Artist:     Henry Townsend and Roosevelt Sykes

Album:     Blues Piano and Guitar

Label:     Omnivore Recordings

Release Date:     3.22.19

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Old friends Roosevelt Sykes and Henry Townsend shared the spotlight in a February 3, 1973 reunion concert with the two St. Louis blues legends celebrating their contrasting styles and personalities. Where Townsend’s rough country-blues meditations, as well as his more polished, post-war electric guitar work, asked for quiet and understanding, Sykes’ bawdy, barrelhouse piano scrambles usually sent the crowd into complete hysterics.

A piece of history only now seeing the light of day, the rousing live 2-CD set Blues Piano and Guitar documents this seminal summit with sublime clarity, crystalizing every whoop and holler and salvaging the charming onstage banter. Their friendship dated back to the 1920s, when Townsend sought out the Sykes brothers to learn how to master the piano. Over the following decades, their paths often converged professionally and personally, just as they did that glorious night at Washington University, recorded with loving care by Nighthawk Records co-founder Leroy Jody Pierson and friend Steve Fuller.

Revered as much for his longevity as his estimable chops, Townsend is one of the few artists to have ever recorded in nine consecutive decades, having worked with the likes of Big Joe Williams, Walter Davis and Robert Nighthawk, among others. All of it helped earn the man called “Mule” induction into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1999, as well a National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1987. Meanwhile, Sykes parlayed his rip tides of rolling ivories into blues stardom and a long, successful recording career for various labels under different names.

An essay penned by Pierson packaged with this release, which also includes rare photos, profiles the careers of both men with exacting detail and economy of words, as Blues Piano and Guitar emerges as a powerful testament to both their individual musical prowess and their natural chemistry onstage. Both take solo turns throughout, playing their hits and supporting each other’s bluesy forays. Paired up, they lurch and softly stomp through “Done Got Tired” and “The War is Over,” where their easy, tangled interplay slowly unravels.

On their own, the gregarious Sykes rolls and rumbles through racy, bump-and-grind numbers such as “Ice Cream Fever,” “Dirty Mother for You (Don’t You Know)” and “Dresser Drawers” with burly force and a wicked, off-color sense of humor, while Townsend carefully plucks out spare, acoustic laments like “Tired of Being Mistreated” and “Lost a Good Woman” with tasteful, earthy licks. On “Sloppy Drunk Again,” Townsend unapologetically waxes poetic about the joys of drinking, even if he sounds lonesome and low-down. With wife Vernell offering resolute female vocals, Townsend brightens up on “Why We Love Each Other So” and “Tears Come Rolling Down,” songs which suggest a strong romantic bond between the two that hadn’t wavered one bit.

Their joy is palpable, as Sykes feverishly churns through “Ride the Boogie” and “Gulf Port Boogie,” before Townsend matches Sykes’ raucous energy with his own high-stepping “Guitar Boogie.” Known as “The Honeydripper,” Sykes slowly drizzles earnest sweetness over “The Night Time is the Right Time” and swaggers through “Sweet Home Chicago” in anticipation of the night’s end. They would reunite several more times before they passed away, but it’s hard to imagine they ever had a more enjoyable time together.

—Peter Lindblad