[Dixielandjazz] Chris Barber & Miscellaneous Company

[ROBERT Calder]

Chris was a music academy alumnus before everything he became famous 
for. I was amused to see among historical photographs of Glasgow a 
poster bearing the name TOMMY TUCKER, who was some sort of singer on the 
margin of blues who had a minor uplift in reputation when his version of 
"Hi-Heel Sneakers" was issued on the British "Pye International" label, 
which issued singles and LPs from the Chicago Chess and Checker labels, 
with beside the big names of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, real 
bluesmen recommended to Chris by his friend John Lewis, of the MJQ. 
Chris had hitherto worked with the duo whose last years together might 
have seen them renamed Browned-off McGhee and Surly Terry (their 
latterday mutual antipathy was strikingly reported in a press review of 
an Edinburgh gig).

I remember the Tommy Tucker concert, which I attended with a friend who 
departed this life only a couple of weeks ago. He wasn't much impressed, 
nor were other people at the same concert, until after the interval, 
which we spent chatting to Pat Halcox in the pub across from the venue, 
when the Barber band with Sammy Rimington were joined by Alvin Alcorn. 
John Lewis would have been delighted to learn that his recommendation 
had the beneficial effect of getting Chris's band a more or less regular 
radio gig on a Saturday morning pop show, accompanying the bluesmen who 
came across as part of the exchange agreement in line with which 
subsequently much wealthier English rock performers went to the USA 
often enough with rip-offs or rips-off from the same bluesmen. Chris did 
as I recall claim to have pioneered the live performance of jazz in one 
or two of the allegedly identical townships of middle America, as a 
further aspect of the transatlantic swapping which established the 
friendship of Humphrey Lyttelton and Charlie Rouse, when Humph's 
ensemble was put on a tour as second act with the Thelonious Monk 
quartet.

John Slaughter and all, Chris did get a very good press for his support 
of the bluesmen on BBC Radio, with references to not "Drop Me off in 
Harlem" but the Barber band sounding like an ensemble collected from 
Harlem en route between Chicago and the Hundred Club / Langham Place.

Robert R. Calder
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