James Cotton Blues Band

(Tracks on this page not available for listen and download because of a copyright notice.)
Trackimage Playbut Trackname Playbut Trackname
She Moves Me 04:26 Tools
Rocket 88 03:03 Tools
Cotton Crop Blues 05:10 Tools
The Creeper 05:01 Tools
Blues In My Sleep 07:06 Tools
Don't Start Me Talking 03:27 Tools
All Walks Of Life 02:29 Tools
Knock On Wood 03:01 Tools
Fatuation 00:00 Tools
I've Got A Feeling 04:57 Tools
Blues For The Hook 06:10 Tools
Off The Wall 00:00 Tools
Sweet Sixteen 00:00 Tools
How Long Can A Fool Go Wrong 00:00 Tools
Hold Me Baby 00:00 Tools
River's Invitation 04:54 Tools
One More Mile 00:00 Tools
Born In Missouri 00:00 Tools
Cotton Boogie 00:00 Tools
Dealing With the Devil 00:00 Tools
Boogie Thing 00:00 Tools
How Long Can A Fool Go Wrong? 00:00 Tools
Goodbye My Lady 00:00 Tools
I Don't Know 00:00 Tools
Feelin' Good 00:00 Tools
Help Me 00:00 Tools
Flip, Flop & Fly 00:00 Tools
Got My Mojo Workin' 00:00 Tools
Caldonia 00:00 Tools
Fannie Mae 00:00 Tools
Teeny Weeny Bit 00:00 Tools
Blow Wind Blow 00:00 Tools
Hot 'n Cold 00:00 Tools
Fallin' Rain 08:50 Tools
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl 00:00 Tools
Boogie Thang 00:00 Tools
Oh Baby You Don't Have to Go 00:00 Tools
'Fore Day Blues 00:00 Tools
Long Distance Operator 00:00 Tools
Fanny Mae 00:00 Tools
You Know It Ain't Right 00:00 Tools
I Need You So Bad 00:00 Tools
Turn On Your Lovelight 00:00 Tools
The Blues Keep Falling 00:00 Tools
Fever 00:00 Tools
Georgia Swing 00:00 Tools
Good Time Charlie 00:00 Tools
Burner 00:00 Tools
Don't Start Me Talkin' 00:00 Tools
Nine Below Zero 00:00 Tools
Heart Attack 00:00 Tools
Tonight I Wanna Love Me a Stranger 00:00 Tools
Cut You Loose 00:00 Tools
Can't Live Without Love 00:00 Tools
Dust My Broom 00:00 Tools
Please, Please, Please 00:00 Tools
I'm a Free Man 00:00 Tools
Nose Open 00:00 Tools
Love Me or Leave 00:00 Tools
West Helena Blues 00:00 Tools
Worried Life Blues 00:00 Tools
Rockett 88 00:00 Tools
The Sky Is Falling 00:00 Tools
Hear Attack 00:00 Tools
Creeper Creeps Again 00:00 Tools
Lovin' Cup 00:00 Tools
Down at Your Buryin' 00:00 Tools
I Remember 00:00 Tools
Soul Survivor 00:00 Tools
'Fatuation 00:00 Tools
She's Murder 00:00 Tools
Kiddie Boy 00:00 Tools
Next Time You See Me 00:00 Tools
There Is Something on your Mind 00:00 Tools
Diggin' My Potatoes 00:00 Tools
Creepers Creeps Again 00:00 Tools
Fore Day Blues 00:00 Tools
South Side Boogie 00:00 Tools
Blues for the Hook [Dedication to John Lee Hooker] 00:00 Tools
Jelly, Jelly 00:00 Tools
V-8 Ford Blues 00:00 Tools
Something On Your Mind 00:00 Tools
Baby Don't you Want To Go 00:00 Tools
Love Me or Leave Me 00:00 Tools
Somethin' You Got 00:00 Tools
James Cotton Blues Band - Don't Start Me Talking 00:00 Tools
High Compression 00:00 Tools
Kiddy Boy 00:00 Tools
Oh Why 00:00 Tools
Polly put the Kettle on 00:00 Tools
James Cotton Blues Band - All Walks Of Life 00:00 Tools
23 Hours Too Long 00:00 Tools
So Glad I'm Living 00:00 Tools
Good Morning Little School Girl 00:00 Tools
Can't Stand To See You Go 00:00 Tools
Ain't Doin' Too Bad 00:00 Tools
Harmonica Jam 00:00 Tools
James Cotton Blues Band - Blues For The Hook 00:00 Tools
Big Boss Man 00:00 Tools
Flip Flop Fly 00:00 Tools
Instrumental 00:00 Tools
James Cotton Blues Band - Blues In My Sleep 00:00 Tools
Jelly Jelly 00:00 Tools
James Cotton Blues Band - Cotton Crop Blues 00:00 Tools
Who's Afraid of Little Red Riding Hood? 00:00 Tools
Please Please 00:00 Tools
Off the Wall - Live 00:00 Tools
I Don T Know 00:00 Tools
James Cotton Blues Band Harmonica Jam 00:00 Tools
Crazy Mixed-Up World 00:00 Tools
Hard Time Blues 00:00 Tools
Superharp 00:00 Tools
I've Got A Feeling (Featuring Koko Taylor) 00:00 Tools
Chicken Heads 00:00 Tools
Born In Chicago 00:00 Tools
My Babe 00:00 Tools
It Ain't Right 00:00 Tools
Who's Afraid Of Little Red Riding Hood 00:00 Tools
Three Harp Boogie 00:00 Tools
Ying Yang 00:00 Tools
All Walks Of Life (Featuring Maria Muldaur & Tab Benoit) 00:00 Tools
No Cuttin' Loose 00:00 Tools
Fore' Day Blues 00:00 Tools
Easy Loving 00:00 Tools
Cut You Loose (Texas International Pop Festival - 1969) 00:00 Tools
Somthin' You Got 00:00 Tools
James' Theme 00:00 Tools
Red Riding Hood? 00:00 Tools
I'm Going Out Walking 00:00 Tools
02 - one more mile 00:00 Tools
Woke Up This Morning 00:00 Tools
  • 22,144
    plays
  • 3,757
    listners
  • 22144
    top track count

James Cotton (July 1, 1935 – March 16, 2017) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who has performed and recorded with many of the great blues artists of his time and with his own band. He formed the James Cotton Blues Band in 1967. The band mainly performed its own arrangements of popular blues and R&B from the 1950s and 1960s. Cotton's band included a horn section, like that of Bobby Bland's. After Bland's death, his son told news media that Bland had recently discovered that Cotton was his half-brother. James Cotton played drums early in his career but is famous for his harmonica playing. He began his professional career playing the blues harp in Howlin' Wolf's band in the early 1950s. He made his first recordings in Memphis for Sun Records, under the direction of Sam Phillips. In 1955, he was recruited by Muddy Waters to come to Chicago and join his band. Cotton became Waters's bandleader and stayed with the group until 1965. In 1965 he formed the Jimmy Cotton Blues Quartet, with Otis Spann on piano, to record between gigs with Waters's band. He eventually left Waters to form his own full-time touring group. His first full album, on Verve Records, was produced by guitarist Mike Bloomfield and vocalist and songwriter Nick Gravenites, who later were members of the band Electric Flag. In the 1970s, Cotton played harmonica on Waters's Grammy Award–winning 1977 album Hard Again, produced by Johnny Winter. James Cotton (called Cotton by his friends) was born on the first day of July,1935, in Tunica, Mississippi. He was the youngest of eight brothers and sisters who grew up in the cotton fields working beside their mother, Hattie, and their father, Mose. On Sundays Mose was the preacher in the area's Baptist church. Cotton's earliest memories include his mother playing chicken and train sounds on her harmonica and for a few years he thought those were the only two sounds the little instrument made. His Christmas present one year was a harmonica, it cost 15 cents, and it wasn't long before he mastered the chicken and the train. King Biscuit Time, a 15-minute radio show, began broadcasting live on KFFA, a station just across the Mississippi River in Helena, Arkansas. The star of the show was the harmonica legend, Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller). The young Cotton pressed his little ear to the old radio speaker. He recognized the harmonica sound AND discovered something - the harp did more! Realizing this, a profound change came over him, and since that moment, Cotton and his harp have been inseparable - the love affair had begun. Soon he was able to play Sonny Boy's theme song from the radio show and, as he grew so did his repertoire of Sonny Boy's other songs. Mississippi summers are ghastly, the heat is unrelenting. He was too young to actually work in the cotton fields, so little Cotton would bring water to those who did. When it was time for him to take a break from his job, he would sit in the shadow of the plantation foreman's horse and play his harp. His music became a source of joy for his first audience. James Cotton's star began to shine brightly at a very early age. By his ninth year both of his parents had passed away and Cotton was taken to Sonny Boy Williamson by his uncle. When they met, the young fellow wasted no time - he began playing Sonny Boy's theme song on his treasured harp. Cotton remembers that first meeting well and says, "I walked up and played it for him. And I played it note for note. And he looked at that. He had to pay attention." The two harp players were like father and son from then on. "I just watched the things he'd do, because I wanted to be just like him. Anything he played, I played it," he remembers. There were dozens of juke joints in the South at the time and Sonny Boy played in nearly every one in Mississippi (pronounced "miz-sip-ee") and Arkansas. Now he had an opening act! Because Cotton was too young to go inside he would "open" for Sonny Boy on the steps of these juke joints, sometimes making more money in tips outside than Sonny Boy did at the gig inside. After a gig early one morning Sonny Boy split for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to live with his estranged wife, leaving his band to Cotton who comments, "He just gave it to me. But I couldn't hold it together 'cause I was too young and crazy in those days an' everybody in the band was grown men, so much older than me." There was no one to care for the teenager - no real home to go to - but young Cotton had his harmonica. Beale Street in Memphis was alive with the blues and Cotton played on the street for tips. Also, he put a mean shine on any paying customer's shoes. When he'd been with Sonny Boy, they had played a juke joint named "The Top Hat" in Black Fish, Arkansas. One night he heard Howlin' Wolf was playing there and he decided it was time to meet him. He was still underage but the owner let him through the door this time. He liked the young musician plus he knew if Cotton sat in with Howlin' Wolf the good times would roll even farther, deep into the night. Cotton got along well with Howlin' Wolf from the moment they met and they began to play the juke joints as far north as Caruthersville, Missouri, and as far south as Nachez, Mississippi, with Cotton doing most of the driving down old Highway 61. He learned the ways of the road from a second blues legend. At the ripe old age of 15 he cut four songs at Sun Records: "Straighten Up Baby," "Hold Me In Your Arms," "Oh, Baby," and "Cotton Crop Blues." KWEM, a radio station in West Memphis, Arkansas, directly across the Mississippi River from Memphis, gave Cotton a 15-minute radio show in 1952. This was a great achievement for a bluesman who was only 17 years old. It gave him a wider audience; not everyone went to juke houses, but the radio was on everyday from 3-3:15 p.m. Mississippi and Arkansas held the very essence of the blues in their cotton fields. People wanted to hear their own music. Cotton had gigs every weekend but to help support himself better he found a job in West Memphis driving an ice truck during the week. When he got off work one Friday afternoon in early December 1954, he walked to his regular Friday happy hour gig at the "Dinette Lounge" and played his first set. The club was getting crowded and he recognized many familiar faces but when the band took a break, a strange man approached and extended a handshake to Cotton saying, "Hello, I'm Muddy Waters." He'd heard about the young James Cotton. "I didn't know what Muddy looked like but I knew it was his voice 'cause I'd listened to his records," says Cotton. Muddy needed a harp player. Junior Wells had abruptly left the band. He asked Cotton to play the Memphis gig with him. The answer is history. Cotton remained Muddy's harp player for 12 years. Chess Records kept Little Walter (Jacobs) playing harmonica on Muddy's records until 1958. Before then Muddy asked Brother Cotton to "play it like Little Walter" - note for note live on stage every night. But that wasn't Cotton's aim in life and finally one day he said to Muddy, "Hey man, I never will be Little Walter. You've just got to give me a chance to be myself." Cotton's star shined even brighter in 1958 when he began recording at Chess Records with Muddy on "Sugar Sweet" and "Close To You." Cotton developed an arresting stage presence which Muddy recognized. As a sideman, Cotton always respected Muddy's position of authority. But they both knew Cotton had his own full-blown brand of animated showmanship that no one had ever seen before and that, coupled with his own harmonica style, commanded attention from the audience. In 1961 at the Newport Jazz Festival one of the highlights of his career came when his wild harmonica exploded on stage during his solo of the song he arranged for Muddy, "Got My Mojo Working." You be the judge! Fortunately, the tape was running and the recording belongs to all of us. "Muddy was a very sweet guy. I loved and respected Muddy very much. But I did all I could there, an' it was time to move on to something else," Cotton explains why he left the band in the latter part of 1966. The year 1967 is well-documented as Cotton's first year as a bandleader with the two CD's "Seems Like Yesterday" and "Late Night Blues" recorded live in Montreal at the "New Penelope" club and unreleased until 1998 on the Justin Time label. It was the first gig on the first tour of the first James Cotton Blues Band. From that night forward Cotton embarked on tours all across the country. He had crossed over into the blues-rock genre because of his reputation as Muddy Waters' harp player. During the last half of the 60's decade Cotton made four records. "Cut You Loose" was released on Vanguard, "Pure Cotton," "Cotton In Your Ears," and "The James Cotton Blues Band" were released on the Verve label. The hippies had arrived. They were young people with flowers in their hair and music in their hearts and they wanted to know where this rock n roll music came from. Muddy Waters and Brownie McGhee got together and wrote "The Blues Had a Baby and They Called It Rock and Roll" which answered their question. This song was on the "Hard Again" album on the Blue Sky label featuring Muddy on vocals and guitar, Johnny Winter on guitar, and Cotton on harmonica. Not to be forgotten are the miscellaneous screams provided by Johnny Winter and the miscellaneous hoots (or are they hollers?) of Cotton! It's obvious, they had a ball while making this record. It won a Grammy in 1977. Some of Janis Joplin's most popular songs were old blues standards, i.e., Big Mama Thornton's "Ball and Chain." The first time Cotton opened for Janis she had never heard him play. After the show that night an excited Janis phoned Albert Grossman, who was Janis' and Cotton's manager at the time, in Woodstock. Then Albert phoned Cotton saying, "Janis was all excited and told me 'Man, I REALLY dig that James Cotton, he makes me WORK!'" Cotton opened for and/or sat-in with the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Santana, Steve Miller, Freddie King, B.B. King...to name a few. He played the Fillmore East in New York, the Fillmore West in San Francisco, and almost every major venue between those two cities including the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Texas. Cotton became known as the ultimate showman. By the time he got to the center of the stage and blew his first note, the audience was on it's feet, dancing, screaming, sweating right along with him, and having a good time. That is what it was all about. "Boogie, boogie, boogie," he'd wail from the stage. He became famous for his back flips. An old fan reminisced with him at a recent festival, "James, the first time I saw you do a back flip, man, I was shocked," he said, shaking his head, "I'd never seen one before! Thanks." Cotton laughed, patted his stomach, and replied, "Well, you aren't getting the flips tonight but you WILL get the music!" It is an old, true story - there are nights when he blows his harmonica so hard the keys fall out in his hands. A man with a good sense of humor, his old fans and friends like to remember one night when he began playing so hard his harp fell apart, "Oh, I'm just warming up," he teased them with a big smile. The 1970's brought releases from Buddah Records of "100% Cotton," "High Energy," "Alive and on the Move," and "Live at the Electric Lady." All this time he was touring, crossing the country many, many times, and playing to packed houses. The name "Superharp" has been with Cotton ever since Kenny Johnson, the drummer in Cotton's band at the time, arrived at the gig one evening with a denim jacket adorned with silver studs, a popular clothing decoration at the time. "SUPERHARP" appeared in these silver studs across the back of the jacket and the well-deserved name has stuck with Cotton to this day - longer than the studs stuck to the jacket! A recording contract with Alligator Records in 1984 produced "High Compression," and two years later, Cotton's first Grammy nomination, "Live From Chicago: Mr. Superharp Himself!" Cotton's next Grammy nomination was for Blind Pig Records' 1987 release "Take Me Back." "James Cotton: Live" was just that - and it captured the blues spirit of the world-renowned Antone's nightclub in Austin, Texas. Cotton's third Grammy nomination was recorded on the Antone's label in 1988. Alligator Records released "Harp Attack" in 1990. "Mighty Long Time," on the Antone's label, was released in 1991. "A perfect illustration of James Cotton's uncanny ability to make any song completely his own while preserving the spirit of the original," is an appropriate quote from the liner notes by Clifford Antone. Cotton recorded "Living the Blues" a 1994 release on Verve Records. It garnered one more Grammy nomination. In 1994 Cotton had throat surgery followed by radiation treatments. Not long afterward he was back on the road with his James Cotton Trio, playing the music of his roots. That same year he moved back to the Memphis area. Cotton's life has come full circle, he has returned to the source of the fountain on two levels...his star still shines. There is a photograph of a man wearing overalls sitting on an old porch intently playing a harmonica. If you study the photograph you can feel the depth of the man's soul. The man is James Cotton. The porch is part of the commissary store on the plantation where he was born in Tunica, Mississippi. The depth of the man's soul can be heard on "Deep In The Blues" on Verve Records. Grammy Award - Best Traditional Blues Album -1996 During the latter part of the last decade The James Cotton Trio - with Cotton on harmonica, David Maxwell on piano, Rico McFarland on guitar, and alternate singers, Mojo Buford and Darrell Nulisch - toured the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, and South America.The music was not as loud as it used to be. "We like to play what people can listen to and enjoy," Cotton says. When one looks at Cotton's audience in his theatre, university, and festival venues, it consists of three generations - the youngest is usually holding a harp. My guess is Cotton finds that a beautiful sight. Cotton has made three CDs on the Telarc label. "Fire Down Under The Hill" was released in March 2000. Recorded at the end of 2001 and released in May of 2002 "The 35th Anniversary Jam of The James Cotton Blues Band" received a Grammy nomination. Many of Cotton's friends are singing and playing with him honoring the 35 years since Cotton left Muddy's band to front his own band. His latest CD, "Baby, Don't You Tear My Clothes," has given Cotton the chance to branch out and play not only blues, but also, country and bluegrass - a great surprise to all! He is joined by a premier list of guests and friends. It was released in May 2004. Cotton has always been known for having one of the best bands in the business. The members are: Darrell Nulisch, vocals; Tom Holland, guitar and vocals; Noel Neal, bass; and Jerry Porter, drums. Cotton's eyes light up when he talks about his band, "My audience always tells me how I'm doing. If I look out there and don't like what I see, I work harder." His audiences are still on their feet, they enjoy themselves as much as he does, and there are still standing ovations night after night. You will have a memorable evening with an international treasure and a true Living Legend of the Blues. In 2010 Cotton reunited with Alligator Records and produced another Grammy nominated CD - GIANT - which is a ferocious blast of brash power blues from Cotton with his touring band. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.