There’s already a blogpost featuring this song, dating from the very earliest days of the blog in which I included it in a post outlining my favourite tracks from Peel’s final Radio 1 show. I put that up at the time without comments to mark the tenth anniversary of Peel’s final Radio 1 broadcast, but back then I was still figuring out how this blog would work and I didn’t want to focus too much on the end of Peel’s career. But, 11 years before his death, Hush-Hush, originally recorded by his beloved Jimmy Reed in 1960, was cropping up on this 22/5/93 show, and in doing so, finally ensured Reed took his place on the metaphorical mixtape.
I still hold to my earlier contention that all Jimmy Reed songs sound the same. Indeed, one of the reasons why Hush-Hush has been included here is because I briefly thought it was actually Too Much*, my favourite Reed song. But, as overused as it is, the rolling blues scale which underpins Hush-Hush and most other Reed songs, sweeps the listener in to shoulder-rolling-head-bobbing submission.
Peel spoke once about how, as a live performer, Reed tended to sing more slowly as his set progressed, and there are moments here where he sounds like he’s singing a song called Hughe-Hughe, but with his lyrical parries to the attacks of a nagging, suspicious partner, he also manages to provide inspiration to future songs as diverse as Rabbit by Chas and Dave and It Wasn’t Me by Shaggy.
Samey? Pretty much, yeah. Influential? Obviously!
*Apologies for not doing a link to Too Much, but I’m sure it’ll turn up on a Peel show I’m covering at some point in the future, and I’d like to hold it back as a treat.
Video courtesy of Carlos Rasool.
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