Jimmy Burns - The Chicago Sessions

Jimmy Burns (born February 27, 1943) is an American soul blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although he was born in the Mississippi Delta, Burns has spent nearly all his life in Chicago. His elder brother, Eddie "Guitar" Burns, was a Detroit blues musician. Jimmy Burns was born in Dublin, Mississippi and raised on the Hilliard Cotton Plantation where he learned to play one-string and 12-string guitar. He was the youngest of eleven children. He sang in a church choir when he still lived in the Delta and he was influenced by the blues he heard on the streets. His favorite blues musician was Lightnin' Hopkins. Burns's father was a sharecropper who performed as a singer in medicine shows. At the age of 12, Jimmy Burns moved with his family to Chicago and four years later joined The Medallionaires who recorded a couple of doo-wop tracks. Recording mostly solo in the 1960s, Burns issued singles for the USA, Minit, Tip Top and Erica labels. He toured the Midwest with his backing group, the Fantastic Epics, and with another outfit called Jimmy Burns and the Gas Company into the early 1970s. Burn's 1972 single, "I Really Love You" was named in the top 500 singles of Northern soul in 2000, and it is sought by collectors.Burns took a long break from the music industry after the early 1970s to raise his family and run a barbecue stand. He performed infrequently until the early part of the 1990s, when he started a long residency at Chicago's Smokedaddy Club. It was there that Delmark Records boss Bob Koester first heard Burns perform, and agreed to record him after hearing only one set of music. His debut album for Delmark in 1996, Leaving Here Walking, was produced by Scott Dirks, and was awarded the 'Best Blues Record of the Year' title by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors, and received two W.C. Handy Award nominations. Burns then began touring internationally. The more recently formed Jimmy Burns Band includes Anthony Palmer (guitar), E.G. McDaniel (bass), and James Carter (drums). Jimmy Burns played guitar on his brother Eddie's 2002 album "Snake Eyes". Burns's wife, Dorothy, died on February 12, 2010. They had six children. Chicago blues & r&b artist and legend Jimmy Burns is already 78! Burns is an electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter and, although he was born in Dublin - also known as the Hopson Bayou - in the Mississippi Delta, Burns has spent most of his life in Chicago. His older brother, Eddie "Guitar" Burns, was a Detroit blues musician. Jimmy played guitar on his brother Eddie's 2002 album 'Snake Eyes'. Jimmy grew up on the Hilliard Cotton Plantation, where he learned to play the guitar on one and twelve strings. He was the youngest of eleven children. He sang in a church choir and was influenced by the blues he heard on the street. His favorite blues musician was Lightnin' Hopkins (1912-1982). Jimmy's father was a sharecropper (a farmer who received a portion of the proceeds from the land he rented and farmed) who performed as a singer in medical shows put on by healers/touts. At age 12, Jimmy Burns moved to Chicago with his family and four years later he joined The Medallionaires, who recorded a few doo-wop songs. Their most famous single was "Magic Moonlight" / "Teen-Age Caravan". Burns mainly recorded solo in the 1960s and recorded singles for the American labels Minit, Tip Top and Erica. He toured the Midwest in the early 1970s with his backing group the Fantastic Epics and Jimmy Burns & the Gas Company. Burn's 1972 single, "I Really Love You" (a collector's item!) made the top 500 Northern soul singles in 2000. Burns then took a long break to raise his family (six children) and run a BBQ stand. He rarely performed after that, until he returned to Chicago's Smokedaddy Club in the early 1990s. It was there that Bob Koester, the boss of Delmark Records, first heard Burns perform and arranged to record with him. 'Leaving Here Walking', his debut album for Delmark in 1996, was produced by Scott Dirks and was awarded "Best Blues Album" of the year by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors and also received two WC Handy Award nominations. Burns then also began touring internationally. The more recently formed Jimmy Burns Band includes Anthony Palmer (guitar), EG McDaniel (bass), and James Carter (drums). Chris Shutters made his debut with Third Street Cigar Recrds at the end of 2019 with the album 'Good Gone Bad'. Special Guest Jimmy Burns collaborated on the album as a singer-songwriter and guitarist. It became an album with different blues styles, a guitar album that brings two different generations together. "The Chicago Sessions", an album released last year, is Jimmy Burns' most recent solo release that he recorded under producer Laust 'Krudtmejer' Nielsen (Trainman Blues), who can also be heard here on bass, rhodes and guitar. . Most of the artists who backed Jimmy are Danish musicians (see credits). Jimmy opens the album with the classic "Cold As Ice". This song by Michael Leslie Jones & Lou Gramm is one of the best known songs by the British-American rock band Foreigner from 1977. Singer/songwriter Lou Gramm was part of the band as lead singer along with guitarist/songwriter Mick Jones. Jimmy already recorded the song with his band on his 2011 album 'Stuck in the Middle'. Where he mainly showed his own compositions on his previous albums, this actually became a cover album with surprising songs that he managed to adapt in a miraculous way. The title of the album refers to the Stealers Wheel hit from the 1970s. In Jimmy's version - just him and his guitar - the song is a goosebumps moment. "Killing Floor" is also a guitar track, but the low-key Latino percussion is also important here. Chester Burnett aka Howlin Wolf wrote this blues standard in 1964 and the Jimi Hendrix Experience (1966/1967) and Hubert Sumlin (1994) covered it. The common thread on this release are the three parts of "Jimmy's Story", of which the first part "Back in the Day", part 2 "Waiting for the Bus" and the closing part, the third part "Chicago Avenue". Another blues standard is "Everyday I Have the Blues". This standard has also taken on a life of its own. An early version of the song is credited to Pinetop Sparks and his brother Milton. It was recorded in 1935 by Pinetop with Henry Townsend on guitar. After an adaptation of the song by Memphis Slim in 1949, it became a blues standard with renditions recorded by countless artists. Four different versions of "Every Day I Have the Blues" have reached the top ten on the Billboard R&B chart, and two - one from the Count Basie Orchestra with Joe Williams and one from BB King - have received Grammy Hall of Fame Awards. In 2019, the latest version was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame as a "Classic of Blues Recording". "I Know You're Gone" and "Stranded in Clarksdale" show what a great singer Burns still is, on Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's "Mean Old Frisco" the slide guitar steals the show and choose Burns' version of "I'm Ready", Willie Dixon and the blues do absolutely no harm. Blues veteran Jimmy Burns shows once again on 'The Chicago Sessions' what pure blues material he is made of. He knows the standards and knows how to mold them. One of the best things about blues icons such as Chicago's Jimmy Burns is the impact they have on other musicians. They shine like the sun, illuminating the entire sky instead of just their own immediate space of the heavens. One of the artists blessed by Burns' light in the not-so-new millennium is Danish bass player Laust "Krudtmejer" Nielsen, whom he met in 2013. Together with singer/guitarist Morten Lading Lunn, Burns and Nielsen performed several concerts in Scandinavia: Oslo and Lillestrom in Norway and Copenhagen, Denmark. At the time, Nielsen worked mainly as a sideman, but in 2016 he took up production, releasing an album with his own duo project Trainman Blues, featuring the Irish blues artist Richard Farrell. Remembering the amazing voice of Jimmy Burns, "Krudtmejer" got the idea of making an album collaboration despite the long distance. This true blues legend was happy to take the chance. The Chicago Sessions came together in Denmark except for Jimmy's vocals and guitars, which Laust went to Chicago to record in the JoyRide Studio with Blaise Barton. It was meant to be the forerunner for a long tour in Scandinavia in 2020, which then got derailed by COVID. Nevertheless, this commendable effort is now available on CD and streaming. Alongside Burns (all vocals and guitar) are Laust "Krudtmejer" Nielsen on bass, guitar and beats; Morten Lunn on guitar and slide guitar for all tracks; Ronni Boysen on guitar; Kristian Siquiera and Thomas Crawfurd on drums; Nichlas Kure on guitar, and Thomas Melau on harp. It features ten tracks, several of which are covers ("Killing Floor," "Every Day I Have the Blues," "Mean Old Frisco" and "I'm Ready" among them). The best of these is an earworm blues version of Foreigner's "Cold As Ice," featuring Morten Lunn's guitar in place of the trademark piano and hand claps instead of the drum rimshots. It almost surpasses the original. As for the fresh compositions, the freshest are "I Know You're Gone" by Morten Lunn and the standout "Stranded in Clarksdale," lyrics and music by Jimmy Burns. I marveled at how it was a new song instead of one from his lauded previous releases. It's that good. In fact, it's great. The hallmark feature of this album, however, is three installments of "Jimmy's Story," entitled "Back in the Day," "Waiting for the Bus," and "Chicago Avenue." Full disclosure: A lyrics booklet would have helped me understand Burns' autobiographical details far better than I did. Overall, this release proves Burns' extraordinary talent and influence radiate outward, inspiring those who perform with him as well as those who hear him. It doesn't break a lot of new ground in the blues, but it shines because of the groundbreaker !

1 Cold As Ice

2 Killing Floor

3 Back In The Day ( Jimmy's Story PT I )

4 Everyday I Have The Blues

5 I Know You're The One

6 Stranded In Clarksdale

7 Mean Old Frisco

8 Waiting For The Bus ( Jimmy's Story PT II )

9 I'm Ready

10 Chicago Avenue ( Jimmy's Story PT III )

Jimmy Burns - vocals and guitar

Morten Lunn - guitar

Nichlas Kure - guitar

Ronni Boysen - guitar

Laust 'Krudtmejer' Nielsen - bass, guitar, keys

Thomas Crawfurd - drums

Kristian Siquira - drums

Thomas Melau - harp

Recorded in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Chicago, Illionois in 2019.