NOT YOUR USUAL BLUESMAN …

JULIO FINN BAND
RAINBOWS ALL OVER MY BLUES
LP BARCLAY 920 241T (1970).

A little-known album by American blues expats’ in Paris.  The album was released on the French BARCLAY label and was not distributed outside of Europe.   

BUT WHO IS JULIO FINN ? 

It may come as a surprise but Julio Finn is NOT  … Jerome Arnold as I had written here earlier on the basis of erroneous  information gathered from the web (see Stefan Wirz comments).

Si ce n'est toi, c'est donc ton frere!

.Et oui, according to Salla Day - whom I thank profusely for setting the record right (see comments)  - Julio Finn is Augustus Arnold and therefore the brother to harmonica player Billy Boy Arnold, and to Jerome Arnold, bass-player for Howlin Wolf and the first incarnation of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
Thereby Julio Finn is NOT the man who played bass at Newport 1965 for Bob Dylan's debute electric performance.  .

Jerome Arnold who is NOT Julio Finn

Julio Finn who is NOT Jerome Arnold

I could not get much biographical details about Julio Finn.  It seems that he moved from the States to Europe (France?) by the late 60s/early 70s. where he played harmonica with jazz acts, including Archie Shepp (for instance on the album Black Gipsy) and the Art Ensemble of Chicago (Certain Blacks, recorded in Paris in 1970). On the 1970 eponymously-titled album by Archie Shepp & Philly Joe Jones, Finn is credited as composer of the 21-minute-long ‘Howling in the Silence’, on which he contributes vocals as well as harmonica. 

In 1981 he was asked to write the sleevenotes for the UK label Charley’s album Crying and Pleading, by his brother Billy Boy Arnold. He agreed, mentioned their relationship in his notes but still signed as Julio Finn. Interested in gay rights and in black history, he wrote the 1986 book The Blues Man: The Musical Heritage of Black Men and Women in the Americas, which was published in London by Quartet Books. 

Finn still keeps open his playing and academic options, and still ranges widely without abandoning the blues. In 1998 he played harmonica on the Linton Kwesi Johnson album Independent Intavenshan; in 2000 he was the respondent at a panel discussion on ‘The Blues as Individual and Collective History’ at a conference on ‘The Blues Tradition’ at Penn State University.

The band / 

Credits

Harmonica, Vocals – Julio Finn
Vocals – Chicago Beau
Saxophone – Jimmy Conley (B2 only)
Guitar [Lead] – Eddie Tuleja
Piano – Ron Altbach , Memphis Slim (on B2 only)
Bass – Didier Alexandre
Drums – Wells Kelly

Lincoln T. Beauchamp, Jr. AKA Chicago Beau is also a bluesman with a keen interest in jazz and in writings: As a writer, Chicago Beau has written numerous articles and three books: Great Black Music-The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Blues Stories, and BluesSpeak: Best of the Original Chicago Blues Annual,  published in March 2010 by the University of Illinois Press. He was working with trumpeter Lester Bowie on his Autobiography at the time of his death. 

Eddie Tuleja, Ron Altbach, Didier Alexander and Wells Kelly recorded an even more obscure blues rock album as KING HARVEST on the Calumet label (“I can tell”).  If anybody has this album, I’d love to hear / post a rip.  

Tracklist

1. Chicken Shack Written-By – J. Finn ?????? 4:17
2. I Wish You Would Written-By – Billy Boy Arnold 7:10
   Vocals – Chicago Beau
3. Misha's Blues Written-By – J. Finn 6:12
   Vocals – Julio Finn
4.  Think You're So Fine Written-By – L. Beauchamp 3:09
   Vocals – Chicago Beau
5.  Change My Way Of Living Written By – E. Cobb 3:31
   Vocals – Eddie Tuleja
6. Memphis-Chicago Blues Written-By – L. Beauchamp, P. Chatman 8:45
   Piano – Memphis Slim / Saxophone – Jimmy Conley / Vocals – Chicago Beau
7. Women's Liberation Blues Written-By – J. Finn 3:50
   Vocals – Chicago Beau
8. Ain't Nobody Gonna Steal My Jellyroll Arranged By – J. Finn 4:00
   Vocals – Chicago Beau

Chicago Beau

Thanks to SALLA DAY (see comments) for litfing the mystery of Julio Finn true identity.