gutbucket

“He gave me a real gutbucket blues theme that not only worked for the scene, but drove the momentum of the picture. I asked for another theme that matched the scale of the landscape, the mystery. He gave me that and more.”

When Simone performed it at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1966, she introduced it as “a gutbucket blues.”

Then, in the mid-1950s, a few promoters began bringing some of those very same hitmakers on tours through the region, so the locals got to witness genuine gutbucket R&B stars live and in person.

A gutbucket instrumental, “Green Onions” served as a prototype for the groove-steeped, blues- and gospel-bred music that became synonymous with Stax — a sound as lean and funky as Motown’s was lush and refined.

The main body of the tune, a gutbucket blues passacaglia over which trumpet, clarinet, saxophone and piano solo, conjures in my mind a sublime sense of foreboding which perfectly sets up the mood for the entire movie.