Jimmie Lee Robinson - Down In Kansas (2016) [DSD64]

Jimmie Lee Robinson was the consummate Chicago bluesman. In fact, he was more Chicago than most of his more famous peers. Unlike the vast majority of Chicago blues greats who were from the South (overwhelmingly from Mississippi) and were part of the Great Migration north to make their musical mark, Jimmie Lee was born in the Windy City, just blocks from the bustling Maxwell Street Market which would help shape not only his own musical style but the entire genre of postwar Chicago blues as well.

Jimmie Lee first started playing on his beloved Maxwell Street in 1942 before he was even in his teens, learning on an acoustic guitar from a neighbor named Blind Percy with whom he would accompany in both church and street performances. Soon he switched to an electric model (perhaps among the first of the musicians in Chicago to do so), a gift from a legless harmonica player in a wheelchair named Louis whom he’d often accompany on Maxwell.

Throughout the 1940s when the emerging electrified blues sound was just starting to take shape along the market’s streets and alley ways, Jimmie Lee cut his teeth and performed with a who’s who of future blues heavyweights who had just arrived in the city and discovered Maxwell Street for themselves, like Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Eddie Taylor and David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards, to name just a few.

By the early 1950s he formed the Every Hour Blues Boys band with up-and-coming singer-guitarist Freddy King and childhood friend Frank “Little Sonny” Scott, eventually breaking into local clubs around the South Side. A naturally gifted musician, he developed a reputation as a highly-skilled and reliable sideman and started performing regularly with some of the finest blues musicians in Chicago at the time, including Elmore James, Little Walter, Magic Sam, Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed and Sunnyland Slim. Soon he was also called upon as a session musician on guitar and bass, recording behind artists like Eddy Clearwater, Shakey Jake, Mighty Joe Young, Little Walter, Eddie Taylor and St. Louis Jimmy Oden.

In October 1958 Jimmie Lee got his first opportunity to record as a leader for the small Bandera label and cut "Lonely Travelin’," a song that would become a signature tune and whose imagery would provide the blueprint for a new persona decades later. He went on to make two other sessions for Bandera which produced several other notable songs from this period, including "All My Life" and "Times Is Getting Hard."

In 1994, more than a decade and a half since his last appearance in a recording studio, Jimmie Lee embarked on a much-anticipated comeback with the release of Lonely Traveler on Chicago's flagship blues and jazz label Delmark Records. Several critically acclaimed releases followed including two on his own Amina label as well as Remember Me and All My Life for APO.

After spending much of his recent years performing primarily in a solo acoustic setting, in late January 2000 Jimmie Lee returned to his electrified Chicago blues roots for one last recording session at APO. Unlike much of his recent recordings which used only one or two subtle supporting instruments, this remarkable session featured the full backing of an all-star band of Chicago blues stalwarts: Wild Child Butler on harmonica, Sam Lay on drums, Bob Stroger on bass, and Jimmy D. Lane, the son of the late great Jimmy Rogers, on second guitar. The results are a highly spirited and very satisfying mix of unadulterated Chicago blues the way it used to be played. Jimmie Lee revisits some of his best material from days long gone by and also pulls out a few of his gems from more recent times. He also pays tribute to some of his past friends and musical associates like Little Walter, Jimmy Reed and Shakey Jake on such classics as "Confessin' the Blues," "Ain't that Lovin' You Baby" and "Jake's Cha Cha."