The James Harman Band - Those Dangerous Gentlemens

[@jamesharman413]

Hey y'all, I just wanted to mention that the female voice you hear on a few of these songs is my old buddy Bonnie Bramlett from Mississippi. She came in cold and knocked those vocal tracks out in as long as it took to run 'em down... THEN we got some wine goin' and told stories the rest of the night. Bonnie had been the only white girl singing backgrounds live with Otis Redding... she flat gets it!!! Be sure to look her up and buy all her old releases. Also of note, the background vocals on "VooDoo Love" are done by the DAZ Band; they happened to be in the studio that day working on one of their albums. They needed some crowd hubbub for their song "Kremptonite" and my engineer, Jerry Hall, and I did that for them. They in turn come over to our room and knocked out this background track in a few minutes. I sang the melody to them once and they went into the vocal booth and recorded their part in one take. Those cats were hilarious and extremely professional. I will always be indebted to them; in my opinion their background makes the song come to life! As always my opinion is that all good singers came up out of the church!!! I hope you enjoy these old recordings. Carry on!

[@robt5818]

Delaney & Bonnie were awesome too...Becka has a voice for sure.

[@scottmaddox4469]

Bonnie wrote carpenters hit SUPERSTAR w/ Donnie and Leon Russell. Sonic youth covered it too

[@tomhorning1097]

Reminded again how great James Harmon was over decades of hearing his bands with so many different players. Especially like Goatman Holler. So many layers of raw blues tones. Kid Ramos, Hollywood Fats. JH's soulful harp. Excellent!

[@jamesharman413]

I would also like to tell everybody how much I hated this album cover. My artist had created a great cover, but the geniuses at Rhino decided to have their staff art guy do this one instead. While they were at it they cut Hollywood Fat's pictures out because he had recently died!!! Now most of you can hear that Fats was certainly still part of my band and appears on most of these songs, but the Rhino folks didn't want to be promoting a dead guy, so they cut my picture out of a suits session and added it to one of Kid, Willie & Stephen from a casual clothes session and just left Fats out altogether... Needless to say I left Rhino over this action. I then moved on to Black Top Record next. The correct art had an animal hide stretched over bamboo poles and laced with barbed wire, the title was just "DANGEROUS" . The back of the album was Stephen Hodges' 32" bass drum, with the one word "DANGEROUS" written on it in blood..There were five small photos of us across the bottom. I was on tour in Europe when my artist delivered it to Rhino. They told him I didn't like it... and told me his cover wouldn't work, so they lied to us both and had their art dept create this monstrosity with the circus lettering. I hated it immediately, and still do to this day. My contract called for me to have 100% last word on art, but those were the old days of records, I have had total control of all my releases since then. I'm sorry if this speech was a drag, but now that I am officially OLD I had to finally get all this off my chest. Thank you for reading it. Carry on!

[@michaelmetzger3390]

Great album, James. You guys hit it hard. Love this.

[@williethetaper]

Good to hear from ya, brother.

[@robt5818]

You can cut him off the cover but not out of our hearts.

[@johnhackley1626]

RIP; James Harman

[@stephenkatko3236]

Used to watch this dude in California in the 90's. Always had a great band, sang his ass off as well.

[@Dobie_Gillis]

Thanks for keeping the following alive. This guy is an American original.

[@tommclean4001]

awesome album! More people have to listen to this! Real Music, not the pablum they play on radio today....

[@ThePduncan742]

One word to describe this one.. SMOKIN!!!

[@acarmel380]

I saw these guys in the early eighties at the Roxy. They had Hollywood Fats on guitar and tore it up. The show also had Top Jimmy and the Rhythym Pigs. The headliners were The Blasters with Gene Wilson on piano and Steve Berlin on sax. I think Berlin also played with the Rhythm Pigs that night. Incredible show but then I think The Blasters were the best band out of that time, when Phil and Dave played together.

[@SRSmith-pk4yo]

I saw The Blasters dozens of times in the early 80s ! @ The Cuckoo's/Concert Factory in Costa Mesa, The Palace in Hollywood, The Music Machine in W.L A ! All over Southern Cal. ! ~ What A Band ! ~ American Music ! Saw The James Harman Band a lot also . . . What a great time for music in SoCal !

[@jhoskins5630]

Gene Taylor piano w/ The Blasters (& Harman, T-Birds, Kim Wilson, Cannen Heat, Ricky Nelson,...)

[@vittoriomoscatelli5349]

A truly masterpiece. Thanks!

[@jakiee11]

i remember seeing 1 of there shows in hollywood Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pig's opened for them blew me away ohhh good time's ---RIP Top Cat

[@ronettepatterson8409]

Remember them when I was in high school at HBHS! They were literally a "garage band" then. They were some of my little brother's best friends. RIP Steve Lombardi. He got me to come over (they lived in the same tract) to listen to them jam and I could not believe how good they were even as kids.

[@jamesharman413]

Wrong! I was 40 years old and had been in the music business since the early 60s, ... that was just where YOU came into the movie!

[@luisdelatorre3051]

This was my intro to James....a wonderful exuberant recording bordering into a more mainstream sound...absolutely stunning record

[@deanmurphy761]

I love this! Heard "Goat Man Holler" on the radio. That was it for me. Saw "The James Harman Band" at Morgenfield's in Portland, Maine many years ago. They were great! Chatted a little with James. Great guy!

[@nelsonx5326]

This album was recommended to me when it first came out. In about 2 minutes it was my new favorite. I saw them too, shortly after this album came out, in Amagansett N.Y. I talked to James too. Great guy!

[@davesimmons6517]

THE REAL DEAL.

[@MyChrisfish]

Dave Simmons the real deal

[@firefrets2162]

Amazing album. Some of the stuff I've watched Of Harman since first seeing this is far more traditional Chicago type, but this is fabulous. Thank you for posting it.

[@lilabrown1980]

Oh WOW thankyou so much for this fantastic album! Played the hell out this when I worked on a little community radio station in Tucson, AZ - KXCI and saw them when they came to play at El Casino. Love this band so much!! Just delighted to find this album here! Will FOR SURE being checking the web site. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!

[@RK-xv9rp]

I was there that night, and you couldn't help but dance!

[@SRSmith-pk4yo]

Love this album ! Thanks !

[@ellis61wolf]

awesome!

[@jjslim3624]

I agree! ;)

[@Harmonicamatt2]

Sounds Great!

[@robt5818]

James, this is one my favorite records, EVER. I have worn the grooves out of a couple of copies...thank you for keeping blues alive!

[@swinginonthespiral8765]

37:08

[@drummer42050]

well done merican music,uh