the second side first and got hooked by the Duke Ellington-written song C Jam Blues. Instant addiction.

Tomorrow: A Song about Being 17.