Biography

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Lurrie Bell
Kiss of Sweet Blues
with Dave Specter and the Bluebirds
Delmark DE-724

1. Bring Yourself Back To Me (Terson/Specter) 4:46
2. You're Gonna Be Sorry (Terson) 3:25
3. Kiss Of Sweet Blues (Frankel/Specter) 4:09
4. Wicked Hearted Woman (Specter) 3:42
5. Blues And Black Coffee (Specter) 4:05
6. Hiding In The Spotlight (Schlick) 7:15
7. Lurrie's Guitar Boogie (Bell) 2:56
8. Bad Dog (Terson) 4:16
9. Somebody Help Me (Terson) 5:37
10. Drivin' Through The Darkness (Specter) 3:02
11. Lonesome Guitar Man (Specter) 3:49
12. Build Myself A Mansion (Schlick) 3:16
13. Lurrie's Funky Groove Thang (Bell) 3:03
14. Don't Ask Me Why (Terson) 3:50
15. After Hours (Taub/Crayton) 4:27

Lurrie Bell, vocals, guitar
Dave Specter, guitar
Rob Waters, organ on 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11
Ken Saydak, organ on 5, 6, piano on 12, 14, 15
Harlan Terson, bass
Mike Schlick, drums

Produced by Dave Specter
Album Production and Supervision: Robert G. Koester
Recorded at Riverside Studio, Chicago by Paul Serrano on December 9 and 10, 1997.
Photography: Susan Greenberg
Design: Al Brandtner

I will never forget the sight of Lurrie Bell standing in the audience above a sea of umbrellas at the 1997 Chicago Blues Festival. Holding a harmonica in one hand and a finger in his ear, he had transported himself to some private nirvana, accompanying the artist performing on stage. He was both lost and found in a sublime private concert of his own making. It so summed up his obsession with his music that I froze the works of my camera trying to capture that moment on film in the driving rain.
Kiss of Sweet Blues is Lurrie's third Delmark album. It is simple, classic Chicago blues inspired by the artist's quintessential reference point, Albert King's "Crosscut Saw." His guitar playing has a staccato snap and producer/writer/guitarist Dave Specter is the perfect foil for him as they worked closely together on Lurrie's previous Delmark album, 700 Blues.
Lurrie's friend for years, Dave has put together a studio band that frames Lurrie's primal fret work with swing-inspired smoothness. Anchored by Specter band regulars Harlan Terson on bass and drummer Mike Schlick, the group is supported by keyboardist Ken Saydak whose credits include Lonnie Brooks, Mighty Joe Young and Johnny Winter. Rob Waters plays organ on the 10 tracks Saydak does not play on. Rob's toured with Lonnie Brooks and Aron Burton and appears on Specter's latest Delmark release, Blues Spoken Here.
Bob Koester of Delmark Records has been capturing mercury in a sieve as a matter of course for more than 40 years. He's done it again here with Carey Bell's "Mercurial Son," Lurrie. In the Dave Specter-penned "Drivin' Thru The Darkness," Lurrie sings: "Well, I'm driving through the darkness with the lights turned way down low. Feelin' lost on this lonely highway, wondering if I'll ever get back home."
I can imagine Lurrie not just turning the lights down low, but turning them off, putting the pedal to the floor, closing his eyes and lifting his hands from the wheel. Most writers veil the references to his manic depressive state in words like "personal demons" reminiscent of Robert Johnson. There is a mystique about blues artists whose singular talent seems to rise from nowhere and overcome whatever tragedies turn their personal life into dark shadows in an unlit YMCA hallway, but for Lurrie there's very little mystery about his talent. For him "blues is my life" is a documentable fact. With Willie Dixon's passing, no other artist is more deserving of the comment, "I am the blues."
One of five musically inclined children of blues harp legend Carey Bell, Lurrie was born into the blues. This December's child, born December 13, 1958, began sitting in on garage rehearsals from the time he could toddle. His youthful tutors included Eddie " Big Town Playboy" Taylor, Big Walter Horton, Eddie Clearwater, Pinetop Perkins and Lovie Lee.
Along with Willie Dixon's son Freddie, he gave meaning to the name Sons of the Blues, the band he fronted with Billie Branch for six years after notching credits on King of the Jungle (Rooster Blues) with Eddie C. Campbell and his dad, Carey on Heartaches and Pain. (Lurrie is proficient on guitar, bass, harp, drums and piano.)
While still in his 20s, Lurrie worked as Chicago Blues Queen Koko Taylor's lead guitarist and freelanced with his dad, Son Seals, Lovie Lee, A.C. Reed and Big Walter Horton. His first solo album was Everybody Wants to Win in 1989.
Delmark recorded his Mercurial Son in 1995. Having lived on the street for several years, Lurrie didn't possess a guitar of his own, let alone have a band to perform with. Anticipation of his 1996 Chicago Blues Festival Saturday show was akin to a mob mesmerized by someone about to play Russian roulette.
That particular performance on the Front Porch stage blurred into obscurity for me everyone else I saw at that festival. If blues is defined by obsession, then Lurrie that day entered Webster's Dictionary next to Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters under blues. He seemed to break more strings than exist--He'd first learned to play on a guitar missing both the high E and B strings. Still, he drove on. It was as if he so willed the music to conjure up memories of why his blues continues to thrive inspite of all odds, that it wouldn't have mattered had he popped all six strings and the sound crew had pulled the plug on his amplifiers, his music still would have willed its way into the afternoon crowd's consciousness.
I saw and heard him do it again the next morning in front of a tiny audience by comparison at a Jazz Record Mart showcase. One of several Delmark Records artists performing, he needed no time to warm up. His first note was like a fire cracker going off without warning. It jarred me instantaneously from my inward reality into another place and time. One note and I was in orbit.
Kiss of Sweet Blues finds Lurrie Bell applying his still youthful energy to a style all his own. His playing is clean but never pristine. He delivers a melange of cascading notes with needlpoint precision and an assurance of authority so steeped in blues, he'd thrown away the proverbial training wheels while still a toddler. And he does it all without ever sinking into the cliches of rock excess that so obsess many of today's electric blues guitarists.
14 of the 15 cuts on Kiss of Sweet Blues are written by members of this recording unit. For the first time, the music Lurrie sings is about him personally. Rooted in the classics but framing his own experiences, numbers like "Bad Dog" and "Lonesome Guitar Man" become autobiographical in their portraits, delivered in a voice as weathered as the experiences that keep him half in the street and half in his private universe of primal genius.
-Donald E. Wilcock

Kiss of Sweet Blues finds Lurrie applying his still youthful energy on mostly new original compositions. Throughout the album, Bell delivers a melange of cascading notes with needlepoint precision and an assurance of authority throroughly steeped in the blues. With the passing of Willie Dixon, no other artist is more deserving of the comment, "I am the blues."

Mercurial Son (Delmark 679), "Best Blues Record of the Year"--Gary Giddins, Village Voice
"He is a virtuoso of the irregular, of strangely angled phrases, of spilled lines and notes seemingly grabbed back."--Peter Watrous, New York Times

"His blown-speaker voice is rough and raw, his timing impeccable and his drive fearless."--Jas Obrecht, Guitar Player Magazine from his review of Lurrie Bell's second Delmark release, 700 Blues


1. Bring Yourself Back To Me (Terson, BMI/Specter, SpecTone Music, BMI)
4:46
2. You're Gonna Be Sorry (Terson,BMI) 3:25
3. Kiss Of Sweet Blues (J.A. Frankel, Chief Earth Music, ASCAP/Specter,
SpecTone Music, BMI) 4:09
4. Wicked Hearted Woman (Specter, SpecTone Music, BMI) 3:42
5. Blues and Black Coffee (Specter, SpecTone Music, BMI) 4:05
6. Hiding In The Spotlight (Schlick, BMI) 7:15
7. Lurrie's Guitar Boogie (Bell, BMI) 2:56
8. Bad Dog (Terson, BMI) 4:16
9. Somebody Help Me (Terson, BMI) 5:37
10. Drivin' Through The Darkness (Specter, SpecTone Music, BMI) 3:02
11. Lonesome Guitar Man (Specter, SpecTone Music, BMI) 3:49
12. Build Myself A Mansion (Schlick, BMI) 3:16
13. Lurrie's Funky Groove Thang (Bell, BMI) 3:03
14. Don't Ask Me Why (Terson, BMI) 3:50
15. After Hours (Taub, Crayton, Powerforce Music, BMI) 4:27



Other albums on Delmark you'll enjoy:
Lurrie Bell, 700 Blues (700)
Mercurial Son (679)
Carey Bell, Blues Harp (622) with Jimmy Dawkins, Pinetop Perkins, Eddie Taylor
Heartaches And Pain (666) with Lurrie Bell
Dave Specter and Lenny Lynn, Blues Spoken Here (721) with Eric Alexander
Dave Specter and Barkin' Bill Smith, Bluebird Blues (652) with Ronnie Earl
Dave Specter and The Bluebirds, Blueplicity (664) with Tad Robinson
Live in Europe (677) with Tad Robinson
Left Turn On Blue (693) with Jack McDuff
and Lynwood Slim
Magic Sam, West Side Soul (615)
Black Magic (620)
Live (645)
The Magic Sam Legacy (651)
Johnny B. Moore, Live At Blue Chicago (688)
Troubled World (701)
Willie Kent, Make Room For The Blues (723)
Long Way To Ol' Miss (696) with James Wheeler
Too Hurt To Cry (667) with Johnny B. Moore
Ain't It Nice (653)
Blues Guitar Greats (697) with Magic Sam, Lurrie Bell, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy