Little Joe Blue: So Sweet, So Funky

At a certain point after the blues got electrified, it really became difficult to differentiate between players. At some points that was only due to the fact that folks sported stylistic similarities, but at others there was some pretty clear borrowing going on. At least a bit of credit needs to be given to players in each camp here. And even if Little Joe Blue caught it on the jaw for baring some commonalities with B.B. King, there’s a good amount of work from the southern blues guitarist that’s unique enough to get him over – and it’s funk too.

Avoiding sounding like someone you idolize is probably pretty difficult and Little Joe Blue may not have avoided it on every one of his releases – and he doesn’t completely disengage from King’s style here – but on Southern Country Boy the guitarist is able to do a bit more than plain old rip off his elders. “Just Love Won't Go” doesn’t quite escape the B.B. King problem, but the impassioned soul shout of Blue and his guitar prowess doesn’t bog the track down at all. And even if King went on to basically work with a big band – which Blue does here as well at points – these settings don’t sound too similar as to not be able to figure out what’s what.

The title track is a Stax styled rave up with a bass line fat enough to wobble anyone’s speakers. The song covers a pretty simple blues concept – misery through love. But as Blue gets through the litany of things that his woman has done for him including picking the seeds out of his watermelon, listeners should get the idea that this guitarist doesn’t follow any sort of electric blues formula. Of course the case could be made that instead of B.B., songs of this nature move towards Freddie King territory, but that might be pushing it a bit too much.

As the reconstituted disc moves towards its natural end, “Right There Where You Left” comes off as a deep fried soul track. Some nice accompaniment on the harmonica works pretty well even when the horn section is given a more substantial role to play here. If this were in fact some dusty single, it’d probably fetch a good dollar or two – but again, considering the pervasive criticism of Blue followed him throughout his career, this track got paid no mind.

It’s difficult to dissect any rote blues lyric by the late date of 1972 – and “If You Love Me Like You Say” compounds that problem. Less funky than its predecessors, the track still sports some genuine flavor even if it’s slight in the same manner as a few Shuggie Otis tracks were from about the same time. But if that leaves one wondering if the funk can push through the blues, “Don’t Tell Me About My Baby” could be the theme song for a cop movie – or a porn. There might not be anything too gripping about Southern Country Boy, but the disc and Little Joe Blue deserve to be examined outside the comparison of any of the Kings.