All Your Love
Twenty-year-old Samuel Maghett arrived at Cobra Records in 1957 and completely upended the Chicago blues guitar vocabulary. For his debut single, "All Your Love" (a completely different song from Otis Rush's later track of a similar name), Magic Sam abandoned the standard 12-bar shuffle. He played a driving, propulsive rhythm, heavily soaking his electric guitar in a watery tremolo effect. Singing with a high, clear, gospel-inflected voice, Sam created a modern, urgent sound that cut entirely through the dense, heavy atmosphere of the older Delta migrants, officially launching his tragically short career as a West Side legend.
The floating-verse lineage for this recording (who else recorded it, where the melody or lyric traveled, and how it was adapted) is still being mapped. This section will trace the song's DNA across the archive.
Contributions welcome at OlMrRead@ccblues.com.