Artist: William Clarke
Genre(s):
Blues
Discography:
Tip of the Top
Year: 2000
Tracks: 14
The Hard Way
Year: 1996
Tracks: 13
Blowin' Like Hell
Year: 1990
Tracks: 11
The heir patent to Chicago's legacy of amplified blues harmonica, William Clarke was the first original new voice on his instrument to amount along in quite some time; he became a sensation in megrims circles during the late '80s and early '90s, stopped up little by an untimely death in 1996. A pupil and lover of George Harmonica Smith, Clarke was a expert virtuoso and master of both the diatonic harp and the more difficult chromatic harp (the signature tool of both Smith and Little Walter). Where many new harmonica players had go content to snitch licks from the Chicago edgar Lee Masters, Clarke highly-developed his own style and vocabulary, building on everything he knowledgeable from Smith and moving beyond it. His four '90s albums for Alligator earned all-embracing critical hail and stay on his signature tune showcases.
Clarke was innate March 29, 1951, in the South Central L.A. suburb of Inglewood; his parents had affected there from Kentucky and lived a wage-earning sprightliness. Clarke spattered in guitar and drums as a youth, and grew up hearing to stone & roll, but finally found his agency to the blues by way of the Rolling Stones' early albums. He took up the mouth organ in 1967, and before long establish his fashion onto the Los Angeles vapors scene while working a day job as a shop mechanic. Clarke's former style was influenced by Big Walter Horton, Junior Wells, James Cotton, and Sonny Boy Williamson II, just he presently began to comprise the influence of '60s soul-jazz, mimicking the lines of the genre's summit sax and organ players. He was a regular in South Central L.A.'s blues clubs, a great deal hopping from one venue to some other in lodge to go on playing all night. In this manner, he met quite a a few West Coast blues luminaries, including -- among others -- T-Bone Walker, Pee Wee Crayton, Lowell Fulson, Big Mama Thornton, and George "Harp" Smith, world Health Organization in the end became his teacher and wise man.
Adam Smith and Clarke first began to perform and record together in 1977, and kept up their relationship until Smith's decease in 1983. In the meanwhile, Clarke guested on roger Sessions by West Coast artists care Smokey Wilson and Shakey Jake Harris, and released several of his have LPs, all recorded for small labels. The first was 1978's Hittin' Heavy, which was followed by 1980's Blues From Los Angeles; both were released on tiny local labels. 1983's Can't You Hear Me Calling was more of a proper debut, though Clarke smooth hadn't quite a come to his pace in time. That would initiate to materialize with 1987's Tippytoe of the Top, a protection to Smith that was issued by Satch and earned a W.C. Handy Award nominating address. Clarke in conclusion quit his job as a machinist that year, and followed Angle of the Top with a live album, Rockin' the Boat, in 1988. By this time, his reputation was first to bed covering beyond Los Angeles, scorn the fact that none of his albums had yet achieved good national distribution.
Clarke later sent a demo tape to Alligator Records, and was immediately offered a shrink. His label debut was the electric Blowin' Like Hell, which earned rabbit on reviews upon its expiration in 1990 and established him as a new, amply formed voice on amplified mouth harp. Clarke strike the road unvoiced, touring America and Europe over the next year; he also won the 1991 Handy Award for Blues Song of the Year, thanks to "Must Be Jelly." His reexamination, 1992's Serious Intentions, was as blistering in its intensity. 1994's Channel Time added a trumpet section, delivery some of the nothingness and swing undercurrents in Clarke's music forwards. He pursued that management level farther on 1996's The Hard Way, his jazziest and most ambitious picnic yet, which earned potent reviews one time once again.
Alas, Clarke's health was deteriorating; always a great man, strong living on the road was taking its toll on his body. He collapsed onstage in Indianapolis in March 1996 and was diagnosed with congestive fondness failure. Despite losing weight and living clean and sober from and then on, the damage had been done; Clarke resumed his lumbering touring docket a few months afterward and seemed to get cured, until he collapsed onstage once again in Fresno. He was admitted to the hospital with a hemorrhage ulcer and died the next day, November 2, 1996, when surgical attempts to redeem his life sentence failed. He was only 45 and in the prime of his career. Posthumously, Clarke south Korean won trey Handy Awards stemming from The Hard Way: Album of the Year, Song of the Year ("Fishing Blues"), and Instrumentalist of the Year for harp. In 1999, Alligator released a best-of compilation highborn Luxe Edition.
Miriam Stockley
