Goodbye Jimmy Reed: The Rough and Rowdie Ways Tour, 16.

I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.

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Commentary by Tony Attwood, audio kindly provided by Mr Tambourine.

Goodbye Jimmy Reed starts at around 1hr, 23 min, 22 sec

There’s quite a fiddly introduction before we hit the 12 bar blues format complete with 12 bar accompaniment, but that unexpected ending and the last line with the extra guitar accompaniment which we find in the recording is still there.

As the performance goes on the 12 bar format gets more solid, but Bob does allow an extra few bars between the verses which certainly fits nicely with that extra bar at the end of the verse.

And then around 1:26:30 we get the variation, followed by one of the strangest and odd sounding instrumental breaks I think I have ever heard.  Quite what the repeated chord from the guitar is for, I don’t know, but obviously Bob thought it ok, so it is just me not quite getting it.   Then we get an instrumental end.

It’s another crowd pleaser obviously, and so I’m once more the odd one out.  But it is nice to hear Bob introduce the band and to have a little chat with the audience too

So what is to be made of the performance?  It is pretty much the track we know, but with the instrumental break which for me sounds a bit of a mess.   And I somehow feel I’ve now lost touch with the lyrics.

By which I mean having a 12 bar blues which starts “I live on a street named after a saint” really is quite a dramatic turnaround in the old format, although I subsequently still find myself distracted by the two different meanings of “Proddie” – although everyone seems to agree Bob used it to mean “Protestant” which is the common (if offensive) meaning.

But leaving that aside there are some great, great lines in this song such as

You won't amount too much, the people all said
'Cause I didn't play guitar behind my head
Never pandered, never acted proud
Never took off my shoes, throw 'em in the crowd