King Curtis live on 1/2 an hour of dreamy bluesy swiss tv in 1971 with Champion Jack Dupree

Perfect for a rainy day, esp if you’ve got the junker’s blues.

RIP Jerry Leiber – not a horn player but I think he liked horns a lot.

The little earthquake we felt in New York this afternoon didn’t stop me watching this amazing documentary about best friends Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Even though neither was a hornplayer, I’m writing about them here because together they wrote and produced scores of amazing songs & records that had some of the wailingest horn breaks ever. The first thing I learned to play on the saxophone was There’s A Riot Going On In Cell Block Number 9 by The Coasters and there’s a great clip in this film about how the intro to the song was taken from a radio show called Gangbusters. Also a clip of Big Mama Thornton & Buddy Guy performing Hound Dog and lots of other great footage of 50s & 60s r&b and rock & roll. But apart from all the great snippets of music here, the anecdotes and interviews are amazing and informative about the magic that was flying around in the golden era of record making in America back in the 60s. Enjoy!