It was a little like a surprise birthday party, except the guest of honor was notified a few weeks in advance so he could clear his schedule for the night. This Sunday is Jim Liban Day in the City of Milwaukee, complete with a proclamation from Mayor Tom Barrett. The event was organized by two of the veteran bluesman’s old associates, Kurt Koenig and Jim Feeney, after they realized that Milwaukee’s harmonica master is marking 50 years as a professional.
“It was a complete surprise to me,” Liban says. “I was bowled over but have mixed feelings. A lot of guys I know have played as long as I have and aren’t being acknowledged.”
But he accepts the honor with grace, coming as it does on the heels of his first recording in 10 years. Not unlike Jim Liban Day, his new CD, I Say What I Mean, was driven by fan enthusiasm. Liban’s onetime guitarist, Joel Paterson, long since moved to Chicago, organized the session. Choosing the songs from a raft of Liban demo tapes spanning the ’70s through the ’10s, Paterson produced the session and released the results on his own Ventrella label.
The songs are Chicago house rockers and blues on the verge of rockabilly, wrapped in a sonic envelope replicating productions from Chicago’s famed Chess Studio in the ’50s. The album’s drop-dead number, “No More Alcohol,” emerges from those dark crevices of echo beloved by Leonard Chess in his sessions with Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Liban credits Paterson, a rising star in Chicago’s retro music subculture. “All of these 30-40-somethings are dedicated to studying the older styles of music—swing, country swing, jump blues, rockabilly,” Liban says with a note of surprise. He admits to being baffled by their attention, but concedes that he was little different when he performed his earliest gigs at Milwaukee’s Avant-Garde Coffee House 50 years ago. Back then, he looked to an older generation of African American bluesmen for inspiration. Of course, he adds, “The guys I learned from were still alive and working.”
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Compounding the aural authenticity of I Say What I Mean was the vintage set-up at Chicago’s Hi-Style Studio, where the reel-to-reel tape machines and microphones date from the 1950s. Digital is a dirty word at Hi-Style. “I was skeptical about recording this way,” admits Liban, whose first studio sessions in the late ’60s already involved multi-tracking and overdubbing. “We did I Say What I Mean in one room in real time. The music was allowed to breath! If I do any more albums, I’ll do them like this one.”
Liban maintained a steady, under-the-radar schedule of gigs over the past 10 years as he grappled with the death of his wife Ann and his own bout with cancer. He hopes the attention his new album is gaining in Americana circles will lead to more dates and even a short European jaunt next spring. Liban earned his living as a musician throughout his life, which sometimes meant compromising with the trends of the moment. His long-running band Short Stuff went disco for two years in the late ’70s to survive, and dabbled in “techno blues” during the early ’80s new wave. The blues has always been his bedrock, and maybe now, the rising tide of interest in older American music will bring him another round of success performing the music he loves.
The Jim Liban Day concert will take place at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 26 at Shank Hall, 1434 N. Farwell Ave. Featured performers include Jr. Brantley, Jim Solberg, Greg Koch, Steve Cohen and many other local musicians.
