DON ''SUGAR CANE'' HARRIS
''SUGAR CANE'S GOT THE BLUES''
1973
2008
74:11
1 - Liz Pineapple Wonderful/10:30
2 - Sugar Cane's Got The Blues/15:20
3 - Song For My Father (new violin summit concert)/10:52
4 - Where's My Sunshine/12:35
5 - It`s Not My Fault/8:14
6 - Moog Solo by Dauner/2:45
7 - Been Down So Long/13:38
Wolfgang Dauner /Keyboards
Don "Sugarcane" Harris /Violin, Electric Violin, Vocals
Volker Kriegel /Electric Guitar
Terje Rypdal /Guitar, Electric Guitar
Neville Whitehead /Bass
Robert Wyatt /Drums
REVIEW
by Ken Dryden
Don "Sugar Cane" Harris' drug addiction curtailed his career long prior to his death in 2000, but this performance at the 1971 Berlin Jazz Festival stands out as his best overall recording. Taped during the same day as the highly recommended New Violin Summit (which features Harris with fellow violinists Jean-Luc Ponty, Nipso Branther, and Michal Urbaniak), Harris delivers a terrific performance with his high energy "Liz Pineapple Wonderful"; "Sugar Cane's Got the Blues," a sometimes lyrical but often intense number featuring great solos by keyboardist Wolfgang Dauner and guitarist Volker Kriegel; the unusually structured blues "Where's My Sunshine"; and finally an extended very percussive treatment of Horace Silver's "Song for My Father," during which Terje Rypdal takes over on guitar. Harris is clearly influenced by fellow violinist Stuff Smith on this outing with an often piercing sound and frequently fierce attack; he also has a somewhat hoarse singing style like Smith's. This record has been difficult to find since BASF quit making records in the mid-'70s, but it is well worth acquiring and thanks to a reissue in 2008 by SPV, easier than ever.
BIOGRAPHY
by Steve Kurutz
Beginning his career as the guitar playing half of the 1950s rock duo, Don & Dewey, Don "Sugarcane" Harris, put down the guitar and picked up the violin after the lack of success for Don & Dewey (oddly enough the group's songs became hits for other artists such as the Righteous Brothers and the Premiers). Classically trained as a violinist, Harris' skill at improvisation began attracting attention from the rock world and soon he was appearing on records by John Lee Hooker, Frank Zappa and Johnny Otis. In 1970 Harris joined forces with British blues musician John Mayall when the latter was forming his first all American backing band. In addition to joining the backing bands of Mayall, Zappa and others, Harris also recorded a series of albums for labels such as Epic and Polydor. After a lengthy battle with pulmonary disease, on December 1, 1999 he was found dead in his Los Angeles apartment at the age of 61.
''SUGAR CANE'S GOT THE BLUES''
1973
2008
74:11
1 - Liz Pineapple Wonderful/10:30
2 - Sugar Cane's Got The Blues/15:20
3 - Song For My Father (new violin summit concert)/10:52
4 - Where's My Sunshine/12:35
5 - It`s Not My Fault/8:14
6 - Moog Solo by Dauner/2:45
7 - Been Down So Long/13:38
Wolfgang Dauner /Keyboards
Don "Sugarcane" Harris /Violin, Electric Violin, Vocals
Volker Kriegel /Electric Guitar
Terje Rypdal /Guitar, Electric Guitar
Neville Whitehead /Bass
Robert Wyatt /Drums
REVIEW
by Ken Dryden
Don "Sugar Cane" Harris' drug addiction curtailed his career long prior to his death in 2000, but this performance at the 1971 Berlin Jazz Festival stands out as his best overall recording. Taped during the same day as the highly recommended New Violin Summit (which features Harris with fellow violinists Jean-Luc Ponty, Nipso Branther, and Michal Urbaniak), Harris delivers a terrific performance with his high energy "Liz Pineapple Wonderful"; "Sugar Cane's Got the Blues," a sometimes lyrical but often intense number featuring great solos by keyboardist Wolfgang Dauner and guitarist Volker Kriegel; the unusually structured blues "Where's My Sunshine"; and finally an extended very percussive treatment of Horace Silver's "Song for My Father," during which Terje Rypdal takes over on guitar. Harris is clearly influenced by fellow violinist Stuff Smith on this outing with an often piercing sound and frequently fierce attack; he also has a somewhat hoarse singing style like Smith's. This record has been difficult to find since BASF quit making records in the mid-'70s, but it is well worth acquiring and thanks to a reissue in 2008 by SPV, easier than ever.
BIOGRAPHY
by Steve Kurutz
Beginning his career as the guitar playing half of the 1950s rock duo, Don & Dewey, Don "Sugarcane" Harris, put down the guitar and picked up the violin after the lack of success for Don & Dewey (oddly enough the group's songs became hits for other artists such as the Righteous Brothers and the Premiers). Classically trained as a violinist, Harris' skill at improvisation began attracting attention from the rock world and soon he was appearing on records by John Lee Hooker, Frank Zappa and Johnny Otis. In 1970 Harris joined forces with British blues musician John Mayall when the latter was forming his first all American backing band. In addition to joining the backing bands of Mayall, Zappa and others, Harris also recorded a series of albums for labels such as Epic and Polydor. After a lengthy battle with pulmonary disease, on December 1, 1999 he was found dead in his Los Angeles apartment at the age of 61.
