Who was/is John & Sylvia Embry ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more
John & Sylvia Embry
Johnny 'Guitar' Embry. Among the practitioners of urban blues in Chicago, a small group of relatively unknown musicians evolved a hard-hitting style of ringing, cutting guitar playing that makes no concessions to disco, rock or slick soul. These men played regularly for black audiences on Chicago's south and west sides, yet only occasionally played the more lucrative white clubs on the north side. Johnny 'Guitar' Embry is perhaps the bluest of these all-blue guitar players.
Since he first stepped onto the bandstand 16 years ago at Turner's Lounge, he played with and learned from many of the city's finest bluesmen, including Muddy Waters, and worked with Hound Dog Taylor when the group broadcast live on the Big Bill Hill Show. Johnny now performs at Buddy Guy's Checkerboard Lounge (where he sometimes teams up with his wife Sylvia, who plays bass for Lefty Dizz), Theresa's, Florence's and many of the city's popular blues clubs. In summer he can often be found surrounded by a rowdy crowd at Chicago's famous open-air market on Maxwell Street, a place he likes to play because, he says, he can relax and does not have to take a break. Johnny credits Buddy Guy, Albert King and Sammy Lawhorn as influences. While his style is strictly urban, he notes that Jimmy Reed was the first bluesman to catch his ear. The two men became friends, and Johnny recalled that Jimmy Reed would often stay at his house when the elder bluesman was in town.
A religious man, Johnny Embry was playing organ and guitar in church long before he began to play professionally. He said that although some people claim you are serving the devil by playing the blues, he does not see it that way, holding that spirituals and blues are the same thing, just expressed a little differently. Johnny 'Guitar' Embry's new 45 was his first effort on wax. It was recorded during the blizzard of 1979 at Chicago's Sound Studios (where many of the excellent Delmark LPs were recorded) on January 18.
It was 20 below zero outside, but the music inside was hot, the kind you can hear all the way down the block on a Chicago summer night. Every effort was made to reproduce the live sound of a club date while retaining the full fidelity of a studio recording. The resulting tracks speak for themselves. So if you like your blues straight, try Johnny 'Guitar' Embry's record. As Johnny says, the blues can never be killed off completely, for people still keep it at home under the bed. - Yours truly, Mark Lefens, for Razor Records. John Embry passed away in 1987.
Queen Sylvia Embry. Queen Sylvia Embry was born Sylvia Lee Burton on June 14, 1941 in Wabbaseka, Arkansas. She played piano as a child and sang in church choirs, moving to Memphis when she was 19. She then settled in Chicago in the 1960s, where she eventually became known as the bass-playing vocalist with Lefty Dizz and the Shock Treatment. The group was immensely popular in the late 1970s. They were the Blue Monday house band at the Checkerboard and won a north-side following at the Kingston Mines, playing some of the best and wildest blues music in Chicago. Sylvia met and married John Embry.
They had divorced but were still friends by the time this album was recorded. Most of it, originally issued on Razor Records as 'After Work', was recorded on January 19, 1979. The album and the 45 are both long out of print. They are both presented here with the addition of previously unissued tracks. It seemed as if Sylvia was poised to break through as Chicago's leading blueswoman as she began a professional relationship with Jimmy Dawkins. On a European tour with the American Folk Blues Festival she recorded for the L&R label. It was Sylvia's first full-length LP and featured Jimmy Dawkins, Carey Bell and Jimmy Rogers (issued in the USA on the Evidence label but now out of print). Other appearances followed on anthologies for Arhoolie, Alligator, L-FR and EPM, and a single on Leric (reissued on 'Jimmy Dawkins Presents The Leric Story', Delmark 808).
Sylvia even appeared in a film, 'Mississippi Delta Blues'. She returned to gospel music, but her health declined and she died of cancer on February 28, 1992. 'Troubles' is classic Chicago blues at its best. - Robert G. Koester (thanks to Alligator Records, Mark Lefens and All Music for the above information).
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