Flint: Doctor Ross

Call the DoctorIn reading Guitar Army by John Sinclair, the writer and pseudo revolutionary refers repeatedly to blues people that were performing around his town as he grew up. Sinclair recalls that the difference between the greed headed rock bands and these blues players was that the latter needed to play to alleviate some emotional turpitude. Those rich rockers, though, apparently were just doin' it death for a dollar. Who knew?

Sinclair, being from Flint, Michigan made numerous mentions of Doctor Ross. Even with this being the first time that I'd encountered the name, he was revered in the text to the extent that not hearing him play a blues seemed counter productive. Having thought that, though, it is fair to figure that at a certain point player's guitar styles seem to come off sounding none to dissimilar from each other. That might be decried by astute guitarists, but for the passing fan, some hook needs to be disseminated in order for the disc or player to come off as unique.

Certainly not the first to act as a one man band, Doctor Ross accompanied himself with harmonica and kick drum in addition to working out some basic blues on guitar. In that he can be seen as the blues antecedent of some current garagey players including - although probably unbeknownst to him - the Bay area's Ty Segal.

Doctor Ross, though, isn't known for his musical acumen so much as his ability to entertain. Moving to Michigan from the northern portion of Mississippi, he obtained a janitorial gig at the same factory that Sinclair's father worked for so many years. During his time there, Ross slowed his sparse recording until his retirement. A few discs did get set down, though, including his first full length Call the Doctor.

The single track that Ross is best known for - "Chicago Breakdown" - is represented here. But amidst the seventeen tracks of the cd reissue, the material at times bleeds together. Of course, Ross' voice is propped up by a lifetime of experiences. And he is able to keep in key with the various instruments he plies - and that can't always be said about recordings such as these.

But what makes this - or any blues offering - a good listen is the visceral tinge to the proceedings. Sinclair explained in his book, that folks who hear a blues and appreciate it solely for its historical tie to American culture are missing the point. And while that's debatable, it does seem that for players who had so much stuck inside of 'em, playing was necessity. You don't hafta be down to sing the blues, you just hafta know an appropriate tale to relate. It does seem to point to historical contexts, but dissecting everything eventually lessens the pure entertainment value of a work.

That being said, the performances here - musically at least - trump Skip James and the like. But while James wasn't necessarily adept at guitar in the way Tampa Red was, he had a voice like a ghost. That was his hook. Ross' schtick isn't as strong, but comes off more than listenable even if Call the Doctor seems to go on for a bit too long.