Z. Z. HILL
''DOWN HOME''
1982
38:09
1/Down Home Blues
George Jackson/5:10
2/Cheatin' in the Next Room
George Jackson/3:32
3/Everybody Knows About My Good Thing
Miles Grayson / L. Horton/4:53
4/Love Me
Eddie Floyd / Sonya Floyd/3:44
5/That Means So Much to Me/3:53
6/When Can We Do This Again
Billy Clements / Phillip Mitchell/4:15
7/Right Arm for Your Love
Swamp Dogg/3:28
8/When It Rains It Pours
Bobby Patterson/3:37
9/Woman Don't Go Astray
King Floyd/2:20
10/Givin' It Up for Your Love
Swamp Dogg/3:17
Thomisene Anderson /Vocals (Background)
Jewel Bass /Vocals (Background)
Charlotte Chenault /Vocals (Background)
Leroy Emanuel /Guitar
Ray Griffin /Bass
Z.Z. Hill / Vocals
Jackson Strings /Strings
Muscle Shoals Horns /Horn
James Robertson /Drums
Carson Whitsett /Keyboards
Dino Zimmerman /Guitar
REVIEW
by Bill Dahl
Down Home is one of the very few classic blues albums of the 1980s. Hill revitalized the genre among African-American listeners with his "Down Home Blues," which earned instant standard status. But the entire album is tremendously consistent, with the percolating R&B workouts "Givin' It Up for Your Love" and "Right Arm for Your Love" contrasting with an intimate "Cheatin' in the Next Room" and the straight-ahead blues "Everybody Knows About My Good Thing" and "When It Rains It Pours."
BIOGRAPHY
by Bill Dahl
Texas-born singer Z.Z. Hill managed to resuscitate both his own semi-flagging career and the entire genre at large when he signed on at Jackson, MS-based Malaco Records in 1980 and began growling his way through some of the most uncompromising blues to be unleashed on black radio stations in many a moon. His impressive 1982 Malaco album Down Home Blues remained on Billboard's soul album charts for nearly two years, an extraordinary run for such a blatantly bluesy LP. His songs "Down Home Blues" and "Somebody Else Is Steppin' In" have graduated into the ranks of legitimate blues standards (and few of those have come along over the last couple of decades). Arzell Hill started out singing gospel with a quintet called the Spiritual Five, but the output of B.B. King, Bobby Bland, and especially Sam Cooke made a more indelible mark on his approach. He began gigging around Dallas, fashioning his distinctive initials after those of B.B. King. When his older brother Matt Hill (a budding record producer with his own label, M.H.) invited Z.Z. to go west to Southern California, the young singer did.
His debut single on M.H., the gutsy shuffle "You Were Wrong" (recorded in an L.A. garage studio), showed up on the pop chart for a week in 1964. With such a relatively successful showing his first time out, Hill's fine subsequent singles for the Bihari Brothers' Kent logo should have been even bigger. But "I Need Someone (To Love Me)," "Happiness Is All I Need," and a raft of other deserving Kent 45s (many produced and arranged by Maxwell Davis) went nowhere commercially for the singer. Excellent singles for Atlantic, Mankind, and Hill (another imprint operated by brother Matt, who served as Z.Z.'s producer for much of his career) preceded a 1972 hookup with United Artists that resulted in three albums and six R&B chart singles over the next couple of years. From there, Z.Z. moved on to Columbia, where his 1977 single "Love Is So Good When You're Stealing It" became his biggest-selling hit of all. But Hill's vocal grit was never more effective than on his blues-soaked Malaco output. From 1980 until 1984, when he died suddenly of a heart attack, Z.Z. bravely led a personal back-to-the-blues campaign that doubtless helped to fuel the subsequent contemporary blues boom. It's a shame he couldn't stick around to see it blossom.
''DOWN HOME''
1982
38:09
1/Down Home Blues
George Jackson/5:10
2/Cheatin' in the Next Room
George Jackson/3:32
3/Everybody Knows About My Good Thing
Miles Grayson / L. Horton/4:53
4/Love Me
Eddie Floyd / Sonya Floyd/3:44
5/That Means So Much to Me/3:53
6/When Can We Do This Again
Billy Clements / Phillip Mitchell/4:15
7/Right Arm for Your Love
Swamp Dogg/3:28
8/When It Rains It Pours
Bobby Patterson/3:37
9/Woman Don't Go Astray
King Floyd/2:20
10/Givin' It Up for Your Love
Swamp Dogg/3:17
Thomisene Anderson /Vocals (Background)
Jewel Bass /Vocals (Background)
Charlotte Chenault /Vocals (Background)
Leroy Emanuel /Guitar
Ray Griffin /Bass
Z.Z. Hill / Vocals
Jackson Strings /Strings
Muscle Shoals Horns /Horn
James Robertson /Drums
Carson Whitsett /Keyboards
Dino Zimmerman /Guitar
REVIEW
by Bill Dahl
Down Home is one of the very few classic blues albums of the 1980s. Hill revitalized the genre among African-American listeners with his "Down Home Blues," which earned instant standard status. But the entire album is tremendously consistent, with the percolating R&B workouts "Givin' It Up for Your Love" and "Right Arm for Your Love" contrasting with an intimate "Cheatin' in the Next Room" and the straight-ahead blues "Everybody Knows About My Good Thing" and "When It Rains It Pours."
BIOGRAPHY
by Bill Dahl
Texas-born singer Z.Z. Hill managed to resuscitate both his own semi-flagging career and the entire genre at large when he signed on at Jackson, MS-based Malaco Records in 1980 and began growling his way through some of the most uncompromising blues to be unleashed on black radio stations in many a moon. His impressive 1982 Malaco album Down Home Blues remained on Billboard's soul album charts for nearly two years, an extraordinary run for such a blatantly bluesy LP. His songs "Down Home Blues" and "Somebody Else Is Steppin' In" have graduated into the ranks of legitimate blues standards (and few of those have come along over the last couple of decades). Arzell Hill started out singing gospel with a quintet called the Spiritual Five, but the output of B.B. King, Bobby Bland, and especially Sam Cooke made a more indelible mark on his approach. He began gigging around Dallas, fashioning his distinctive initials after those of B.B. King. When his older brother Matt Hill (a budding record producer with his own label, M.H.) invited Z.Z. to go west to Southern California, the young singer did.
His debut single on M.H., the gutsy shuffle "You Were Wrong" (recorded in an L.A. garage studio), showed up on the pop chart for a week in 1964. With such a relatively successful showing his first time out, Hill's fine subsequent singles for the Bihari Brothers' Kent logo should have been even bigger. But "I Need Someone (To Love Me)," "Happiness Is All I Need," and a raft of other deserving Kent 45s (many produced and arranged by Maxwell Davis) went nowhere commercially for the singer. Excellent singles for Atlantic, Mankind, and Hill (another imprint operated by brother Matt, who served as Z.Z.'s producer for much of his career) preceded a 1972 hookup with United Artists that resulted in three albums and six R&B chart singles over the next couple of years. From there, Z.Z. moved on to Columbia, where his 1977 single "Love Is So Good When You're Stealing It" became his biggest-selling hit of all. But Hill's vocal grit was never more effective than on his blues-soaked Malaco output. From 1980 until 1984, when he died suddenly of a heart attack, Z.Z. bravely led a personal back-to-the-blues campaign that doubtless helped to fuel the subsequent contemporary blues boom. It's a shame he couldn't stick around to see it blossom.
