{"id":14714,"date":"2018-06-21T05:30:57","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T09:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=14714"},"modified":"2018-06-21T11:18:37","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T15:18:37","slug":"album-review-little-willie-john-fever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/21\/album-review-little-willie-john-fever\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Little Willie John &#8212; Fever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-14715\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/lwj_fever.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/lwj_fever.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/lwj_fever-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/lwj_fever-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>Little Willie John\u2019s time in the spotlight was relatively brief; his album-making career on King Records lasted only from 1956 to \u201862. His debut LP, <i>Fever<\/i>, founding him roaring out of the gate: a dozen songs, all killer, no filler. Albums weren\u2019t the primary musical format in \u201856, so <em>Fever<\/em> is to some extent a collection of songs previously released as singles. \u201cFever\u201d remains his best-known number, but it displays merely one dimension of John\u2019s range and expression. His first solo single, \u201cAll Around the World\u201d had been released as both a 45 and a shellac 78 in July 1955, and \u2013 as the liner notes on this replica sleeve remind us \u2013 the single moved nearly a third of a million copies.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a deep blues foundation to the songs on this collection, but they\u2019re delivered in a style that transcends that genre, just as Ray Charles\u2019 music could never be confined to one style. There are romantic weepers (\u201cSuffering with the Blues\u201d) and uptempo R&amp;B numbers (\u201cI\u2019m Sticking with You Baby\u201d) and an unaccredited duet (\u201cDinner Date,\u201d humorously credited on the single to \u201cLittle Willie John and His Girl Friend\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGrits ain\u2019t groceries\u201d is one of several immortal phrases found in \u201cAll Around the World.\u201d In fact plenty of people likely thought that was the name of the tune. No matter; it\u2019s a fantastic number that is in the grand tradition of jump blues, the under-appreciated variant of music that hews quite close to rock \u2018n\u2019 roll. In fact one can easily consider <i>this<\/i> music rock \u2018n\u2019 roll. Whatever you call it, <em>Fever<\/em> is every bit as essential as <i>Here\u2019s Little Richard<\/i>, released a year later.<\/p>\n<p>Modern Harmonic\u2019s reissue \u2013 available June 22 \u2013 duplicates the original sleeve in most every way, right down to the \u201cyou may also enjoy\u201d suggestions on the back of the jacket. The record itself, however, is 180-gram vinyl (white with streaks of yellow), in glorious back-to-mono and sporting the original King center label.<\/p>\n<p><b>Nota bene<\/b>: There is perhaps no better companion to this record than <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/07\/12\/book-review-fever-little-willie-john-a-fast-life-mysterious-death-and-the-birth-of-soul\/\">Susan Whitall\u2019s biography of Little Willie John<\/a>. And <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2012\/07\/10\/a-conversation-with-little-willie-john-biographer-susan-whitall-part-one\/\">my interview with the author<\/a> makes good reading, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Little Willie John\u2019s time in the spotlight was relatively brief; his album-making career on King Records lasted only from 1956 to \u201862. His debut LP, Fever, founding him roaring out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14715,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,62,64,65,73],"tags":[1326,2973],"class_list":["post-14714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rb","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","category-vinyl","tag-little-willie-john","tag-modern-harmonic","cat-60-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14714"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14756,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14714\/revisions\/14756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}