MIKE WILHELM - Mike Wilhelm

MIKE WILHELM Mike Wilhelm lp 1983 Fan Club 320 kbps

Junko partner / Make me a pallet on your floor / Goin' to Canada / Styrofoam / Black mountain / Me and my uncle / Slow blues* / Dust my blues / Hear the people / Bad news / Phonograph blues.

Produced by R. Olsen & * recorded live on the air, July 25th 1971 KSAN-FM, San Francisco.

M. Wilhelm : lead guitar, vocals, harmonica / G. Rymer : drums / K. Streight : bass / Chris Wilson : rhythm guitar, vocals / Dennis Wilson : back up vocals / R. Kunstler : rhythm guitar , vocals + P. Mintun : piano / J. Bethards : trumpet, percussion, bass / S. Page : violin / D. Corso, R. Paden, C. Reynolds & J. Illy : vocals.

Mike Wilhelm was an important member of two San Francisco Bay Area groups, in two different decades. In the 1960s, he was a guitarist and songwriter for the Charlatans, often identified as one of the very first San Francisco psychedelic groups, although they were more appropriately described as mixers of blues, folk, jugband, and nineteenth century saloon music. In the late 1970s, he joined the Flamin' Groovies on guitar for a while. There is also some solo material by Wilhelm in which he comes across as a hippie Old West cowboy of sorts, just as he looks in those old Charlatans photos. His low scaly voice delivers tunes that wander across the blues, vaudeville, and folk landscape with some rock thrown in on his Michael Wilhelm album.

"... Anyhow, Fan Club (a division of New Rose Records) is nuts enough to to re-release this spellbound blues album (the bum groping king) . Listening to it , you discover an aristocratic red-neck , one of the saltiest guitar ever heard, a shootist. For the rest of it , the song remains the same. Always the same old story of honky tonks and Gents Roms graffitis. Wilhelm sings like an open fly and the guitar sounds like a three days hangover. Put a pinafore on before you play it. The intro of "Styrofoam" is gonna spit greasy stains on your tie. It's not genuine country music, it's not genuine blues. It's not country blues either. It's just another bottle smashed on your face, a corny crack & a splash of muddy poetry that sang lullabies to one another. Picture this ! You 've just wasted five bucks on that ! Serves you right." L. Chalumeau (Sleeve notes).
Cd artwork by MAX !