VIA PRESS RELEASE | Liberation Hall has announced Jump Blues Live 1972, a previously unreleased concert performance by Blues Hall of Fame vocalist Jimmy Witherspoon and famed guitarist Robben Ford. The title arrives in stores September 26 on CD, vinyl, and digital. Liberation Hall’s releases are distributed by MVD Entertainment Group (USA) and Wienerworld (UK).
The CD and digital are available for pre-order at Bandcamp and Amazon. The LP will be pressed in a limited-edition of 300 copies on cobalt blue vinyl and sold exclusively at independent retailers that participate in the monthly Record Store Day Essentials program. The album’s first digital single, “Ain’t Nobody’s Business,” is out now.
Jump Blues Live 1972 features nine tracks, including one song co-written by Witherspoon and additional tracks composed by Willie Dixon, Sonny Boy Williamson, Leiber & Stoller, and others. Witherspoon got his start during WWII, cutting his first sides with Jay McShann (scoring a #1 R&B hit with 1949’s “Ain’t Nobody’s Business”), but the early 1950s decline of the big bands also heralded a temporary setback in Witherspoon’s prominence.
After a few years of reinvention, coupled with British Invasion rockers’ seemingly insatiable thirst for classic R&B, Witherspoon climbed his way back, if not to the top, at least to a position of commercial viability.
At his side for this 1972 date (and a few studio releases as well) was a young West Coast guitarist named Robben Ford. Jump Blues Live 1972 is one of the earliest recordings of Ford’s extraordinary career, which started in 1970 with Charlie Musselwhite and Witherspoon, before he went on to join Tom Scott’s L.A. Express.
Ford would later play with the Yellowjackets, Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison, Larry Carlton, Rick Springfield, Little Feat, Kiss, Steely Dan, and others. Additionally, he has recorded over 20 solo albums. Other band members on Jump Blues Live 1972 are Paul Nagel (piano), Stan Poplin (bass), and Jim Baum (drums).
