ABSTRACT
Next up was another instrumental, also logged at the time as "no title." Another sprightly paced piece, this one is driven by a clip-clop "country shuffle" rhythm pattern by Below and Crawford. It features some rapidfire, well-conceived riffing by Walter, which he'd been working on in-between takes of the other tunes he recorded that day. Only one take was recorded. It's unlikely that this was because they felt they'd perfected it on the first take; the band seems a little tentative at the start, and Louis fumbles awkwardly through his guitar break in the middle of the song. More likely Chess realized that the clock was ticking, they'd been at it for a good while now, and what they really needed was a strong vocal number for the "A" side of Walter's next single, not another instrumental "B" side. (It was finally issued many years later titled "Don't Need No Horse," the name assigned then by a Chess producer because the tune reminded him of a later Junior Wells-Earl Hooker piece called "Galloping Horse And A Lazy Mille.")
The last tune Walter attempted at this session was a cover version of the breakthrough 1945 Charles Brown hit "Drifting Blues."Take I follows Brown's lyrics closely, but in the middle Walter inserts a break, borrowing the distinctive stop-time bridge from tenor sax player Jimmy Forrest's huge number-one hit from just a few months earlier, "Night Train." After the first tentative run-through, Walter decides to switch to a key that better suits his vocal range, and at Leonard's suggestion, changes the final verse. Understanding the importance of radio air play,he changes the final line of the song to "I'm gonna get some disc jockey, to play my blues to you." In between takes Walter can be heard singing the line for himself, then satisfiedly saying, "That's just what I'm gonna do Mama, Get some disc jockey to play my blues to you!"Take 2 is a bit slower and more soulful, and although it's marked on the session log as the master, like the first version, it's marred by a sloppy break in the middle as the band falters its way through the "Night Train" quote. It appears that all the tracks cut that day were held back because Chess was looking for numbers that made harder-hitting first impressions, and which could match the impact of Walter's other efforts for the label.
