John Primer

Chicago guitarist John Primer had already logged extensive time in the trenches by the point he recorded The Real Deal for producer Mike Vernon on the Atlantic-distributed Code Blue imprint. Thirteen years as Magic Slim & the Teardrops’ steadfast rhythm player preceded that project, and earlier still he had anchored the bands of Chicago legends Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon.

Those long apprenticeships shaped a guitar style anchored in the unvarnished, hard-driving Chicago blues tradition of earlier decades. Primer emerged as one of the city’s few remaining purists, delivering music that was abrasive, direct, and deeply satisfying.

By his arrival in Chicago in 1963 he already knew the raw sounds of Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed, B.B. and Albert King, and Elmore James. He led a West Side group called the Maintainers that blended soul and blues, then spent nine years in the house band at the South Side landmark Theresa’s Lounge, where guitarist Sammy Lawhorn helped refine his developing approach.

Willie Dixon recruited him in 1979 for a Mexico City engagement. After roughly a year with Dixon’s All-Stars, Primer moved into Muddy Waters’s final band and remained until the Chicago blues giant’s death in 1983. He then joined Magic Slim, their guitar styles meshing so naturally that the collaboration felt permanent.

Primer nevertheless sought his own recognition. In 1993 Michael Frank’s Earwig label released his first domestic album, Stuff You Got to Watch, a powerful evocation of 1950s Chicago blues driven by Primer’s economical guitar lines and plain-spoken vocals. The 1995 release of The Real Deal, again produced by Vernon and supported by harpist Billy Branch, pianist David Maxwell, and bassist Johnny B. Gayden, positioned him for wider attention. He subsequently recorded for the Wolf label, issuing Cold Blooded Blues Man in 1997, Blues Behind Closed Doors in 1998, and It’s a Blues Life in 2000.