Simmons, Little MackThe Best Of2001Electro-Fi RecordsElectro-Fi 3368

Simmons, Little Mack - The Best Of - 2001 - Electro-Fi Records - Electro-Fi 3368

Written by John Taylor

Little Mack Simmons' story is indeed a sad one.

Born in 1933, he was once a promising light in Chicago's rough-and-tumble post-war scene. He recorded sporadically in the early 1960s, until a jail term for possesion of a ridiculously-small amount of marijuana interrupted his career. During the 1970s, he ran his own record labels, P.M. and Simmons Records, from his home base in Chicago, but only a handful of recordings from those years survive.

The 1990s, however, saw him enjoying a career renaissance, first with a disc on Wolf Records, followed by a fine outing on George Paulus' St George records. He seemed to hit his stride with a pair of new recordings on Toronto-based Electro-Fi records, soon followed up with a compilation of his P.M./Simmons sessions.

And just as he began to enjoy widespread success and receive his due as one of the finest harmonicists in the Chicago tradition, he lost a lengthy battle with cancer at age 67.

The tracks on The Best Of were apparently Mack's own choices. Seven are taken from his Electro-Fi debut, 1997's Little Mack Is Back; five come from the follow-up, Somewhere On Down The Line, released in 1998. There's a fine cover of Little Walter's Blue Lite from the PM/Simmons sessions, and a pair of songs recorded live as part of a radio broadcast by noted musicologist and blues DJ Eddy Brake.

The sessions from Simmons' Electro-Fi debut feature backing from Toronto's Fathead, as fine an ensemble as any. To my ears, however, the fit isn't all that comfortable, as the band seems to dominate a little too much. The sense I get (and this is a subjective opinion) is that Simmons deferred to the band's funk-oriented sensibilities; in short, there's more of them than him. The tracks from Somewhere, featuring some of the same players, are largely acoustic (powered by luthier Joseph Yanuziello's National Steel and mandolin courtesy of Nick Tjelios), and it's here, in my mind, that we really get a sense of Simmons' personality.

And what a personality it is! In addition to fine harmonica work, Mack was blessed with the kind of voice that seems, even at first listen, like that of an old friend, warm and inviting and neither too smooth nor too rough-edged. He sings with a slightly laconic drawl - think of a more energetic, less nasal Lazy Lester and you might get the picture.

One can't really call this a career retrospective - there's far too little of his earlier work for that - but it's a fine collection nonetheless. Still, you may find, as I do, that your tastes lean to one or the other of Simmons' more recent outings. If I were to choose only one, I'd go with Somewhere On Down The Line, if for no other reason than the fact its acoustic approach makes it stand out from the pack.

Your call…

Copyright 2003. Review by John Taylor.

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