John P. Hammond
Encyclopedia
John Paul Hammond is an American blues
singer and guitarist
. The son of record producer John H. Hammond
, he is sometimes referred to as "John Hammond, Jr.".
and his first wife, Jemison McBride, an actress. He is a descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt
, founder of the prominent Vanderbilt family
. He has a brother, Jason, and by his father's second marriage to Esme O'Brien Sarnoff, he has a stepsister, (Esme) Rosita Sarnoff. Hammond's middle name, Paul, is in honor of a friend of his father, the actor Paul Robeson
. However, the younger Hammond was raised by his mother and only saw his father a few times a year while growing up.
He began playing guitar in high school, partially inspired by the album Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall
. He attended Antioch College
for one year, but dropped out to pursue a music career. By the mid-1960s he was touring nationally and living in Greenwich Village
. He befriended and recorded with many electric blues musicians in New York, including Jimi Hendrix
, Eric Clapton
, The Hawks (later known as The Band
), Dr. John
and Duane Allman
.
and sings in a barrelhouse
style. Since 1962, when he made his debut on Vanguard Records
, Hammond has made thirty four album
s. In the 1990s he began recording on the Point Blank Records
label. Hammond has earned one Grammy Award
and been nominated for four others. He also provided the soundtrack
for the 1970 film
, Little Big Man
, starring Dustin Hoffman
.
Although critically acclaimed, Hammond has received only moderate commercial success. Nonetheless, he enjoys a strong fan base and has earned respect from the likes of John Lee Hooker
, Roosevelt Sykes
, Duane Allman
, Robbie Robertson
and Charlie Musselwhite
, all of whom have contributed their musical talents to Hammond's records
. In addition, he is the only person who ever had both Eric Clapton
and Jimi Hendrix
in his band
at the same time, if only for five days in the 1960s when Hammond played The Gaslight Cafe
in New York City
. To his regret, they never recorded together. It has been suggested by at least one author that Hammond deserves some credit for helping boost The Band
to wider recognition. He recorded with several of the members of The Band in 1965, and recommended them to Bob Dylan
, with whom they undertook a famed and tumultuous world tour.
In the early part of the 1990s, Hammond hosted the 1991 UK television documentary The Search for Robert Johnson
, detailing the life of the legendary Delta bluesman, Robert Johnson.
Hammond has had a longstanding friendship with the songwriter Tom Waits
, and has performed Waits' song
s on occasion. In 2001, he released Wicked Grin, an album entirely of Tom Waits compositions with one exception, the traditional spiritual
, "I know I've Been Changed." Waits himself provided guitar work and backing vocals
as well as producing the project.
In 2002 he released Ready for Love, produced by David Hidalgo
of Los Lobos
fame. It included a cover version
of the Mick Jagger
and Keith Richards
penned, "The Spider and the Fly
".
His most recent album, entitled Push Comes to Shove produced by Garrett (G. Love) Dutton, was released in February 2007.
In 2011 Hammond was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame
of the Blues Foundation
.
He married his second wife, Marla, in 1983.
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
singer and guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
. The son of record producer John H. Hammond
John H. Hammond
John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
, he is sometimes referred to as "John Hammond, Jr.".
Background
He is a son of the famed record producer and talent scout John Henry Hammond, Jr.John H. Hammond
John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
and his first wife, Jemison McBride, an actress. He is a descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt , also known by the sobriquet Commodore, was an American entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history...
, founder of the prominent Vanderbilt family
Vanderbilt family
The Vanderbilt family is an American family of Dutch origin prominent during the Gilded Age. It started off with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthropy...
. He has a brother, Jason, and by his father's second marriage to Esme O'Brien Sarnoff, he has a stepsister, (Esme) Rosita Sarnoff. Hammond's middle name, Paul, is in honor of a friend of his father, the actor Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
. However, the younger Hammond was raised by his mother and only saw his father a few times a year while growing up.
He began playing guitar in high school, partially inspired by the album Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall
Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall
Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall is a double LP album by Jimmy Reed, released in 1961. Though the title suggests that the record was recorded live, it consists of a studio recreation of a Carnegie Hall performance on one disc and a second disc that is identical to an LP released separately as The Best...
. He attended Antioch College
Antioch College
Antioch College is a private, independent liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, United States. It was the founder and the flagship institution of the six-campus Antioch University system. Founded in 1852 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1853 with politician and...
for one year, but dropped out to pursue a music career. By the mid-1960s he was touring nationally and living in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
. He befriended and recorded with many electric blues musicians in New York, including Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, The Hawks (later known as The Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...
), Dr. John
Dr. John
Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, Jr. , better known by the stage name Dr. John , is an American singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist, whose music combines blues, pop, jazz as well as Zydeco, boogie woogie and rock and roll.Active as a session musician since the late 1950s, he came to wider...
and Duane Allman
Duane Allman
Howard Duane Allman was an American guitarist, session musician and the primary co-founder of the southern rock group The Allman Brothers Band...
.
Career
Hammond usually plays acoustically, choosing National Reso-Phonic GuitarsNational Reso-Phonic Guitars
National Reso-Phonic Guitars is a manufacturer of resonator guitars and other resonator instruments including mandolins, ukuleles and 12 string guitars.The company was formed in 1989 by Don Young and McGregor Gaines, in a Californian garage...
and sings in a barrelhouse
Boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...
style. Since 1962, when he made his debut on Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
, Hammond has made thirty four album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
s. In the 1990s he began recording on the Point Blank Records
Point Blank Records
Point Blank Records is a record label subsidiary of Virgin Records.Point Blank Records was founded in 1998 by John Wooler. Wooler served as Deputy Head of A&R at Virgin Records UK from 1984-1994 and Senior Vice President of Virgin Records US from 1994-2002. He had a passion for blues, Americana...
label. Hammond has earned one Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
and been nominated for four others. He also provided the soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
for the 1970 film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, Little Big Man
Little Big Man
Little Big Man is a 1970 American Western film directed by Arthur Penn and based on the 1964 comic novel by Thomas Berger. It is a picaresque comedy about a Caucasian boy raised by the Cheyenne nation during the 19th century...
, starring Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....
.
Although critically acclaimed, Hammond has received only moderate commercial success. Nonetheless, he enjoys a strong fan base and has earned respect from the likes of John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...
, Roosevelt Sykes
Roosevelt Sykes
Roosevelt Sykes was an American blues musician, also known as "The Honeydripper". He was a successful and prolific cigar-chomping blues piano player, whose rollicking thundering boogie-woogie was highly influential.-Career:Born in Elmar, Arkansas, Sykes grew up near Helena but at age 15, went on...
, Duane Allman
Duane Allman
Howard Duane Allman was an American guitarist, session musician and the primary co-founder of the southern rock group The Allman Brothers Band...
, Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson, OC; is a Canadian singer-songwriter, and guitarist. He is best known for his membership as the guitarist and primary songwriter within The Band. He was ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time...
and Charlie Musselwhite
Charlie Musselwhite
Charlie Musselwhite is an American electric blues harmonica player and bandleader, one of the non-black bluesmen who came to prominence in the early 1960s, along with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield. Though he has often been identified as a "white bluesman", he claims Native American heritage...
, all of whom have contributed their musical talents to Hammond's records
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
. In addition, he is the only person who ever had both Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
and Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
in his band
Band (music)
In music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform music. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* All-female band* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band...
at the same time, if only for five days in the 1960s when Hammond played The Gaslight Cafe
The Gaslight Cafe
The Gaslight Cafe was an American coffee house located in the basement of 116 MacDougal Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. To his regret, they never recorded together. It has been suggested by at least one author that Hammond deserves some credit for helping boost The Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...
to wider recognition. He recorded with several of the members of The Band in 1965, and recommended them to Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, with whom they undertook a famed and tumultuous world tour.
In the early part of the 1990s, Hammond hosted the 1991 UK television documentary The Search for Robert Johnson
The Search for Robert Johnson
The Search for Robert Johnson is a 1991 UK television documentary film about the legendary Delta blues musician Robert Johnson, hosted by John Hammond, and produced and directed by Chris Hunt...
, detailing the life of the legendary Delta bluesman, Robert Johnson.
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, and has performed Waits' song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
s on occasion. In 2001, he released Wicked Grin, an album entirely of Tom Waits compositions with one exception, the traditional spiritual
Spiritual (music)
Spirituals are religious songs which were created by enslaved African people in America.-Terminology and origin:...
, "I know I've Been Changed." Waits himself provided guitar work and backing vocals
Backing vocalist
A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...
as well as producing the project.
In 2002 he released Ready for Love, produced by David Hidalgo
David Hidalgo
David Hidalgo is an American singer-songwriter, best known for his work with the band Los Lobos. He is also a member of the supergroup Los Super Seven and of the Latin Playboys, a side project band made up of some of the members of Los Lobos...
of Los Lobos
Los Lobos
Los Lobos are a multiple Grammy Award–winning American Chicano rock band from East Los Angeles, California. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional Spanish and Mexican music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños.-History:The...
fame. It included a cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of the Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
and Keith Richards
Keith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
penned, "The Spider and the Fly
The Spider and the Fly (song)
"The Spider and the Fly" is a song by British rock and roll band The Rolling Stones first released on the US version of their 1965 album Out of Our Heads. In the UK it was released as the B side to " Satisfaction"....
".
His most recent album, entitled Push Comes to Shove produced by Garrett (G. Love) Dutton, was released in February 2007.
In 2011 Hammond was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame
Blues Hall of Fame
The Blues Hall of Fame is a listing of people who have significantly contributed to blues music. Started in 1980 by the Blues Foundation, it honors those who have performed, recorded, or documented blues.-1980:*Big Bill Broonzy*Willie Dixon*John Lee Hooker...
of the Blues Foundation
Blues Foundation
The Blues Foundation is an American nonprofit corporation, headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, that is affiliated with more than 175 Blues organizations from various parts of the world....
.
Marriages
Hammond married his first wife, Dana McDevitt, a daughter of John Burke McDevitt, on October 21, 1967. They later divorced.He married his second wife, Marla, in 1983.
See also
- List of blues musicians
- List of contemporary blues musicians
- List of blues rock musicians
- List of Austin City Limits performers