Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

Consumer Guide:
  User's Guide
  Grades 1990-
  Grades 1969-89
  And It Don't Stop
Books:
  Book Reports
  Is It Still Good to Ya?
  Going Into the City
  Consumer Guide: 90s
  Grown Up All Wrong
  Consumer Guide: 80s
  Consumer Guide: 70s
  Any Old Way You Choose It
  Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough
Xgau Sez
Writings:
  And It Don't Stop
  CG Columns
  Rock&Roll& [new]
  Rock&Roll& [old]
  Music Essays
  Music Reviews
  Book Reviews
  NAJP Blog
  Playboy
  Blender
  Rolling Stone
  Billboard
  Video Reviews
  Pazz & Jop
  Recyclables
  Newsprint
  Lists
  Miscellany
Bibliography
NPR
Web Site:
  Home
  Site Map
  Contact
  What's New?
    RSS
Carola Dibbell:
  Carola's Website
  Archive
CG Search:
Google Search:
Twitter:

John Hammond

  • Southern Fried [Atlantic, 1969] C

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Southern Fried [Atlantic, 1969]
Another Col. Sanders special from the white Taj Mahal. The playing is very good and Hammond's taste in blues-based material original enough, but his vocal style demeans his mentors. Otiose. C

Further Notes:

Subjects for Further Research [1970s]: It's not true that Hammond never developed his own style--his distinctive slur is very much a function of his unique vocal embouchure (he has a slight speech impediment). It offended rock critics--including me--not just because it seemed like a condescending mouldy-fig romanticization of the broken-down bluesman but because it wasn't forceful enough for rock and roll, as if he'd turned Junior Wells into John Hurt. I've never kept many of his records and suspect they still suffer from interpreter's disease--it's almost impossible to make every song new. But I wouldn't be altogether astonished if in twenty years he sounded almost as good as Junior Wells.