Hard Luck Child's Juke Joint

Unreleased Johnny Shines!!!

2011-12-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

Johnny Shines- Live At Court Coffeehouse- Tacoma, 1970

Album Review:

"Here's a complete 2-set performance by Johnny Shines recorded in Tacoma,

WA at the Court Coffeehouse in 1970. The first set is solo acoustic,

and on the somewhat murky sounding second set he is playing electric

and is accompanied by an unknown washtub bass player!"

-blogs.myspace.com/zakandhisunhappyguitar

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/9706438988e2a864/

Way Out In The Country

2011-12-05T11:08:00.000-08:00

Mercy Dee Walton- Troublesome Mind

Album Review:

"Fine 16-song selection from the California-based pianist's 1961 sessions for Chris Strachwitz's Arhoolie logo. A trio of sympathetic cohorts (harpist Sidney Maiden, guitarist K.C. Douglas, and drummer Otis Cherry) give the music a rough-edged barroom feel as Dee pounds out "After the Fight," "Call the Asylum," and a nice remake of his dour "One Room Country Shack.""

-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/97008188453b4c35/

Snooky's Blues

2011-11-16T12:36:00.000-08:00

Snooky Pryor- Snooky Pryor

Album Review:

"These tracks from the JOB label, recorded from the early '50s to early '60s, include the classics "Boogie" and "Stockyard Blues" and the raucous, echo-laden stomp of "Boogie Twist." These are Pryor's finest moments on wax."

-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/962165023d36a4cb/

Spoon's Sound

2011-09-14T13:37:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Witherspoon- Blues Around The Clock

Album Review:

"Veteran singer Jimmy Witherspoon (who bridges the gap between jazz and blues) mostly sticks to the latter on this spirited set. His backup group (organist Paul Griffin, guitarist Lord Westbrook, bassist Leonard Gaskin and drummer Herbie Lovelle) is fine in support, but the spotlight is almost entirely on Witherspoon throughout these ten concise performances, only one of which exceeds four minutes. Highlights include "No Rollin' Blues," "S.K. Blues" and "Around the Clock." Witherspoon is in fine voice and, even if nothing all that memorable occurs, the music is enjoyable."

-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/9444968573a8f3b2/

Play That Old Violin!

2011-09-11T11:56:00.000-07:00

Clifford Hayes & The Dixieland Jug Blowers- Clifford Hayes & The Dixieland Jug Blowers

Biography:

"A shadowy figure in jazz and blues history, Clifford Hayes was a violinist, but was more significant as a leader of recording sessions. He recorded with Sara Martin (1924), and often teamed up with banjoist Cal Smith in early jug bands including the Old Southern Jug Band, Clifford's Louisville Jug Band, the well-known Dixieland Jug Blowers (1926-1927), and Hayes' Louisville Stompers (1927-1929). One of the Dixieland Jug Blowers' sessions featured the great clarinetist Johnny Dodds, while pianist Earl Hines was a surprise star with the otherwise primitive Louisville Stompers (a jug-less group with a front line of Hayes' violin and Hense Grundy's trombone). Clifford Hayes' last recordings were in 1931, and all of his sessions (plus those of some other jug bands) are available on four RST CDs."

-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/94415762238d58cb/

Mellow Mr. Robinson

2011-09-07T14:40:00.000-07:00

Fenton Robinson- Monday Morning Boogie & Blues

Biography:

"His Japanese fans reverently dubbed Fenton Robinson "the mellow blues genius" because of his ultra-smooth vocals and jazz-inflected guitar work. But beneath the obvious subtlety resides a spark of constant regeneration -- Robinson tirelessly strives to invent something fresh and vital whenever he's near a bandstand. The soft-spoken Mississippi native got his career going in Memphis, where he'd moved at age 16. First, Rosco Gordon used him on a 1956 session for Duke that produced "Keep on Doggin'." The next year, Fenton made his own debut as a leader for the Bihari Brothers' Meteor label with his first reading of "Tennessee Woman." His band, the Dukes, included mentor Charles McGowan on guitar. T-Bone Walker and B.B. King were Robinson's idols.

1957 also saw Fenton team up with bassist Larry Davis at the Flamingo Club in Little Rock. Bobby Bland caught the pair there and recommended them to his boss, Duke Records prexy Don Robey. Both men made waxings for Duke in 1958, Robinson playing on Davis' classic "Texas Flood" and making his own statement with "Mississippi Steamboat." Robinson cut the original version of the often-covered Peppermint Harris-penned slow blues "As the Years Go Passing By" for Duke in 1959 with New Orleans prodigy James Booker on piano. The same date also produced a terrific "Tennessee Woman" and a marvelous blues ballad, "You've Got to Pass This Way Again." Fenton moved to Chicago in 1962, playing Southside clubs with Junior Wells, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Otis Rush and laying down the swinging "Say You're Leavin'" for USA in 1966. But it was his stunning slow blues "Somebody (Loan Me a Dime)" cut in 1967 for Palos, that insured his blues immortality. Boz Scaggs liked it so much that he covered it for his 1969 debut LP. Unfortunately, he initially also claimed he wrote the tune; much litigation followed.

John Richbourg's Sound Stage 7/Seventy 7 labels, it's safe to say, didn't really have a clue as to what Fenton Robinson's music was all about. The guitarist's 1970 Nashville waxings for the firm were mostly horrific: he wasn't even invited to play his own guitar on the majority of the horribly unsubtle rock-slanted sides. His musical mindset was growing steadily jazzier by then, not rockier.

Robinson fared a great deal better at his next substantial stop: Chicago's Alligator Records. His 1974 album Somebody Loan Me a Dime remains the absolute benchmark of his career, spotlighting his rich, satisfying vocals and free-spirited, understated guitar work in front of a rock-solid horn-driven band. By comparison, 1977's I Hear Some Blues Downstairs was a trifle disappointing despite its playful title track and a driving T-Bone tribute, "Tell Me What's the Reason." Alligator issued Nightflight, another challenging set, in 1984, then backed off the guitarist. His 1989 disc Special Road, first came out on the Dutch Black Magic logo and was reissued by Evidence Music. Robinson passed away on November 25, 1997 at the age of 62 due to complications from brain cancer."

-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/943705290630da9e/

Wounded Lion On The Prowl

2011-09-05T17:12:00.000-07:00

Johnny Shines- With Big Walter Horton

Review:

"There are plenty of masters of this particular form, and the success of several different record companies recording the genre over the years has assured no shortage of material. Something just comes together splendidly on these sessions that elevates this album well above the level of even some of the great Chicago sides of artists such as Muddy Waters. It might not exude the timeless gold dust of such records, but at the same time has a raw energy and breathless courage that goes well beyond anything the Chess label got on tape in its studios. The sound is also richly thick and loaded with midrange overtones. This benefits not only bass sounds but the presence of the drummers as well. Outrageous drum breaks are one byproduct, and the listener might even sense the ensemble somehow about to topple before everything comes together at the slightest chicken scratch of Johnny Shines' electric guitar. Bringing that subject up: in the late '60s, this artist had yet to start developing his acoustic country blues phase and was playing the electric as if a concrete pick had been welded to his hand. One can only imagine an uptight recording engineer fussing with this sound, trying get something slicker and more professional. Thankfully, the recording teams in charge of this blues masterpiece don't indulge in the quiver, shiver, and shake mentality and just let the sounds go down, including this Shines guitar sound, which is almost more like a living creature scratching at the insides of the speaker box like a misdirected rodent. We are approaching guitar heaven, but it vaults over the gates with the appearance of Luther Allison, whose meaty, juicy tone is the perfect contrast for Shines. This album collects tracks from two different recording sessions a few years apart. Allison is present for only one of the sessions, but the harmonica genius Big Walter Horton is on both dates, flooding the bandstand with chordal cascades and even bringing a frightening edge to some cuts with distorted vocalese. This is not only a great blues record, it is a great party blues record."

-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/94343296d32fa9b0/

Goodness Gracious!

2011-03-31T18:19:00.000-07:00

Jerry Lee Lewis- 18 Original Sun Greatest Hits

Album Review:
"This 18-song CD contains Jerry Lee Lewis' best rock & roll sides from the 240 or so tracks that he recorded for Sun Records. If that sounds like the very tiny tip of a very large iceberg -- it is. But this 1984 compilation remains 40 of rock & roll's hottest minutes, revealing as much about Jerry Lee Lewis as it's possible to learn from watching the movie Great Balls of Fire! The hit singles and best B-sides are assembled around the core of his 1957 Sun album -- a great, and instructive, musical decision. Lewis' rocking version of "Jambalaya" and his ivory-based rendition of "Matchbox," "Big Blon' Baby," "Big Legged Woman," and "It'll Be Me," are all prime examples of his fiercely sexual personality, pounding away on those keys and whooping and hollering like a white version of Piano Red. Equally important, "Crazy Arms" held what would prove to be the key to his professional salvation: a distinct way with a country song that didn't blow the song right apart and also didn't lose the rock 'n roll audience. A big hunk of this stuff is available on the Sun debut album, which should be heard at least once (assuming one can't afford the Bear Family label's Classic box with his whole Sun output), but this is the place to start. The mid-'80s digital transfer still sounds good; its quality proves that Rhino always gave good value to its customers. The guitars on "Put Me Down" and "Wild One" -- yes, there is guitar on a lot of these sides -- are nice and crunchy, even though they're buried under the piano. If there's a flaw here, it's the absence of any liner notes (not that much needs to be said about music like this)."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/88238568911bbde9/

Booked Out And Bound To Go

2011-03-29T16:01:00.000-07:00

Lonnie Johnson- A Life In Music, Selected Sides (1925-1953) (Disc D)

Biography:
"Blues guitar simply would not have developed in the manner that it did if not for the prolific brilliance of Lonnie Johnson. He was there to help define the instrument's future within the genre and the genre's future itself at the very beginning, his melodic conception so far advanced from most of his prewar peers as to inhabit a plane all his own. For more than 40 years, Johnson played blues, jazz, and ballads his way; he was a true blues originator whose influence hung heavy on a host of subsequent blues immortals.

Johnson's extreme versatility doubtless stemmed in great part from growing up in the musically diverse Crescent City. Violin caught his ear initially, but he eventually made the guitar his passion, developing a style so fluid and inexorably melodic that instrumental backing seemed superfluous. He signed up with OKeh Records in 1925 and commenced to recording at an astonishing pace -- between 1925 and 1932, he cut an estimated 130 waxings. The red-hot duets he recorded with white jazz guitarist Eddie Lang (masquerading as Blind Willie Dunn) in 1928-1929 were utterly groundbreaking in their ceaseless invention. Johnson also recorded pioneering jazz efforts in 1927 with no less than Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Duke Ellington's orchestra.

After enduring the Depression and moving to Chicago, Johnson came back to recording life with Bluebird for a five-year stint beginning in 1939. Under the ubiquitous Lester Melrose's supervision, Johnson picked up right where he left off, selling quite a few copies of "He's a Jelly Roll Baker" for old Nipper. Johnson went with Cincinnati-based King Records in 1947 and promptly enjoyed one of the biggest hits of his uncommonly long career with the mellow ballad "Tomorrow Night," which topped the R&B charts for seven weeks in 1948. More hits followed posthaste: "Pleasing You (As Long as I Live)," "So Tired," and "Confused."

Time seemed to have passed Johnson by during the late '50s. He was toiling as a hotel janitor in Philadelphia when banjo player Elmer Snowden alerted Chris Albertson to his whereabouts. That rekindled a major comeback, Johnson cutting a series of albums for Prestige's Bluesville subsidiary during the early '60s and venturing to Europe under the auspices of Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau's American Folk Blues Festival banner in 1963. Finally, in 1969, Johnson was hit by a car in Toronto and died a year later from the effects of the accident.

Johnson's influence was massive, touching everyone from Robert Johnson, whose seminal approach bore strong resemblance to that of his older namesake, to Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, who each paid heartfelt tribute with versions of "Tomorrow Night" while at Sun."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/88404933dc6d3d37/

Swing Out Rhythm

2011-03-25T11:57:00.000-07:00

Lonnie Johnson- A Life In Music, Selected Sides (1925-1953) (Disc C)

Biography:
"Blues guitar simply would not have developed in the manner that it did if not for the prolific brilliance of Lonnie Johnson. He was there to help define the instrument's future within the genre and the genre's future itself at the very beginning, his melodic conception so far advanced from most of his prewar peers as to inhabit a plane all his own. For more than 40 years, Johnson played blues, jazz, and ballads his way; he was a true blues originator whose influence hung heavy on a host of subsequent blues immortals.

Johnson's extreme versatility doubtless stemmed in great part from growing up in the musically diverse Crescent City. Violin caught his ear initially, but he eventually made the guitar his passion, developing a style so fluid and inexorably melodic that instrumental backing seemed superfluous. He signed up with OKeh Records in 1925 and commenced to recording at an astonishing pace -- between 1925 and 1932, he cut an estimated 130 waxings. The red-hot duets he recorded with white jazz guitarist Eddie Lang (masquerading as Blind Willie Dunn) in 1928-1929 were utterly groundbreaking in their ceaseless invention. Johnson also recorded pioneering jazz efforts in 1927 with no less than Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Duke Ellington's orchestra.

After enduring the Depression and moving to Chicago, Johnson came back to recording life with Bluebird for a five-year stint beginning in 1939. Under the ubiquitous Lester Melrose's supervision, Johnson picked up right where he left off, selling quite a few copies of "He's a Jelly Roll Baker" for old Nipper. Johnson went with Cincinnati-based King Records in 1947 and promptly enjoyed one of the biggest hits of his uncommonly long career with the mellow ballad "Tomorrow Night," which topped the R&B charts for seven weeks in 1948. More hits followed posthaste: "Pleasing You (As Long as I Live)," "So Tired," and "Confused."

Time seemed to have passed Johnson by during the late '50s. He was toiling as a hotel janitor in Philadelphia when banjo player Elmer Snowden alerted Chris Albertson to his whereabouts. That rekindled a major comeback, Johnson cutting a series of albums for Prestige's Bluesville subsidiary during the early '60s and venturing to Europe under the auspices of Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau's American Folk Blues Festival banner in 1963. Finally, in 1969, Johnson was hit by a car in Toronto and died a year later from the effects of the accident.

Johnson's influence was massive, touching everyone from Robert Johnson, whose seminal approach bore strong resemblance to that of his older namesake, to Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, who each paid heartfelt tribute with versions of "Tomorrow Night" while at Sun."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/882380627797678d/

Playing With The Strings

2011-03-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

Lonnie Johnson- A Life In Music, Selected Sides (1925-1953) (Disc B)

Biography:
"Blues guitar simply would not have developed in the manner that it did if not for the prolific brilliance of Lonnie Johnson. He was there to help define the instrument's future within the genre and the genre's future itself at the very beginning, his melodic conception so far advanced from most of his prewar peers as to inhabit a plane all his own. For more than 40 years, Johnson played blues, jazz, and ballads his way; he was a true blues originator whose influence hung heavy on a host of subsequent blues immortals.

Johnson's extreme versatility doubtless stemmed in great part from growing up in the musically diverse Crescent City. Violin caught his ear initially, but he eventually made the guitar his passion, developing a style so fluid and inexorably melodic that instrumental backing seemed superfluous. He signed up with OKeh Records in 1925 and commenced to recording at an astonishing pace -- between 1925 and 1932, he cut an estimated 130 waxings. The red-hot duets he recorded with white jazz guitarist Eddie Lang (masquerading as Blind Willie Dunn) in 1928-1929 were utterly groundbreaking in their ceaseless invention. Johnson also recorded pioneering jazz efforts in 1927 with no less than Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Duke Ellington's orchestra.

After enduring the Depression and moving to Chicago, Johnson came back to recording life with Bluebird for a five-year stint beginning in 1939. Under the ubiquitous Lester Melrose's supervision, Johnson picked up right where he left off, selling quite a few copies of "He's a Jelly Roll Baker" for old Nipper. Johnson went with Cincinnati-based King Records in 1947 and promptly enjoyed one of the biggest hits of his uncommonly long career with the mellow ballad "Tomorrow Night," which topped the R&B charts for seven weeks in 1948. More hits followed posthaste: "Pleasing You (As Long as I Live)," "So Tired," and "Confused."

Time seemed to have passed Johnson by during the late '50s. He was toiling as a hotel janitor in Philadelphia when banjo player Elmer Snowden alerted Chris Albertson to his whereabouts. That rekindled a major comeback, Johnson cutting a series of albums for Prestige's Bluesville subsidiary during the early '60s and venturing to Europe under the auspices of Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau's American Folk Blues Festival banner in 1963. Finally, in 1969, Johnson was hit by a car in Toronto and died a year later from the effects of the accident.

Johnson's influence was massive, touching everyone from Robert Johnson, whose seminal approach bore strong resemblance to that of his older namesake, to Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, who each paid heartfelt tribute with versions of "Tomorrow Night" while at Sun."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/8809372262253a54/

To Do This, You Got To Be Lonnie Johnson

2011-03-17T18:43:00.000-07:00

Lonnie Johnson- A Life In Music, Selected Sides (1925-1953) (Disc A)

Biography:
"Blues guitar simply would not have developed in the manner that it did if not for the prolific brilliance of Lonnie Johnson. He was there to help define the instrument's future within the genre and the genre's future itself at the very beginning, his melodic conception so far advanced from most of his prewar peers as to inhabit a plane all his own. For more than 40 years, Johnson played blues, jazz, and ballads his way; he was a true blues originator whose influence hung heavy on a host of subsequent blues immortals.

Johnson's extreme versatility doubtless stemmed in great part from growing up in the musically diverse Crescent City. Violin caught his ear initially, but he eventually made the guitar his passion, developing a style so fluid and inexorably melodic that instrumental backing seemed superfluous. He signed up with OKeh Records in 1925 and commenced to recording at an astonishing pace -- between 1925 and 1932, he cut an estimated 130 waxings. The red-hot duets he recorded with white jazz guitarist Eddie Lang (masquerading as Blind Willie Dunn) in 1928-1929 were utterly groundbreaking in their ceaseless invention. Johnson also recorded pioneering jazz efforts in 1927 with no less than Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Duke Ellington's orchestra.

After enduring the Depression and moving to Chicago, Johnson came back to recording life with Bluebird for a five-year stint beginning in 1939. Under the ubiquitous Lester Melrose's supervision, Johnson picked up right where he left off, selling quite a few copies of "He's a Jelly Roll Baker" for old Nipper. Johnson went with Cincinnati-based King Records in 1947 and promptly enjoyed one of the biggest hits of his uncommonly long career with the mellow ballad "Tomorrow Night," which topped the R&B charts for seven weeks in 1948. More hits followed posthaste: "Pleasing You (As Long as I Live)," "So Tired," and "Confused."

Time seemed to have passed Johnson by during the late '50s. He was toiling as a hotel janitor in Philadelphia when banjo player Elmer Snowden alerted Chris Albertson to his whereabouts. That rekindled a major comeback, Johnson cutting a series of albums for Prestige's Bluesville subsidiary during the early '60s and venturing to Europe under the auspices of Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau's American Folk Blues Festival banner in 1963. Finally, in 1969, Johnson was hit by a car in Toronto and died a year later from the effects of the accident.

Johnson's influence was massive, touching everyone from Robert Johnson, whose seminal approach bore strong resemblance to that of his older namesake, to Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, who each paid heartfelt tribute with versions of "Tomorrow Night" while at Sun."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/87914542e47d350f/

Free And Equal

2011-03-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

Josh White- Bluesman, Guitar Evangelist, Folksinger

Biography:
"Most blues enthusiasts think of Josh White as a folk revival artist. It's true that the second half of his music career found him based in New York playing to the coffeehouse and cabaret set and hanging out with Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, and fellow transplanted blues artists Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. When I saw him in Chicago in the 1960s his shirt was unbuttoned to his waist à la Harry Belafonte and his repertoire consisted of folk revival standards such as "Scarlet Ribbons." He was a show business personality -- a star renowned for his sexual magnetism and his dramatic vocal presentations. What many people don't know is that Josh White was a major figure in the Piedmont blues tradition. The first part of his career saw him as apprentice and lead boy to some of the greatest blues and religious artists ever, including Willie Walker, Blind Blake, Blind Joe Taggart (with whom he recorded), and allegedly even Blind Lemon Jefferson. On his own, he recorded both blues and religious songs, including a classic version of "Blood Red River." A fine guitar technician with an appealing voice, he became progressively more sophisticated in his presentation. Like many other Carolinians and Virginians who moved north to urban areas, he took up city ways, remaining a fine musician if no longer a down-home artist. Like several other canny blues players, he used his roots music to broaden and enhance his life experience, and his talent was such that he could choose the musical idiom that was most lucrative at the time."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/878214525335dca3/

Fan It

2011-03-03T18:32:00.000-08:00

Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon- Complete Recorded Works, Volume 1 (1926-1929)

Biography:
"Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon was an eccentric singer and a mysterious figure who disappeared after the mid-'40s. Called "Half Pint" due to being 5'2", Jaxon (who was an orphan) grew up in Kansas City. At 15 he began singing in variety shows and at clubs. He toured with a theatrical troupe in Texas and Oklahoma, forming a song and dance team with Miss Gallie De Gaston that did well in vaudeville during 1912-1924. When he was 21, Jaxon began working regularly in Atlantic City (usually the Paradise Café) in the summer and the Sunset Café in Chicago in the winter. An expert at staging shows, Half Pint helped Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters (among others) put on their productions. Jaxon, who also worked as a female impersonator, a pianist-singer, and a saxophonist, was mostly in Chicago during 1927-1941, a period when he made many recordings. In 1930 he formed the Quarts of Joy and he often appeared on the radio in the '30s. Jaxon used his best-known composition "Fan It" (which would later be recorded by Woody Herman) as a trademark song. Although still popular, Jaxon dropped out of music altogether in 1941, working for the government in Washington D.C. In 1944 he moved to Los Angeles and largely disappeared, never to be heard from again by the musical world. Half Pint Jaxon's recordings as a leader (which date from 1926-1940) include such sidemen as washboardist Jasper Taylor, pianist Georgia Tom Dorsey, banjoist Ikey Robinson, cornetist Punch Miller, the Harlem Hamfats (1937-1938), clarinetist Barney Bigard, pianist Lil Armstrong, and trumpeter Henry "Red" Allen."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/87350496f0c96f2b/

The Boss

2011-02-28T20:29:00.000-08:00

Big Joe Turner- Volume 2 (1940-1941)

Biography:
"The premier blues shouter of the postwar era, Big Joe Turner's roar could rattle the very foundation of any gin joint he sang within -- and that's without a microphone. Turner was a resilient figure in the history of blues -- he effortlessly spanned boogie-woogie, jump blues, even the first wave of rock & roll, enjoying great success in each genre.

Turner, whose powerful physique certainly matched his vocal might, was a product of the swinging, wide-open Kansas City scene. Even in his teens, the big-boned Turner looked entirely mature enough to gain entry to various K.C. niteries. He ended up simultaneously tending bar and singing the blues before hooking up with boogie piano master Pete Johnson during the early '30s. Theirs was a partnership that would endure for 13 years.

The pair initially traveled to New York at John Hammond's behest in 1936. On December 23, 1938, they appeared on the fabled Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall on a bill with Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry, the Golden Gate Quartet, and Count Basie. Turner and Johnson performed "Low Down Dog" and "It's All Right, Baby" on the historic show, kicking off a boogie-woogie craze that landed them a long-running slot at the Cafe Society (along with piano giants Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons).

As 1938 came to a close, Turner and Johnson waxed the thundering "Roll 'Em Pete" for Vocalion. It was a thrilling up-tempo number anchored by Johnson's crashing 88s, and Turner would re-record it many times over the decades. Turner and Johnson waxed their seminal blues "Cherry Red" the next year for Vocalion with trumpeter Hot Lips Page and a full combo in support. In 1940, the massive shouter moved over to Decca and cut "Piney Brown Blues" with Johnson rippling the ivories. But not all of Turner's Decca sides teamed him with Johnson; Willie "The Lion" Smith accompanied him on the mournful "Careless Love," while Freddie Slack's Trio provided backing for "Rocks in My Bed" in 1941.

Turner ventured out to the West Coast during the war years, building quite a following while ensconced on the L.A. circuit. In 1945, he signed on with National Records and cut some fine small combo platters under Herb Abramson's supervision. Turner remained with National through 1947, belting an exuberant "My Gal's a Jockey" that became his first national R&B smash. Contracts didn't stop him from waxing an incredibly risqué two-part "Around the Clock" for the aptly named Stag imprint (as Big Vernon!) in 1947. There were also solid sessions for Aladdin that year that included a wild vocal duel with one of Turner's principal rivals, Wynonie Harris, on the ribald two-part "Battle of the Blues."

Few West Coast indie labels of the late '40s didn't boast at least one or two Turner titles in their catalogs. The shouter bounced from RPM to Down Beat/Swing Time to MGM (all those dates were anchored by Johnson's piano) to Texas-based Freedom (which moved some of their masters to Specialty) to Imperial in 1950 (his New Orleans backing crew there included a young Fats Domino on piano). But apart from the 1950 Freedom 78, "Still in the Dark," none of Turner's records were selling particularly well. When Atlantic Records bosses Abramson and Ahmet Ertegun fortuitously dropped by the Apollo Theater to check out Count Basie's band one day, they discovered that Turner had temporarily replaced Jimmy Rushing as the Basie band's frontman, and he was having a tough go of it. Atlantic picked up his spirits by picking up his recording contract, and Turner's heyday was about to commence.

At Turner's first Atlantic date in April of 1951, he imparted a gorgeously world-weary reading to the moving blues ballad "Chains of Love" (co-penned by Ertegun and pianist Harry Van Walls) that restored him to the uppermost reaches of the R&B charts. From there, the hits came in droves: "Chill Is On," "Sweet Sixteen" (yeah, the same downbeat blues B.B. King's usually associated with; Turner did it first), and "Don't You Cry" were all done in New York, and all hit big.

Turner had no problem whatsoever adapting his prodigious pipes to whatever regional setting he was in. In 1953, he cut his first R&B chart-topper, the storming rocker "Honey Hush" (later covered by Johnny Burnette and Jerry Lee Lewis), in New Orleans, with trombonist Pluma Davis and tenor saxman Lee Allen in rip-roaring support. Before the year was through, he stopped off in Chicago to record with slide guitarist Elmore James' considerably rougher-edged combo and hit again with the salacious "T.V. Mama."

Prolific Atlantic house writer Jesse Stone was the source of Turner's biggest smash of all, "Shake, Rattle and Roll," which proved his second chart-topper in 1954. With the Atlantic braintrust reportedly chiming in on the chorus behind Turner's rumbling lead, the song sported enough pop possibilities to merit a considerably cleaned-up cover by Bill Haley & the Comets (and a subsequent version by Elvis Presley that came a lot closer to the original leering intent).

Suddenly, at the age of 43, Turner was a rock star. His jumping follow-ups -- "Well All Right," "Flip Flop and Fly," "Hide and Seek," "Morning, Noon and Night," "The Chicken and the Hawk" -- all mined the same good-time groove as "Shake, Rattle and Roll," with crisp backing from New York's top session aces and typically superb production by Ertegun and Jerry Wexler.

Turner turned up on a couple episodes of the groundbreaking TV program Showtime at the Apollo during the mid-'50s, commanding center stage with a joyous rendition of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" in front of saxman Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams' band. Nor was the silver screen immune to his considerable charms: Turner mimed a couple of numbers in the 1957 film Shake Rattle & Rock (Fats Domino and Mike "Mannix" Connors also starred in the flick).

Updating the pre-war number "Corrine Corrina" was an inspired notion that provided Turner with another massive seller in 1956. But after the two-sided hit "Rock a While"/"Lipstick Powder and Paint" later that year, his Atlantic output swiftly faded from commercial acceptance. Atlantic's recording strategy wisely involved recording Turner in a jazzier setting for the adult-oriented album market; to that end, a Kansas City-styled set (with his former partner Johnson at the piano stool) was laid down in 1956 and remains a linchpin of his legacy.

Turner stayed on at Atlantic into 1959, but nobody bought his violin-enriched remake of "Chains of Love" (on the other hand, a revival of "Honey Hush" with King Curtis blowing a scorching sax break from the same session was a gem in its own right). The '60s didn't produce too much of lasting substance for the shouter -- he actually cut an album with longtime admirer Haley and his latest batch of Comets in Mexico City in 1966!

But by the tail end of the decade, Turner's essential contributions to blues history were beginning to receive proper recognition; he cut LPs for BluesWay and Blues Time. During the '70s and '80s, Turner recorded prolifically for Norman Granz's jazz-oriented Pablo label. These were super-relaxed impromptu sessions that often paired the allegedly illiterate shouter with various jazz luminaries in what amountebd to loosely run jam sessions. Turner contentedly roared the familiar lyrics of one or another of his hits, then sat back while somebody took a lengthy solo. Other notable album projects included a 1983 collaboration with Roomful of Blues, Blues Train, for Muse. Although health problems and the size of his humongous frame forced him to sit down during his latter-day performances, Turner continued to tour until shortly before his death in 1985. They called him the Boss of the Blues, and the appellation was truly a fitting one: when Turner shouted a lyric, you were definitely at his beck and call."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/87220909aad373aa/

Stokes' Dream

2011-02-25T15:07:00.000-08:00

Frank Stokes- The Best Of Frank Stokes

Album Review:
"The music -- a meld of blues and older, more satiric songster-inspired material, as well as gospel-influenced sides -- speaks for itself on this, the widest-ranging and best-sounding collection of Frank Stokes' work issued on CD. The Best of Frank Stokes, released by Yazoo, combines the highlights of such previous releases as Frank Stokes' Dream and Creator of the Memphis Blues, for a total of six solo sides by Stokes, a dozen by Stokes accompanied by Dan Sane (usually credited to the Beale Street Sheiks), and four more on which he is accompanied by Will Batts on the fiddle. The result is a brilliant showcase for the Memphis blues legend, though with some inevitable shortcomings. As producer Richard Nevins freely admits in his opening annotation, virtually every copy of most of Stokes' original records were marred by pressing flaws (even in otherwise perfect discs) that make for a certain amount of noise -- coming out as hiss -- in the background on playback. Additionally, because many of Stokes' sides were recorded in a hall that was much too large for solo- or duet-performing acoustics, and didn't have the guitars mic'ed properly, the instruments do have a slightly boomy quality, without the presence and impact that one would expect. That said, the widely varying dynamics of the vocals have been balanced out here, so that this CD does, indeed, sound significantly better than the original 78's in at least one essential respect."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/8707768418e5e4e1/

Slidin' Delta

2011-02-21T20:13:00.000-08:00

David "Honeyboy" Edwards- Crawling Kingsnake

Album Review:
"Any fan of Delta blues should grab this reissue as fast they can get to it. These are vintage recordings, mostly from 1967, made by scholar-producer Pete Welding when Edwards was 51 years old. Edwards' itinerant lifestyle resulted in his missing many opportunities to record, so that this was only the fifth session he'd had in over 30 years in music, performing solo, with an acoustic guitar on eight of the 13 cuts here. Edwards cuts a daunting figure on the guitar, making the strings sing in several voices at once (check out the playing on "Love Me Over Slow"), and his singing is a match for his playing. The eight solo numbers, dating from 1967, feature the music he was most familiar with, including Robert Johnson's "Sweet Home Chicago" and the title track of this collection. The rest date from a March 1964 session on which Edwards shares the spotlight with singer-harpist John Lee Henley. As a bonus, the last track is an interview from his 1967 solo session in which Edwards talks about Robert Johnson and Tommy Johnson, both of whom he knew personally. The background ambient sound does nothing to detract from the worth of the music, which has a wonderful raw quality."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/86921106ee6ab769/

Furry's Blues

2011-02-14T12:56:00.001-08:00

Furry Lewis- Presenting The Country Blues

Biography:
"Furry Lewis was the only blues singer of the 1920s to achieve major media attention in the '60s and '70s. One of the most recorded Memphis-based guitarists of the late '20s, Lewis' subsequent fame 40 years later was based largely on the strength of those early sides. One of the very best blues storytellers, and an extremely nimble-fingered guitarist into his seventies, he was equally adept at blues and ragtime, and made the most out of an understated, rather than an overtly flamboyant style.

Walter Lewis was born in Greenwood, MS, sometime between 1893 and 1900 -- the exact year is in dispute, as Lewis altered this more than once. The Lewis family moved to Memphis when he was seven years old, and Lewis made his home there for the remainder of his life. He got the name "Furry" while still a boy, bestowed on him by other children. Lewis built his first guitar when he was still a child from scraps he found around the family's home. His only admitted mentor was a local guitarist whom he knew as "Blind Joe," who may have come from Arkansas, a denizen of Memphis' Brinkley Street, where the family resided. The middle-aged Blind Joe was Lewis' source for the songs "Casey Jones" and "John Henry," among other traditional numbers. The loss of a leg in a railroad accident in 1917 doesn't seem to have slowed his life or career down; in fact, it hastened his entry into professional music, because he assumed that there was no gainful employment open to crippled, uneducated Blacks in Memphis. Lewis' real musical start took place on Beale Street in the late teens, where he began his career. He picked up bottleneck playing early on, and tried to learn the harmonica but never quite got the hang of it. Lewis started playing traveling medicine shows, and it was in this setting that he began showing off an uncommonly flashy visual style, including playing the guitar behind his head.

Lewis' recording career began in April 1927, with a trip to Chicago with fellow guitarist Landers Walton to record for the Vocalion label, which resulted in five songs, also featuring mandolin player Charles Jackson on three of the numbers. The songs proved that Lewis was a natural in the recording studio, playing to the microphone as easily as he did to audiences in person, but they were not, strictly speaking, representative of Lewis' usual sound, because they featured two backup musicians. In October of 1927, Lewis was back in Chicago to cut six more songs, this time with nothing but his voice and his own guitar. He seldom played with anyone else, partly because of his loose bar structures, which made it very difficult for anyone to follow him. The interplay of his voice and guitar, on record and in person, made him a very effective showman in both venues. Lewis' records, however, did not sell well, and he never developed more than a cult following in and around Memphis. A few of his records, however, lingered in the memory far beyond their relatively modest sales, most notably "John Henry" and "Kassie Jones, Pts. 1 & 2," arguably one of the great blues recordings of the '20s.

Lewis gave up music as a profession during the mid-'30s, when the Depression reduced the market for country-blues. He never made a living from his music -- fortunately, he found work as a municipal laborer in Memphis during the '20s, and continued in this capacity right into the '60s. His brand of acoustic country blues was hopelessly out of style in Memphis during the postwar years, and he didn't even try to revive his recording or professional performing career. In the intervening years, he played for friends and relatives, living in obscurity and reasonably satisfied. At the end of the '50s, however, folksong/blues scholar Sam Charters discovered Lewis and persuaded him to resume his music career. In the interim, all of the blues stars who'd made their careers in Memphis during the '30s had passed on or retired, and Lewis was a living repository of styles and songs that, otherwise, were scarcely within living memory of most Americans.

Lewis returned to the studio under Charters' direction and cut two albums for the Prestige/Bluesville labels in 1961. These showed Lewis in excellent form, his voice as good as ever and his technique on the guitar still dazzling. Audiences -- initially hardcore blues and folk enthusiasts, and later more casual listeners -- were delighted, fascinated, charmed, and deeply moved by what they heard. Gradually, as the '60s and the ensuing blues boom wore on, Lewis emerged as one of the favorite rediscovered stars from the '30s, playing festivals, appearing on talk shows, and being interviewed. He proved to be a skilled public figure, regaling audiences with stories of his life that were both funny and poignantly revealing, claiming certain achievements (such as being the inventor of bottleneck guitar) in dubious manner, and delighting the public. After his retirement from working for the city of Memphis, he also taught in an anti-poverty program in the city.

Furry Lewis became a blues celebrity during the '70s, following a profile in Playboy magazine and appearances on The Tonight Show, and managed a few film and television appearances, including one as himself in the Burt Reynolds action/comedy W.W. and the Dixie Dance Kings. By this time, he had several new recordings to his credit, and if the material wasn't as vital as the sides he'd cut at the end of the '20s, it was still valid and exceptionally fine blues, and paid him some money for his efforts. Lewis died in 1981 a beloved figure and a recognized giant in the world of blues. His music continued to sell well, attracting new listeners many years later."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/8656137845754cd1/

The True Vine

2011-02-12T20:38:00.000-08:00

Reverend Gary Davis- Manchester Free Trade Hall 1964

Album Review:
"Reverend Gary Davis (1896-1972) cut his first records during the '30s, established his early mature style with a new spate of records in the mid-'40s, doggedly persevered and was roundly "rediscovered" by the folk and blues revivalists of the late '50s and early '60s. On May 8, 1964 the Rev, on tour with something called the Blues and Gospel Caravan, was recorded in live performance with his Gibson guitar at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England. In 2008 Document released a compact disc containing all of the music known to have been taped during that set. This is a revealing and wonderfully honest album of traditional songs, including "If I Had My Way," a ritual first recorded by Blind Willie Johnson decades earlier and lucratively covered by the Caucasian folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary. Also present at the Free Trade Hall was whoop-and-holler harmonica ace Sonny Terry, an expressive performer who exchanges words and blows up a duet with Davis on "The Sun is Going Down" and solos at length on "Coon Hunt." Davis alternately sang both sacred as well as bracingly worldly blues tunes, and also tapped into his own early roots with the "Cincinnati Flow Rag" and Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag," syncopated episodes that, along with everything else on this excellent album, link him directly to old time ragtime/blues guitar legends Henry Thomas, Blind Boy Fuller, and Blind Blake."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/864863745e371eda/

Townsend's Hard Luck Stories

2011-01-31T19:45:00.000-08:00

Henry Townsend- Hard Luck Stories

Biography:
"Influenced by Roosevelt Sykes and Lonnie Johnson, Henry Townsend was a commanding musician, adept on both piano and guitar. During the '20s and '30s, Townsend was one of the musicians that helped make St. Louis one of the blues centers of America.

Townsend arrived in St. Louis when he was around ten years old, just before the '20s began. By the end of the '20s, he had landed a record contract with Columbia, cutting several sides of open-tuning slide guitar for the label. Two years later, he made some similar recordings for Paramount. During this time, Townsend began playing the piano, learning the instrument by playing along with Roosevelt Sykes records. Within a few years, he was able to perform concerts with pianists like Walter Davis and Henry Brown.

During the '30s, Townsend was a popular session musician, performing with many of the era's most popular artists. By the late '30s, he had cut several tracks for Bluebird. Those were among the last recordings he ever made as a leader. During the '40s and '50s, Townsend continued to perform and record as a session musician, but he never made any solo records.

In 1960, he led a few sessions, but they didn't receive much attention. Toward the end of the '60s, Townsend became a staple on the blues and folk festivals in America, which led to a comeback. He cut a number of albums for Adelphi and he played shows throughout America. By the end of the '70s, he had switched from Adelphi to Nighthawk Records.

Townsend had become an elder statesmen of St. Louis blues by the early '80s, recording albums for Wolf and Swingmaster and playing a handful of shows every year. That's the Way I Do It, a documentary about Townsend, appeared on public television in 1984. During the late '80s, Townsend was nearly retired, but he continued to play the occasional concert until his death in 2006."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/85976322bab6c07e/

Oh, Red!

2011-01-30T16:16:00.000-08:00

Red Nelson- In Chronological Order (1935-1947)

Biography:
"b. 31 August 1907; Sumner, (Tallahatchie, Co) MS
Nelson Wilborn, better known as Red Nelson, or Dirty Red, was born in Sumner, Mississippi, in 1907. A fine, capable vocalist, he moved to Chicago in the early 1930s and was a prominent recording artist from 1935 to 1947. His recordings with pianist Clarence Lofton, especially ‘‘Streamline Train’’ and ‘‘Crying Mother Blues,’’ are probably his best work. In the 1960s he performed locally with the MuddyWaters Band".
-Bob Hall, Routledge Encyclopedia of The Blues

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/859315092bfa14f6/

Special Streamline

2011-01-27T15:54:00.000-08:00

Bukka White- Sparkasse In Concert

Biography:
"Bukka White (true name: Booker T. Washington White) was born in Houston, Mississippi (not Houston, Texas) in 1906 (not any date between 1902-1905 or 1907-1909, as is variously reported). He got his initial start in music learning fiddle tunes from his father. Guitar instruction soon followed, but White's grandmother objected to anyone playing "that Devil music" in the household; nonetheless, his father eventually bought him a guitar. When Bukka White was 14 he spent some time with an uncle in Clarksdale, Mississippi and passed himself off as a 21-year-old, using his guitar playing as a way to attract women. Somewhere along the line, White came in contact with Delta blues legend Charley Patton, who no doubt was able to give Bukka White instruction on how to improve his skills in both areas of endeavor. In addition to music, White pursued careers in sport, playing in Negro Leagues baseball and, for a time, taking up boxing.

In 1930 Bukka White met furniture salesman Ralph Limbo, who was also a talent scout for Victor. White traveled to Memphis where he made his first recordings, singing a mixture of blues and gospel material under the name of Washington White. Victor only saw fit to release four of the 14 songs Bukka White recorded that day. As the Depression set in, opportunity to record didn't knock again for Bukka White until 1937, when Big Bill Broonzy asked him to come to Chicago and record for Lester Melrose. By this time, Bukka White had gotten into some trouble -- he later claimed he and a friend had been "ambushed" by a man along a highway, and White shot the man in the thigh in self defense. While awaiting trial, White jumped bail and headed for Chicago, making two sides before being apprehended and sent back to Mississippi to do a three-year stretch at Parchman Farm. While he was serving time, White's record "Shake 'Em on Down" became a hit.

Bukka White proved a model prisoner, popular with inmates and prison guards alike and earning the nickname "Barrelhouse." It was as "Washington Barrelhouse White" that White recorded two numbers for John and Alan Lomax at Parchman Farm in 1939. After earning his release in 1940, he returned to Chicago with 12 newly minted songs to record for Lester Melrose. These became the backbone of his lifelong repertoire, and the Melrose session today is regarded as the pinnacle of Bukka White's achievements on record. Among the songs he recorded on that occasion were "Parchman Farm Blues" (not to be confused with "Parchman Farm" written by Mose Allison and covered by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Blue Cheer, among others), "Good Gin Blues," "Bukka's Jitterbug Swing," "Aberdeen, Mississippi Blues," and "Fixin' to Die Blues," all timeless classics of the Delta blues. Then, Bukka disappeared -- not into the depths of some Mississippi Delta mystery, but into factory work in Memphis during World War II.

Bob Dylan recorded "Fixin' to Die Blues" on his 1961 debut Columbia album, and at the time no one in the music business knew who Bukka White was -- most figured a fellow who'd written a song like "Fixin' to Die" had to be dead already. Two California-based blues enthusiasts, John Fahey and Ed Denson, were more skeptical about this assumption, and in 1963 addressed a letter to "Bukka White (Old Blues Singer), c/o General Delivery, Aberdeen, Mississippi." By chance, one of White's relatives was working in the Post Office in Aberdeen, and forwarded the letter to White in Memphis.

Things moved quickly from the time Bukka White met up with Fahey and Denson; by the end of 1963 Bukka White was already recording on contract with Chris Strachwitz and Arhoolie. White wrote a new song celebrating his good fortune entitled "1963 Isn't 1962 Blues" and swiftly recorded three albums of material for Strachwitz which the latter entitled Sky Songs, referring to White's habit of "reaching up and pulling songs out of the sky." Nonetheless, even White knew he couldn't get away with making up all his material regularly in performance, so he also studied his 78s and relearned all the songs he'd written for Lester Melrose. Although Bukka White was practically the same age as other survivors of the Delta and Memphis blues scenes of the 1920s and '30s, he didn't look like someone who belonged in a nursing home. White was a sharp dresser, in the prime of health, was a compelling entertainer and raconteur, and clearly enjoyed being the center of attention. He thrived on the folk festival and coffeehouse circuit of the 1960s.

By the '70s, however, Bukka White couldn't help getting a little bored with his celebrity status as an acoustic bluesman. White's tastes had grown with the times, and he would have loved to have played an electric guitar and fronted a band, as his old acquaintance Chester Burnett (aka Howlin' Wolf) and Bukka's own cousin, B. B. King, had been already doing successfully for years. But he only needed to look at what happened to his friend Bob Dylan's career for a lesson on what happens to folk blues artists who try and "go electric." So, Bukka White stayed on the festival circuit to the end of his days, beating the hell out of his National steel guitar, and sometimes his monologues would go on a little long, and sometimes his playing was a little more willfully eccentric than at others. Patrons would wait patiently to hear Bukka play "Parchman Farm Blues," although some of them were under the mistaken impression that they had paid their money to hear an artist who had originated a number that Eric Clapton made famous.

Blues purists will tell you that nothing Bukka White recorded after 1940 is ultimately worth listening to. This isn't accurate, nor fair. White was an incredibly compelling performer who gave up of more of himself in his work than many artists in any musical discipline. The Sky Songs albums for Arhoolie are an eminently rewarding document of Bukka's charm and candor, particularly in the long monologue "Mixed Water." "Big Daddy," recorded in 1974 for Arnold S. Caplin's Biograph label, likewise is a classic of its kind and should not be neglected."
-Allmusic.com

http://www.zshare.net/download/85811286925d11d9/

Eagle Rockin'

2011-01-24T15:08:00.000-08:00

Little Brother Montgomery- No Special Rider

Album Review:
"Barrelhouse piano player Eurreal "Little Brother" Montgomery played boogie from the crowds as a touring, pre-teen performer. Also a vocalist, Montgomery began his half-century of recording in the Depression with such songs of loss as "Vicksburg Blues" and "No Special Rider." On these 1969 recordings, rich, full-throated Jeanne Carroll ("Penny Pinching Blues") appears on four of the 12 tracks. She carefully enunciates her way through a rendition of Ma Rainey's "You Gotta See Your Mama Every Night." The excellent blues vocalist and pianist Little Brother Montgomery, an influence to Willie Dixon, Otis Spann, and Skip James, here guides us from his home through the tradition of classic early, post-ragtime piano blues."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/856590250e014a00/

When My Earthly Trials Are Over

2011-01-17T18:51:00.001-08:00

Mississippi John Hurt- Last Sessions

Album Review:
"Recorded in New York during February and July of 1966, the 17 songs on this collection represent Mississippi John Hurt's final studio efforts. It is astonishing that this man, in the final months of his life, could do 17 songs that were the equal of anything he had done at his first sessions 45 years earlier, his playing (supported on some tracks with producer Patrick Sky on second guitar) as alluringly complex as ever and his voice still in top form. Hurt is brilliant throughout, his voice overpowering in its mixture of warmth, gentleness, and power, and in addition to the expected crop of standards and originals, he covers songs by Bukka White ("Poor Boy, Long Ways from Home") and Leadbelly ("Goodnight Irene") -- all of it is worthwhile, with some tracks, such as "Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me," especially haunting."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/85381736beaf7db6/

I Don't Want Your Greenback Dollar

2011-01-14T11:16:00.000-08:00

Clarence "Tom" Ashley & Tex Isley- Play And Sing American Folk Music

Biography:
"A medicine show performer in the 1910s and 1920s, Clarence (Tom) Ashley influenced the urban folk revival when his early recordings were included on the Folkways album Anthology of American Folk Music in 1952. Although he had retired from the medicine show circuit in 1943, he made a successful comeback in the early '60s when he recorded a pair of albums that introduced influential flatpicking guitarist Arthel "Doc" Watson.

Ashley, who took his last name from the maternal grandfather who raised him, was inspired by the jokes and songs that he heard played by transients who boarded in his family home. His mother's two older sister taught him songs and instructed him on the banjo. Joining his first medicine show in 1913, Ashley traveled by horse and buggy through the southern Appalachian region, playing songs while "the doc" sold his elixirs. In 1914, he married Hettie Osborne and settled in Shouns, TN.

Although he supplemented his income as a musician by farming and working at a sawmill, Ashley continued to perform. By 1927, Ashley was performing with numerous string bands, including the Blue Ridge Entertainers. He recorded as a member of Byrd Moore & His Hot Shots and the Carolina Tar Heels. His solo debut came in 1929 when he recorded "The Cuckoo Bird" and "The House Carpenter" for Columbia. Signed to a solo contract by both Columbia (as Clarence Ashley) and Victor (as Tom Ashley), he recorded for both labels until 1933.

Retiring from the medicine shows in 1943, Ashley bought a truck and, with his son J.D., hauled coal, furniture, and lumber. His performances were limited to working as a comedian with Charlie Monroe's Kentucky Partners and the Stanley Brothers.

While his songs were revived by string band instrumentalists in the 1950s, Ashley disappeared almost completely from the music scene. Attending the Union Grove Old Time Fiddlers Convention in 1960, he met folklorist Ralph Rinzler, who, with folk song collector Eugene Earle, set up a recording session at Ashley's daughter's home in Saltville, VA. Ashley invited Watson to accompany him on guitar. The session marked the acoustic guitar debut for Watson, who had previously played electric guitar in rockabilly and country bands. Beginning in 1961, Ashley and Watson, joined by fiddler Fred Price, performed at northern folk festivals, coffeehouses, and clubs. Their concert at New York'sTown Hall was recorded and released as their second album. Ashley recorded an additional album with fiddler Tex Isley."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/85229232a2c29b2a/

Minimum Wage Blues

2011-01-10T07:20:00.000-08:00

Robert Curtis Smith- Clarksdale Blues

Biography:
"A chance meeting with Chris Strachwitz, founder of Arhoolie Records, at the Big 6 Barber Shop in Clarksdale led to the magnificent 1961 Bluesville album Clarksdale Blues, his lone full-length album. The record didn’t seem to make much of an impact, sinking without a trace and over the year becoming highly collectible.

In the liner notes Mack McCormick wrote: 'Robert Curtis Smith is a hard working farm laborer in upper Mississippi. He supports a wife and eight children by driving a tractor ($3 a day top) during the farming season, by hunting rabbits in the winter. He has a borrowed guitar with which he sings of women he has loved, lost, discarded, or found worthy of erotic praise. …The status quo in his world is to sap the strength and exploit the weakness of Negroes. It is a far more vicious crime than the occasional lynching since the end result is the massive weakening of a strong people. Ideas of inferiority are fed to him hand-in-hand with conditions that patently are inferior. Badly deprived of constitutional privilege and the minimum wage, and lacking the know-how to correct his situation, Smith’s way of life is astonishingly out of step with modern times.'"
-SundayBlues.org

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/850148831d9ae581/

Roll My Time On Out

2011-01-06T15:48:00.000-08:00

Eugene Rhodes- Talkin' About My Time

Biography:
"If there is a more obscure country blues artist than this fellow, then he is probably locked up somewhere, as well, one hastens to add, because that was the situation when blues scholar Bruce Jackson first discovered Eugene Rhodes. He was doing a ten- to 25-year stretch at the Indiana State Prison, which was where a remarkable album was recorded of 15 songs and a little talking that was eventually released on a label even more obscure than the bluesman, if such a thing is possible. By the time Rhodes was discovered, he seemed like he was in his late 50s and apparently nervously dispaired "them old alley blues" that nobody wanted to hear anymore now that all the public wanted was jazz. His opinions as expressed to his recording producer do well in indicating his cultural isolation as a prisoner, because he was apparently unaware of the huge white audience for country blues that existed in the '60s, a time when an elderly black gent with a slide on his finger would be considered "cool," although it is unsure whether that judgment would extend all the way to the tough-looking prisoner pictured in grimy black and white on the cover of his album Talkin' 'Bout My Time.

In the '20s and '30s, Rhodes had traveled through the south as a one-man band, including a harmonica rack with a special mount on the side for a horn, a foot pedal powered drum, and of course, a guitar. He reportedly played in the Dallas area, where he claims to have met Blind Lemon Jefferson. He also crossed paths with Blind Boy Fuller in the Carolinas and Buddy Moss in Georgia, the effects of his traveling adventures turning into seasonings in which the spirits of musical influences are nimbly suggested in his own picking. Although the history of the blues contains several happy tales of prisoners set back out into the world based on their brilliant performances, the release of this artist's album had no such result. He also seems not to have left much of a trail after being released from prison, if he ever was. He is not the same Eugene Rhodes who was the "singing minister" behind the album I Don't Need a Reason."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/85089038bda80671/

Richard Harney's Guitar

2011-01-02T21:16:00.000-08:00

Richard "Hacksaw" Harney- Sweet Man

Biography/Album Review:
"Richard 'Hacksaw' Harney was born in Money, MS, on July 16, 1902. He passed away on Christmas morning in 1973 of stomach cancer.
Hacksaw was regarded by many musicians as the best guitarist in the Delta."
-Robert Palmer, Deep Blues

"I really think that Hacksaw was a big influence with Robert [Johnson]. He was the only somebody who could compete with him... He played the guitar very, very well."
-Robert Lockwood, Jr., Living Blues

"His talent, virtuosity and flair rank him with the likes of Robert Johnson, Blind Blake, Reverrend Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson. And yet, if it were not for these Adelphi/Blues Vault tapes, he would be a blues equivalent of Buddy Bolden, the unrecorded giant whose mysterious legend enlivens early jazz lore."
-Larry Hoffman.

"Adelphi Records is pleased to present this ten song collection demonstrating the guitar wizardry of Richard Hacksaw Harney, the musician's musician from the motherland of American Music. Hacksaw was sought out by blues researchers in the 1960's because of the high esteem with which his contemporaries regarded him, many of whom were still awed by recollections of his occasional, impromptu appearances in Delta jukes or on the legendary King Biscuit Time radio show in Helena, Arkansas. In 1969, Adelphi's traveling studio followed the Harney reputation from Chicago to Jackson and back to Memphis, where Hacksaw was finally located, with the assistance of a posse of aging but enthusiastic blues musicians. Their persistence was amply rewarded by his sparkling and complex finger-picking playing.

Errata: In the liner notes, we mistakenly attribute the nickname 'Hacksaw' as originating during the artist's brief career in boxing. Pinetop Perkins set the record straight by reminding us that this outstanding musician (equally stunning as a piano player) supported himself by tuning and repairing pianos. "He always carried a little hacksaw with him, and he could grab a piece of anything and make a new key with that hacksaw. He taught me how to repair a piano."
-Adelphi Records

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Hot Dogs & Jelly Rolls

2011-01-02T20:17:00.000-08:00

The Famous Hokum Boys- Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1930)

Biography:
"While the Famous Hokum Boys has turned up as a name for various regional old-time music and country-blues groups, the most famous group utilizing the name was a loose-knit aggregation of blues singers that were actually better known under their own names. Yet Georgia Tom, Tampa Red, and Big Bill Broonzy may have wanted the somewhat more anonymous cover of a combo name in order to release their raunchiest material, including the number "It's Tight Like That." By the time the latter ditty was cut in the late '20s, blues or so-called "race records" was established as an area where sexy, sometimes downright nasty lyrics, were a stock-in-trade. Georgia Tom, also known under his real name of Thomas Dorsey, particularly may have wanted some kind of a cover to prevent his high-profile gospel and religious singing career from being corrupted. The ruse hardly worked, however, but the result actually turned out to be a sort of a canonization of Dorsey and the Famous Hokum Boys by later advocates of what became known as "contemporary Christian music," in which it was alright, even desired, for the performer to touch on steamy subjects such as lust and adultery. "It's entirely arguable that Christian music would not exist if it were not for the Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey," a magazine devoted to the contemporary Christian genre even wrote. The term "hokum" is said to have been invented by the Famous Hokum Boys as a new descriptive term for the type of material the band was coming up with, but has since evolved into a minimally used expression for something corny, low-brow, or kitschy, with little reference to sex -- or gospel."
-Allmusic.com

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Old Time Religion

2010-12-23T20:15:00.001-08:00

Five Blind Boys Of Alabama- 1948-1951

Biography:
"Evolving out of the Happyland Jubilee Singers, this traditional black gospel quartet was formed in 1937 at the Talladega Institute for the Deaf and Blind in Alabama. By the '40s they became "the Blind Boys" and recorded for Specialty, Vee Jay, Savoy, Elektra, and other labels. Their first hit was "I Can See Everybody's Mother But Mine" in 1949. Recently, their lineup has included Joe Watson, Jimmy Carter, Sam and Bobby Butler, Curtis Foster, Johnny Fields, andClarence Fountain. They appeared on Broadway in Gospel at Colonus, but gained much more fame during the late '90s and early 2000s while recording a series of albums for Peter Gabriel's Real World label, beginning with the collaboration-heavy Spirit of the Century. The group also appeared on Gabriel's 2002 album Up."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/842893981ca5e9cd/

Rough Houston

2010-12-17T19:11:00.001-08:00

Juke Boy Bonner- Life Gave Me A Dirty Deal

Album Review:
"Likely the most consistent and affecting collection you'll encounter by this singular Texas bluesman, whose strikingly personal approach was stunningly captured by Arhoolie's Chris Strachwitz during the late '60s in Houston. Twenty-three utter originals include "Stay Off Lyons Avenue," "Struggle Here in Houston," "I Got My Passport," and the title track. Bonner sang movingly of his painfully impoverished existence for Arhoolie, and the results still resound triumphantly today."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/84042493a6688df6/

Mississippi Sheik

2010-12-05T05:37:00.001-08:00

Walter Vincson- Complete Recorded Works (1928-1941)

Biography:
"One half of the legendary Mississippi Sheiks, singer/guitarist Walter Vinson was also among the most noteworthy blues accompanists of his era. Born February 2, 1901 in Bolton, Mississippi, Vinson (also known variously as Vincson and Vincent) began performing as a child, and during his teen years was a fixture at area parties and picnics. Even from the outset, however, he rarely if ever appeared as a solo act, seemingly much more at home in duets and trios; towards that end, during the 1920s he worked with Charlie McCoy, Rubin Lacy and Son Spand before forging his most pivotal and long-lasting union, with Lonnie Chatmon, in 1928. In addition to teaming with Chatmon in the Mississippi Sheiks, Vinson also recorded with him in the Mississippi Hot Footers, and even worked with Chatmon's brothers Bo and Harry. Upon the Sheiks' 1933 dissolution, Vinson recorded with various players in areas ranging from Jackson, Mississippi to New Orleans to finally Chicago; while an active club performer during the early 1940s, by the middle of the decade he had begun a lengthy hiatus from music which continued through 1960, at which point he returned to both recording and festival appearances. Hardening of the arteries forced Vinson into retirement during the early '70s; he died in Chicago in 1975."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/835097447f370087/

New Orleans' Cousin Joe

2010-11-29T18:07:00.000-08:00

Cousin Joe- Bad Luck Blues

Biography:
"Few blues legends have the presence of mind to write autobiographies. Fortunately, Pleasant Joseph did, spinning fascinating tales of a career in his 1987 tome Cousin Joe: Blues from New Orleans that spanned more than half a century.

Growing up in New Orleans, Pleasant began singing in church before crossing over to the blues. Guitar and ukulele were his first axes. He eventually prioritized the piano instead, playing Crescent City clubs and riverboats. He moved to New York in 1942, gaining entry into the city's thriving jazz scene (where he played with Dizzy Gillespie, Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and a host of other luminaries).

He recorded for King, Gotham, Philo (in 1945), Savoy, and Decca along the way, doing well on the latter logo with "Box Car Shorty and Peter Blue" in 1947. After returning to New Orleans in 1948, he recorded for DeLuxe and cut a two-part "ABCs" for Imperial in 1954 as Smilin' Joe under Dave Bartholomew's supervision. But by then, his recording career had faded.

The pianist was booked on a 1964 Blues and Gospel Train tour of England, sharing stages with Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe and appearing on BBC-TV with the all-star troupe. He cut a 1971 album for the French Black & Blue label, Bad Luck Blues, that paired him with guitarists Gatemouth Brown and Jimmy Dawkins and a Chicago rhythm section -- hardly the ideal situation, but still a reasonably effective showcase for the ebullient entertainer (it was reissued in 1994 by Evidence)."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/83306620e9e30bbc/

Smeckin' Around

2010-11-25T16:03:00.000-08:00

Roy Smeck- Plays Hawaiian Guitar, Banjo, Ukulele And Guitar

Album Review:
"The only problem with this album is the use of the word "play" in the title. Sure, with most musicians it can be called "playing" an instrument. With Roy Smeck, what he does on Hawaiian guitar or just plain old regular guitar is more like a consecration. His banjo work is more like a reordering of molecules. "Ukulele Bounce" sounds like a man playing a ukulele, and very well at that, but creates more of a historical impact as one realizes recordings from nearly a quarter of a century are represented on this collection. Colorful lettering by none other than R. Crumb just adds to the class of the whole affair. Smeck was a technical genius of stringed instruments and also an explorer. He created sounds behind the bridge and nut, and on the body of the instrument as well. Listeners might be used to these types of techniques from avant-garde music, but the real innovators in this type of playing were musicians such as Smeck. He used these techniques in the course of so-called "normal" music, but the fact that it is neither atonal nor really weird shouldn't make one think it isn't exciting or interesting to listen to. His early pieces were pretty straight from the Hawaiian style, Smeck tinkering energetically around the edges of what might be acceptable to the "aloha" crowd while establishing his mastery of the genre's traditions. Exposure to jazz players such as Eddie Lang apparently inspired him to sit the guitar up straight in his lap and attack it with a plectrum, which is the same way he took on the banjo. The results are imaginative and frequently wild, perfect musical miniatures with such a visual presence one might think they were landscape paintings. Some of the titles add to the fun: "Tough Pickin'," "Guitarese," "Slippery Fingers," and "Nifty Pickin'." Smeck plays wonderfully whether the track was recorded in the '20s, '30s, or '40s. That's no surprise, seeing how he was the fellow who described his ascension in the music industry thusly: "I didn't play any better for 1,250 dollars than for 150 dollars." Which goes to show that even he considered what he did "playing," no matter how miraculous it sounded. Nobody ever played any better than he did, either."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/831393546611def6/

Tearin' Little Daddy

2010-11-22T16:39:00.000-08:00

Sleepy John Estes- Newport Blues

Album Review:
"One of the phrases that obsessive blues collectors love to hear is "previously unreleased." They're always hoping that a label will unearth a rare John Lee Hooker or Lightnin' Hopkins recording that, for whatever reason, has remained in the can for 30 or 40 years. So imagine how ecstatic blues collectors were when, in 2002, Delmark described this Sleepy John Estes CD as a "never-before-released July 28, 1964, session." Those are the sort of words that drive collectors wild, especially when the bluesman in question is someone of Estes' stature. And Estes is in good to excellent form on these 1964 performances, which find the Tennessee country blues icon forming an acoustic trio with longtime colleagues Hammie Nixon (harmonica, jug) and Yank Rachell (mandolin, guitar, piano). Newport Blues is an appropriate title for this 65-minute CD because on July 28, 1964, Estes had just appeared at the Newport Folk Festival, and he popped into New York before heading back down south. This session was hardly the first time that Estes had joined forces with Nixon and Rachell -- the three of them had been playing together since the '20s, and in 1964 their rapport was still quite strong. One of the things that makes Newport Blues so much fun is the session's informal, jam-like atmosphere. Estes and his friends certainly don't sound like they're in a high-pressure situation; Newport Blues sounds like three musical friends getting together for some relaxed, good-natured fun. Most of the singing is handled by Estes, although the singer/acoustic guitarist occasionally features Nixon or Rachell on lead vocals. Newport Blues falls short of essential, but it's an enjoyable disc that Estes' more devoted fans will want to acquire."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/830234699240c8d1/

All You Ladies, Gather 'Round

2010-11-18T18:18:00.001-08:00

Mississippi John Hurt- Today!

Album Review:
"Today is Mississippi John Hurt's first and finest studio release since his "rediscovery" on his Avalon farm by folklorist Tom Hoskins in 1963. Eclipsed possibly only by his earlier 1928 Sessions, this album shows a more mature Hurt picking his way through standards and originals after the Depression years and Hurt's fall into obscurity before the folk revival of the 1960s. It shows, however, that all that the great bluesman has lost is years; his voice retains its characteristic Buddha-esque warmth and it is still difficult to believe that there is just one man playing on the seemingly effortless guitar work. The music on the album comes from a variety of different influences, from the fun and poppy "Hot Time in Old Town Tonight" and "Coffee Blues," to the bluesy standards "Candy Man" (Hurt's most famous song) and "Spike Driver's Blues" to the soulful spirituals "Louis Collins" and "Beulah Land." Hurt's tranquil guitar work -- mixing country, Scottish folk, and Delta blues -- strings all of the songs along the same simple and elegant thread. Hurt himself never could explain his guitar playing, as he used to say, "I just make it sound like I think it ought to." Regardless, that sound, along with a mellow and heartfelt voice, wizened here by decades, combine to make Today an unforgettable whole. A truly essential album of the folk revival, unrivaled in its beauty and warmth."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/82865371ad48604f/

Pleasant Blues

2010-11-16T18:05:00.001-08:00

Cousin Joe- New York And New Orleans Blues, 1945-1951

Biography:
"Few blues legends have the presence of mind to write autobiographies. Fortunately, Pleasant Joseph did, spinning fascinating tales of a career in his 1987 tome Cousin Joe: Blues from New Orleans that spanned more than half a century.

Growing up in New Orleans, Pleasant began singing in church before crossing over to the blues. Guitar and ukulele were his first axes. He eventually prioritized the piano instead, playing Crescent City clubs and riverboats. He moved to New York in 1942, gaining entry into the city's thriving jazz scene (where he played with Dizzy Gillespie, Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and a host of other luminaries).

He recorded for King, Gotham, Philo (in 1945), Savoy, and Decca along the way, doing well on the latter logo with "Box Car Shorty and Peter Blue" in 1947. After returning to New Orleans in 1948, he recorded for DeLuxe and cut a two-part "ABCs" for Imperial in 1954 as Smilin' Joe under Dave Bartholomew's supervision. But by then, his recording career had faded.

The pianist was booked on a 1964 Blues and Gospel Train tour of England, sharing stages with Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe and appearing on BBC-TV with the all-star troupe. He cut a 1971 album for the French Black & Blue label, Bad Luck Blues, that paired him with guitarists Gatemouth Brown and Jimmy Dawkins and a Chicago rhythm section -- hardly the ideal situation, but still a reasonably effective showcase for the ebullient entertainer (it was reissued in 1994 by Evidence)."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/827840330ae1f1f5/

Reverend At Newport

2010-11-15T18:24:00.001-08:00

Reverend Gary Davis- Live At Newport

Biography:
"In his prime of life, which is to say the late '20s, the Reverend Gary Davis was one of the two most renowned practitioners of the East Coast school of ragtime guitar; 35 years later, despite two decades spent playing on the streets of Harlem in New York, he was still one of the giants in his field, playing before thousands of people at a time, and an inspiration to dozens of modern guitarist/singers including Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, and Donovan; and Jorma Kaukonen, David Bromberg, and Ry Cooder, who studied with Davis.

Davis was partially blind at birth, and lost what little sight he had before he was an adult. He was self-taught on the guitar, beginning at age six, and by the time he was in his 20s he had one of the most advanced guitar techniques of anyone in blues; his only peers among ragtime-based players were Blind Arthur Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Blind Willie Johnson. Davis himself was a major influence on Blind Boy Fuller.

Davis' influences included gospel, marches, ragtime, jazz, and minstrel hokum, and he integrated them into a style that was his own. In 1911, when Davis was a still teenager, the family moved to Greenville, SC, and he fell under the influence of such local guitar virtuosi as Willie Walker, Sam Brooks, and Baby Brooks. Davis moved to Durham in the mid-'20s, by which time he was a full-time street musician. He was celebrated not only for the diversity of styles that his playing embraced, but also for his skills with the guitar, which were already virtually unmatched in the blues field.

Davis went into the recording studio for the first time in the '30s with the backing of a local businessman. Davis cut a mixture of blues and spirituals for the American Record Company label, but there was never an equitable agreement about payment for the recordings, and following these sessions, it was 19 years before he entered the studio again. During that period, he went through many changes. Like many other street buskers, Davis always interspersed gospel songs amid his blues and ragtime numbers, to make it harder for the police to interrupt him. He began taking the gospel material more seriously, and in 1937 he became an ordained minister. After that, he usually refused to perform any blues.

Davis moved to New York in the early '40s and began preaching and playing on street corners in Harlem. He recorded again at the end of the 1940s, with a pair of gospel songs, but it wasn't until the mid-'50s that a real following for his work began developing anew. His music, all of it now of a spiritual nature, began showing up on labels such as Stinson, Folkways, and Riverside, where he recorded seven songs in early 1956. Davis was "rediscovered" by the folk revival movement, and after some initial reticence, he agreed to perform as part of the budding folk music revival, appearing at the Newport Folk Festival, where his raspy voiced sung sermons; most notably his transcendent "Samson and Delilah (If I Had My Way)" -- a song most closely associated with Blind Willie Johnson -- and "Twelve Gates to the City," which were highlights of the proceedings for several years. He also recorded a live album for the Vanguard label at one such concert, as well as appearing on several Newport live anthology collections. He was also the subject of two television documentaries, one in 1967 and one in 1970.

Davis became one of the most popular players on the folk revival and blues revival scenes, playing before large and enthusiastic audiences; most of the songs that he performed were spirituals, but they weren't that far removed from the blues that he'd recorded in the 1930s, and his guitar technique was intact. Davis' skills as a player, on the jumbo Gibson acoustic models that he favored, were undiminished, and he was a startling figure to hear, picking and strumming complicated rhythms and counter-melodies. Davis became a teacher during this period, and his students included some very prominent white guitar players, including David Bromberg and the Jefferson Airplane's Jorma Kaukonen (who later recorded Davis' "I'll Be Alright" on his acclaimed solo album Quah!).

The Reverend Gary Davis left behind a fairly large body of modern (i.e. post-World War II) recordings, well into the 1960s, taking the revival of his career in his stride as a way of carrying the message of the gospel to a new generation. He even recorded anew some of his blues and ragtime standards in the studio, for the benefit of his students."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/8274987347a3af40/

...And A Shot Of Good Booze

2010-11-11T19:53:00.000-08:00

Mississippi John Hurt- The Immortal

Album Review:
"One of the best albums of country blues ever recorded. The fingerpicking is delicate, the vocals mellow and sweet. Many tunes that remain associated with Hurt are included here in versions that rival his legendary recordings from the late '20s. "Richland Woman Blues," "Stagolee," "The Chicken," and "Since I've Laid My Burden Down" sound as fresh as ever in these '60s versions. This album leaves little doubt as to why Hurt was so beloved after his rediscovery."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/846883954ad48933/

Bone

2010-11-05T16:41:00.000-07:00

T-Bone Walker- The Original Source

Album Review:
"This is, especially for the money, an excellent overview of the career of Aaron Thibeaux Walker (aka T-Bone Walker). Beginning at the beginning in 1929, this set travels all the way through the '40s (where he developed his style as the electric blues genre), through 1951 on labels from Columbia to Capitol to Black and White and others in between. This set's 90 cuts paint the most intricate portrait of his signature sound as it developed to become one of the models for the blues of B.B. and Freddie King, and virtually every electric guitarist after him. The sound is great and the price is irresistible."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/8238495555b61648/

Rare Buddy Guy From 1982

2010-11-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

Buddy Guy & Junior Wells- Live At Biddy Mulligan's, 1982

Biography:
"He's Chicago's blues king today, ruling his domain just as his idol and mentor Muddy Waters did before him. Yet there was a time, and not all that long ago either, when Buddy Guy couldn't even negotiate a decent record deal. Times sure have changed for the better -- Guy's first three albums for Silvertone in the '90s all earned Grammys. Eric Clapton unabashedly calls Buddy Guy his favorite blues axeman, and so do a great many adoring fans worldwide.

High-energy guitar histrionics and boundless on-stage energy have always been Guy trademarks, along with a tortured vocal style that's nearly as distinctive as his incendiary rapid-fire fretwork. He's come a long way from his beginnings on the 1950s Baton Rouge blues scene -- at his first gigs with bandleader "Big Poppa" John Tilley, the young guitarist had to chug a stomach-jolting concoction of Dr. Tichenor's antiseptic and wine to ward off an advanced case of stage fright. But by the time he joined harpist Raful Neal's band, Guy had conquered his nervousness.

Guy journeyed to Chicago in 1957, ready to take the town by storm. But times were tough initially, until he turned up the juice as a showman (much as another of his early idols, Guitar Slim, had back home). It didn't take long after that for the new kid in town to establish himself. He hung with the city's blues elite: Freddy King, Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, and Magic Sam, who introduced Buddy Guy to Cobra Records boss Eli Toscano. Two searing 1958 singles for Cobra's Artistic subsidiary were the result: "This Is the End" and "Try to Quit You Baby" exhibited more than a trace of B.B. King influence, while "You Sure Can't Do" was an unabashed homage to Guitar Slim. Willie Dixon produced the sides.

When Cobra folded, Guy wisely followed Rush over to Chess. With the issue of his first Chess single in 1960, Guy was no longer aurally indebted to anybody. "First Time I Met the Blues" and its follow-up, "Broken Hearted Blues," were fiery, tortured slow blues brilliantly showcasing Guy's whammy-bar-enriched guitar and shrieking, hellhound-on-his-trail vocals.

Although he's often complained that Leonard Chess wouldn't allow him to turn up his guitar loud enough, the claim doesn't wash: Guy's 1960-1967 Chess catalog remains his most satisfying body of work. A shuffling "Let Me Love You Baby," the impassioned downbeat items "Ten Years Ago," "Stone Crazy," "My Time After Awhile," and "Leave My Girl Alone," and a bouncy "No Lie" rate with the hottest blues waxings of the '60s. While at Chess, Guy worked long and hard as a session guitarist, getting his licks in on sides by Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Koko Taylor (on her hit "Wang Dang Doodle").

Upon leaving Chess in 1967, Guy went to Vanguard. His first LP for the firm, A Man and the Blues, followed in the same immaculate vein as his Chess work and contained the rocking "Mary Had a Little Lamb," but This Is Buddy Guy and Hold That Plane! proved somewhat less consistent. Guy and harpist Junior Wells had long been friends and played around Chicago together (Guy supplied the guitar work on Wells' seminal 1965 Delmark set Hoodoo Man Blues, initially billed as "Friendly Chap" because of his Chess contract); they recorded together for Blue Thumb in 1969 as Buddy and the Juniors (pianist Junior Mance being the other Junior) and Atlantic in 1970 (sessions co-produced by Eric Clapton and Tom Dowd), and 1972 for the solid album Buddy Guy & Junior Wells Play the Blues. Buddy and Junior toured together throughout the '70s, their playful repartee immortalized on Drinkin' TNT 'n' Smokin' Dynamite, a live set cut at the 1974 Montreux Jazz Festival.

Guy's reputation among rock guitar gods such as Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Stevie Ray Vaughan was unsurpassed, but prior to his Grammy-winning 1991 Silvertone disc Damn Right, I've Got the Blues, he amazingly hadn't issued a domestic album in a decade. That's when the Buddy Guy bandwagon really picked up steam -- he began selling out auditoriums and turning up on network television (David Letterman, Jay Leno, etc.). Feels Like Rain, his 1993 encore, was a huge letdown artistically, unless one enjoys the twisted concept of having one of the world's top bluesmen duet with country hat act Travis Tritt and hopelessly overwrought rock singer Paul Rodgers. By comparison, 1994's Slippin' In, produced by Eddie Kramer, was a major step back in the right direction, with no hideous duets and a preponderance of genuine blues excursions. Last Time Around: Live at Legends, an acoustic outing with longtime partner Junior Wells followed in 1998. In 2001, Guy switched gears and went to Mississippi for a recording of the type of modal juke-joint blues favored by Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, and the Fat Possum crew. The result was Sweet Tea: arguably one of his finest albums and yet a complete anomaly in his catalog. Oddly enough, he chose to follow that up with Blues Singer in 2003, another completely acoustic effort that won a Grammy. For 2005's Bring 'Em In, it was back to the same template as his first albums for Silvertone, with polished production and a handful of guest stars. Skin Deep appeared in 2008 and featured guest spots by Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, Eric Clapton, and Robert Randolph. Snakebite was released in 2009, followed by Living Proof a year later in 2010.

A Buddy Guy concert can sometimes be a frustrating experience. He'll be in the middle of something downright hair-raising, only to break it off abruptly in midsong, or he'll ignore his own massive songbook in order to offer imitations of Clapton, Vaughan, and Hendrix. But Guy, whose club remains the most successful blues joint in Chicago (you'll likely find him sitting at the bar whenever he's in town), is without a doubt the Windy City's reigning blues artist -- and he rules benevolently."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/82230900a9d900d8/

Buddy's Living Proof

2010-10-23T18:31:00.001-07:00

Buddy Guy- Living Proof

Biography:
"He's Chicago's blues king today, ruling his domain just as his idol and mentor Muddy Waters did before him. Yet there was a time, and not all that long ago either, when Buddy Guy couldn't even negotiate a decent record deal. Times sure have changed for the better -- Guy's first three albums for Silvertone in the '90s all earned Grammys. Eric Clapton unabashedly calls Buddy Guy his favorite blues axeman, and so do a great many adoring fans worldwide.

High-energy guitar histrionics and boundless on-stage energy have always been Guy trademarks, along with a tortured vocal style that's nearly as distinctive as his incendiary rapid-fire fretwork. He's come a long way from his beginnings on the 1950s Baton Rouge blues scene -- at his first gigs with bandleader "Big Poppa" John Tilley, the young guitarist had to chug a stomach-jolting concoction of Dr. Tichenor's antiseptic and wine to ward off an advanced case of stage fright. But by the time he joined harpist Raful Neal's band, Guy had conquered his nervousness.

Guy journeyed to Chicago in 1957, ready to take the town by storm. But times were tough initially, until he turned up the juice as a showman (much as another of his early idols, Guitar Slim, had back home). It didn't take long after that for the new kid in town to establish himself. He hung with the city's blues elite: Freddy King, Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, and Magic Sam, who introduced Buddy Guy to Cobra Records boss Eli Toscano. Two searing 1958 singles for Cobra's Artistic subsidiary were the result: "This Is the End" and "Try to Quit You Baby" exhibited more than a trace of B.B. King influence, while "You Sure Can't Do" was an unabashed homage to Guitar Slim. Willie Dixon produced the sides.

When Cobra folded, Guy wisely followed Rush over to Chess. With the issue of his first Chess single in 1960, Guy was no longer aurally indebted to anybody. "First Time I Met the Blues" and its follow-up, "Broken Hearted Blues," were fiery, tortured slow blues brilliantly showcasing Guy's whammy-bar-enriched guitar and shrieking, hellhound-on-his-trail vocals.

Although he's often complained that Leonard Chess wouldn't allow him to turn up his guitar loud enough, the claim doesn't wash: Guy's 1960-1967 Chess catalog remains his most satisfying body of work. A shuffling "Let Me Love You Baby," the impassioned downbeat items "Ten Years Ago," "Stone Crazy," "My Time After Awhile," and "Leave My Girl Alone," and a bouncy "No Lie" rate with the hottest blues waxings of the '60s. While at Chess, Guy worked long and hard as a session guitarist, getting his licks in on sides by Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Koko Taylor (on her hit "Wang Dang Doodle").

Upon leaving Chess in 1967, Guy went to Vanguard. His first LP for the firm, A Man and the Blues, followed in the same immaculate vein as his Chess work and contained the rocking "Mary Had a Little Lamb," but This Is Buddy Guy and Hold That Plane! proved somewhat less consistent. Guy and harpist Junior Wells had long been friends and played around Chicago together (Guy supplied the guitar work on Wells' seminal 1965 Delmark set Hoodoo Man Blues, initially billed as "Friendly Chap" because of his Chess contract); they recorded together for Blue Thumb in 1969 as Buddy and the Juniors (pianist Junior Mance being the other Junior) and Atlantic in 1970 (sessions co-produced by Eric Clapton and Tom Dowd), and 1972 for the solid album Buddy Guy & Junior Wells Play the Blues. Buddy and Junior toured together throughout the '70s, their playful repartee immortalized on Drinkin' TNT 'n' Smokin' Dynamite, a live set cut at the 1974 Montreux Jazz Festival.

Guy's reputation among rock guitar gods such as Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Stevie Ray Vaughan was unsurpassed, but prior to his Grammy-winning 1991 Silvertone disc Damn Right, I've Got the Blues, he amazingly hadn't issued a domestic album in a decade. That's when the Buddy Guy bandwagon really picked up steam -- he began selling out auditoriums and turning up on network television (David Letterman, Jay Leno, etc.). Feels Like Rain, his 1993 encore, was a huge letdown artistically, unless one enjoys the twisted concept of having one of the world's top bluesmen duet with country hat act Travis Tritt and hopelessly overwrought rock singer Paul Rodgers. By comparison, 1994's Slippin' In, produced by Eddie Kramer, was a major step back in the right direction, with no hideous duets and a preponderance of genuine blues excursions. Last Time Around: Live at Legends, an acoustic outing with longtime partner Junior Wells followed in 1998. In 2001, Guy switched gears and went to Mississippi for a recording of the type of modal juke-joint blues favored by Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, and the Fat Possum crew. The result was Sweet Tea: arguably one of his finest albums and yet a complete anomaly in his catalog. Oddly enough, he chose to follow that up with Blues Singer in 2003, another completely acoustic effort that won a Grammy. For 2005's Bring 'Em In, it was back to the same template as his first albums for Silvertone, with polished production and a handful of guest stars. Skin Deep appeared in 2008 and featured guest spots by Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, Eric Clapton, and Robert Randolph. Snakebite was released in 2009, followed by Living Proof a year later in 2010.

A Buddy Guy concert can sometimes be a frustrating experience. He'll be in the middle of something downright hair-raising, only to break it off abruptly in midsong, or he'll ignore his own massive songbook in order to offer imitations of Clapton, Vaughan, and Hendrix. But Guy, whose club remains the most successful blues joint in Chicago (you'll likely find him sitting at the bar whenever he's in town), is without a doubt the Windy City's reigning blues artist -- and he rules benevolently."
-Allmusic.com

Album Review:
"On Buddy Guy's 2010 release, "Living Proof", Buddy does, indeed, prove many things. He shows that when he's not goofing off at a small arena, refusing to finish his own songs at a concert mostly populated by middle-aged whites who are Classic Rock and Stevie Ray Vaughan fans, his hysterical, violent guitar is still up to par. The 74 year old Buddy Guy's incendiary guitar is present throughout the album. In fact, this is the best his guitar playing has been since his legendary "Stone Crazy" album. With that being said, there is a great sameyness to a couple of the songs on the first half of the disc.

Buddy's vocals are still there. His voice sounds just as good as it did on 1993's "Feels Like Rain", though I'm not sure how his voice holds up in concert after he's been on stage for an hour.

One thing that's evidently missing on this album is lyrics. "Living Proof" has some awfully corny lines, just as the duet with B.B. King does. The difference between the two is that B.B.'s guitar, which has an angelic presence that can bring a person to tears with one note, makes the lyrics in "Stay Around A Little Longer" rise above their otherwise mediocre level. It's extremely obvious that many of the lyrics on this album were touched up or, in some cases, written entirely, by Buddy's drummer or professional lyricists who did not come up with Buddy back in Louisiana. For a veteran Blues-listener, it takes only one listen to hear that an outside source has tampered with the lyric writing process. This doesn't mean that whites can't write Blues lyrics, but it does mean that songwriters take the grit and urgency out of what could possibly be more "authentic" lyrics. We all know that the great Muddy Waters performed and recorded a plethora of songs that were written by Willie Dixon, but Dixon was a man who had a connection- a vital connection- to the people, places and situations which he wrote about, even if the lyrics were sometimes light and humorous.

Luckily, Carlos Santana, in all his noisy grandiosity, does not destory "Where The Blues Begins", as I had feared he would. If there were ever a case of a guy who played too many notes on an electric guitar, to the point of making electrified Blues sound like Ritchie Blackmore-era Deep Purple, this is it. Carlos really ought to focus more on composing music, as opposed to creating obnoxiously loud solos that all sound identical. When the song is over, one remembers Buddy's fine vocals, but not Santana's guitar madness.

"Too Soon", in terms of its beat and lyrics, sounds like a track that Otis Rush could have recorded in the 1950s for Cobra Records. It's a fun song that just rises above being filler.

"Everybody's Got To Go" could do without the backing vocalists, or at least the backing vocalists' excessive presence. The solo at around 2:00 is just sort of, well, there. This song would have faired much better if it were just Buddy, his guitar, and the Hammond Organ. That certainly would have sounded a lot different than this "Feels Like Rain" knock-off.

If Buddy would have never recorded "Damn Right, I've Got The Blues", then perhaps there would have been a reason to record "Let The Door Knob Hit Ya". Is there frenetic guitar work? Yes. Does the frenetic guitar work sound any different from what's played during Guy's live version(s) of "Damn Right, I've Got The Blues"? No!

Guess what! What? "Guess What", which has a final verse resesmbling Hendrix's "Red House", is a very, very good song that would have sounded even better if so many tunes on the album didn't sound similar to it. Still, this one has more intensity to it than anything Eric Clapton has done since...

"Skanky" is a tour de force that is well deserving of its name. As the songs come to a close, you realize that tracks 11 and 12 are, along with the infamous "Stone Crazy", the finest examples of Buddy Guy's influence on, or at least association with, Hendrix."
-Hard Luck Child

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/819397660eefb2d0/

Playing With Ms. Gibson

2010-10-22T21:23:00.001-07:00

Reverend Gary Davis- At Home And Church: 1962-1967, At Home (Disc 2)

Biography:
"In his prime of life, which is to say the late '20s, the Reverend Gary Davis was one of the two most renowned practitioners of the East Coast school of ragtime guitar; 35 years later, despite two decades spent playing on the streets of Harlem in New York, he was still one of the giants in his field, playing before thousands of people at a time, and an inspiration to dozens of modern guitarist/singers including Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, and Donovan; and Jorma Kaukonen, David Bromberg, and Ry Cooder, who studied with Davis.

Davis was partially blind at birth, and lost what little sight he had before he was an adult. He was self-taught on the guitar, beginning at age six, and by the time he was in his 20s he had one of the most advanced guitar techniques of anyone in blues; his only peers among ragtime-based players were Blind Arthur Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Blind Willie Johnson. Davis himself was a major influence on Blind Boy Fuller.

Davis' influences included gospel, marches, ragtime, jazz, and minstrel hokum, and he integrated them into a style that was his own. In 1911, when Davis was a still teenager, the family moved to Greenville, SC, and he fell under the influence of such local guitar virtuosi as Willie Walker, Sam Brooks, and Baby Brooks. Davis moved to Durham in the mid-'20s, by which time he was a full-time street musician. He was celebrated not only for the diversity of styles that his playing embraced, but also for his skills with the guitar, which were already virtually unmatched in the blues field.

Davis went into the recording studio for the first time in the '30s with the backing of a local businessman. Davis cut a mixture of blues and spirituals for the American Record Company label, but there was never an equitable agreement about payment for the recordings, and following these sessions, it was 19 years before he entered the studio again. During that period, he went through many changes. Like many other street buskers, Davis always interspersed gospel songs amid his blues and ragtime numbers, to make it harder for the police to interrupt him. He began taking the gospel material more seriously, and in 1937 he became an ordained minister. After that, he usually refused to perform any blues.

Davis moved to New York in the early '40s and began preaching and playing on street corners in Harlem. He recorded again at the end of the 1940s, with a pair of gospel songs, but it wasn't until the mid-'50s that a real following for his work began developing anew. His music, all of it now of a spiritual nature, began showing up on labels such as Stinson, Folkways, and Riverside, where he recorded seven songs in early 1956. Davis was "rediscovered" by the folk revival movement, and after some initial reticence, he agreed to perform as part of the budding folk music revival, appearing at the Newport Folk Festival, where his raspy voiced sung sermons; most notably his transcendent "Samson and Delilah (If I Had My Way)" -- a song most closely associated with Blind Willie Johnson -- and "Twelve Gates to the City," which were highlights of the proceedings for several years. He also recorded a live album for the Vanguard label at one such concert, as well as appearing on several Newport live anthology collections. He was also the subject of two television documentaries, one in 1967 and one in 1970.

Davis became one of the most popular players on the folk revival and blues revival scenes, playing before large and enthusiastic audiences; most of the songs that he performed were spirituals, but they weren't that far removed from the blues that he'd recorded in the 1930s, and his guitar technique was intact. Davis' skills as a player, on the jumbo Gibson acoustic models that he favored, were undiminished, and he was a startling figure to hear, picking and strumming complicated rhythms and counter-melodies. Davis became a teacher during this period, and his students included some very prominent white guitar players, including David Bromberg and the Jefferson Airplane's Jorma Kaukonen (who later recorded Davis' "I'll Be Alright" on his acclaimed solo album Quah!).

The Reverend Gary Davis left behind a fairly large body of modern (i.e. post-World War II) recordings, well into the 1960s, taking the revival of his career in his stride as a way of carrying the message of the gospel to a new generation. He even recorded anew some of his blues and ragtime standards in the studio, for the benefit of his students."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/81871314e526ad47/

John Adam Estes' Poetry

2010-10-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

Sleepy John Estes- The Legend Of Sleepy John Estes

Album Review:
"In the late '50s Sleepy John Estes wasn't nearly as visible as he had been before and during World War II -- in fact, he had become so obscure that some historians wondered if he had died. But the blues veteran was still very much alive, and in 1962 a 63-year-old Estes (some claimed he was 58 or 57) made an impressive comeback with The Legend of Sleepy John Estes. Produced by Delmark president Bob Koester on March 24, 1962, this historic acoustic session finds singer/guitarist Estes joined by Ed Wilkinson on bass, John "Knocky" Parker on piano, and long-time ally Hammie Nixon on harmonica. Legend isn't much different from Estes' recordings of the '20s, '30s, and '40s, and the Tennessee native successfully revisits old favorites like "Divin' Duck Blues," "Someday Baby Blues," "Stop That Thing," "Milk Cow Blues," and "Married Woman Blues." Although not the definitive recordings of these songs, Estes' 1962 versions are captivating nonetheless. Delmark has a lot to be proud of, and getting Estes back into the studio after many years of neglect (reunited with Hammie Nixon, no less!) is certainly among the Chicago indie's greatest accomplishments."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/8182955798a1e687/

Sally Actually Got Her Liquor From Gary!

2010-10-16T20:28:00.000-07:00

Reverend Gary Davis- At Home And Church: 1962-1967, At Home (Disc 1)

Biography:
"In his prime of life, which is to say the late '20s, the Reverend Gary Davis was one of the two most renowned practitioners of the East Coast school of ragtime guitar; 35 years later, despite two decades spent playing on the streets of Harlem in New York, he was still one of the giants in his field, playing before thousands of people at a time, and an inspiration to dozens of modern guitarist/singers including Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, and Donovan; and Jorma Kaukonen, David Bromberg, and Ry Cooder, who studied with Davis.

Davis was partially blind at birth, and lost what little sight he had before he was an adult. He was self-taught on the guitar, beginning at age six, and by the time he was in his 20s he had one of the most advanced guitar techniques of anyone in blues; his only peers among ragtime-based players were Blind Arthur Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Blind Willie Johnson. Davis himself was a major influence on Blind Boy Fuller.

Davis' influences included gospel, marches, ragtime, jazz, and minstrel hokum, and he integrated them into a style that was his own. In 1911, when Davis was a still teenager, the family moved to Greenville, SC, and he fell under the influence of such local guitar virtuosi as Willie Walker, Sam Brooks, and Baby Brooks. Davis moved to Durham in the mid-'20s, by which time he was a full-time street musician. He was celebrated not only for the diversity of styles that his playing embraced, but also for his skills with the guitar, which were already virtually unmatched in the blues field.

Davis went into the recording studio for the first time in the '30s with the backing of a local businessman. Davis cut a mixture of blues and spirituals for the American Record Company label, but there was never an equitable agreement about payment for the recordings, and following these sessions, it was 19 years before he entered the studio again. During that period, he went through many changes. Like many other street buskers, Davis always interspersed gospel songs amid his blues and ragtime numbers, to make it harder for the police to interrupt him. He began taking the gospel material more seriously, and in 1937 he became an ordained minister. After that, he usually refused to perform any blues.

Davis moved to New York in the early '40s and began preaching and playing on street corners in Harlem. He recorded again at the end of the 1940s, with a pair of gospel songs, but it wasn't until the mid-'50s that a real following for his work began developing anew. His music, all of it now of a spiritual nature, began showing up on labels such as Stinson, Folkways, and Riverside, where he recorded seven songs in early 1956. Davis was "rediscovered" by the folk revival movement, and after some initial reticence, he agreed to perform as part of the budding folk music revival, appearing at the Newport Folk Festival, where his raspy voiced sung sermons; most notably his transcendent "Samson and Delilah (If I Had My Way)" -- a song most closely associated with Blind Willie Johnson -- and "Twelve Gates to the City," which were highlights of the proceedings for several years. He also recorded a live album for the Vanguard label at one such concert, as well as appearing on several Newport live anthology collections. He was also the subject of two television documentaries, one in 1967 and one in 1970.

Davis became one of the most popular players on the folk revival and blues revival scenes, playing before large and enthusiastic audiences; most of the songs that he performed were spirituals, but they weren't that far removed from the blues that he'd recorded in the 1930s, and his guitar technique was intact. Davis' skills as a player, on the jumbo Gibson acoustic models that he favored, were undiminished, and he was a startling figure to hear, picking and strumming complicated rhythms and counter-melodies. Davis became a teacher during this period, and his students included some very prominent white guitar players, including David Bromberg and the Jefferson Airplane's Jorma Kaukonen (who later recorded Davis' "I'll Be Alright" on his acclaimed solo album Quah!).

The Reverend Gary Davis left behind a fairly large body of modern (i.e. post-World War II) recordings, well into the 1960s, taking the revival of his career in his stride as a way of carrying the message of the gospel to a new generation. He even recorded anew some of his blues and ragtime standards in the studio, for the benefit of his students."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/81638215f0504bdf/

Hallelujah!

2010-10-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

Reverend Gary Davis- The Guitar & Banjo Of Reverend Gary Davis

Album Review:
"Because this is an all-instrumental recording, it's an offbeat entry into the catalog of a performer known both as an important guitarist and as a singer. Some might miss Davis' vocals on this 1964 recording, but on the other hand there are plenty of records with him singing around. This gives listeners a chance to hone in on his dexterous guitar skills, blending ragtime, folk, and blues, usually on guitar (though he plays banjo on a couple of songs, and harmonica on one). "Maple Leaf Rag" is a natural showcase for Davis' talents, and "Candy Man," which may be his most well-known song, is here presented without words, making for an interesting juxtaposition with more commonly heard versions on which he (or others) sings. As further evidence of his eclecticism, there's a version of "United States March aka Soldier's Drill" -- not the best format for his strengths, certainly, but an illustration of his ability to adapt his style to unexpected material."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/8141986818467466/

Harp Wizard

2010-10-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

Big Walter Horton- Mouth Harp Maestro

Album Review:
"Long before he arrived in Chicago, Horton was knocking 'em dead with his amplified harmonica wizardry in Memphis. Sam Phillips produced the classic sides that comprise much of this album in 1951, when Horton was billed as "Mumbles." Sizzling backup by guitarists Joe Hill Louis and Calvin Newborn urged the introverted harp giant on to dazzling heights on his earliest sides as a leader."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/8121434147f50f58/

Highway 49

2010-10-03T21:59:00.000-07:00

Big Joe Williams- The Sonet Blues Story

Biography:
"Big Joe Williams may have been the most cantankerous human being who ever walked the earth with guitar in hand. At the same time, he was an incredible blues musician: a gifted songwriter, a powerhouse vocalist, and an exceptional idiosyncratic guitarist. Despite his deserved reputation as a fighter (documented in Michael Bloomfield's bizarre booklet Me and Big Joe), artists who knew him well treated him as a respected elder statesman. Even so, they may not have chosen to play with him, because -- as with other older Delta artists -- if you played with him you played by his rules.

As protégé David "Honeyboy" Edwards described him, Williams in his early Delta days was a walking musician who played work camps, jukes, store porches, streets, and alleys from New Orleans to Chicago. He recorded through five decades for Vocalion, Okeh, Paramount, Bluebird, Prestige, Delmark, and many others. As a youngster, I met him in Delmark owner Bob Koester's store, the Jazz Record Mart. At the time, Big Joe was living there when not on his constant travels. According to Charlie Musselwhite, he and Big Joe kicked off the blues revival in Chicago in the '60s.

When I saw him playing at Mike Bloomfield's "blues night" at the Fickle Pickle, Williams was playing an electric nine-string guitar through a small ramshackle amp with a pie plate nailed to it and a beer can dangling against that. When he played, everything rattled but Big Joe himself. The total effect of this incredible apparatus produced the most buzzing, sizzling, African-sounding music I have ever heard.

Anyone who wants to learn Delta blues must one day come to grips with the idea that the guitar is a drum as well as a melody-producing instrument. A continuous, African-derived musical tradition emphasizing percussive techniques on stringed instruments from the banjo to the guitar can be heard in the music of Delta stalwarts Charley Patton, Fred McDowell, and Bukka White. Each employed decidedly percussive techniques, beating on his box, knocking on the neck, snapping the strings, or adding buzzing or sizzling effects to augment the instrument's percussive potential. However, Big Joe Williams, more than any other major recording artist, embodied the concept of guitar-as-drum, bashing out an incredible series of riffs on his G-tuned nine-string for over 60 years."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/810968033af7508f/

Bluesiana

2010-09-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

Herman E. Johnson & Smoky Babe- Louisiana Country Blues

Album Review:
"A reissue (on compact disc) of a reissue (on Arhoolie) of an album originally released on the Folk Lyric label, this combines two albums of Louisiana country blues material on one CD. Smoky Babe may have been a semi-pro musician, but the feel of the 12 sides suggests that he was full command of his powers when folklorist Dr. Harry Oster hit the "record" button. Combined with another album's worth of material from the equally obscure Herman E. Johnson (who performs four tracks on electric guitar in a most chaotic manner), this is back porch country blues of the highest order. Just because neither is a "famous name," don't let that keep you checking this superlative release out."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/80865403e5b22582/

Foremost Guitar Picker

2010-09-22T19:20:00.000-07:00

Blind Blake- All The Published Sides (Disc 5)

Album Review:
"As with many comprehensive pre-1940s blues sets, especially those devoted to artists who recorded on the old Paramount label, the five-CD All the Published Sides set is both a godsend and a study in frustration. Paramount wasn't known for its high-quality pressings when it was in business, and its bankruptcy in the early '30s and the destruction of its masters completed the picture, as far as sound quality. That said, this set is a modest improvement over Document Records' various Blind Blake CD issues of the late '80s, as well as being significantly cheaper; there's still plenty of noise on some of the tracks, and even the third version of "West Coast Blues" -- the best-sounding side on disc one -- contains some minor noise and slight distortion. This pattern is repeated throughout the 110 sides, very clean-sounding 78s juxtaposed with what must be the most abominable condition sources imaginable. Nowhere is this more frustrating than what ought to be a highlight of the entire set, "Papa Charlie and Blind Blake Talk About It, Pt. 1" and "Papa Charlie and Blind Blake Talk About It, Pt. 2," pairing the almost primordial bluesman Papa Charlie Jackson with Blake -- yet neither side is in good enough shape to yield more than the most minimally audible playing and vocals; it's just possible to make use of that material, and it is followed by two wonderfully clean-sounding sides featuring Blake and "Chocolate Brown" Irene Scruggs, on which every nuance of his playing can be heard, and then two more that are in wretched shape. Those wildly variable tracks, however, pale next to the dazzling displays of music dexterity that pour out of Blake's fingers and off of his guitar -- he may well have been one of the great virtuoso talents of the 20th century, as you're reminded constantly on these CDs -- and his nearly as impressive vocal skills. The annotation is reasonably thorough if a bit repetitive; there's just not that much known about Blake's life or career -- the producers do appreciate the significance of such matters as his momentary move toward gospel music on "Beulah Land," and provide plenty about his occasional sidemen and collaborators, but basically this set is a lot like his whole legacy, brimming over with talent supported by precious little information."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/80689273eaa229b9/

Babe's Rhythm

2010-09-20T21:03:00.000-07:00

Smoky Babe- Hottest Brand Goin'

Album Review:
"In an ideal world, singer/acoustic guitarist Smoky Babe would have left behind a huge catalog. But, regrettably, the southern bluesman wasn't well known, and he only recorded a few albums. One of them was Hottest Brand Goin', which was recorded for Prestige's Bluesville label in Baton Rouge, LA, in 1961, and was reissued on CD for Fantasy's Original Blues Classics (OBC) series in 2001. Everything on this album is pure, unadulterated acoustic country blues; however, Babe doesn't embrace any one style of country blues exclusively. A Mississippi native who moved to Louisiana, Babe gets his inspiration from a variety of southern sources. The Louisiana influence is present, but his approach also owes something to Mississippi Delta blues (Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt) as well as Piedmont blues (Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee) and Texas blues (Lightnin' Hopkins). The Hopkins influence is prominent -- "Long Way from Home," "Cold Cold Snow," and "Insect Blues" are the sort of moody, dusky gems that Hopkins would have embraced -- and yet, you can't overlook the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia influences that also do their part to enrich this CD. Babe's vocals are soulful and authoritative, his acoustic guitar playing rugged and gritty. Most of the time, Babe is unaccompanied, although three selections find him joined by either Clyde Causey or Henry Thomas on harmonica. Again, it's most regrettable that Babe didn't do a lot more recording, but it's better to have only a few albums by him than none at all -- and Hottest Brand Goin' is enthusiastically recommended to lovers of earthy, unpretentious southern country blues."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/80622822bab26bc3/

Paramount's Guitar Superstar

2010-09-20T20:15:00.001-07:00

Blind Blake- All The Published Sides (Disc 4)

Album Review:
"As with many comprehensive pre-1940s blues sets, especially those devoted to artists who recorded on the old Paramount label, the five-CD All the Published Sides set is both a godsend and a study in frustration. Paramount wasn't known for its high-quality pressings when it was in business, and its bankruptcy in the early '30s and the destruction of its masters completed the picture, as far as sound quality. That said, this set is a modest improvement over Document Records' various Blind Blake CD issues of the late '80s, as well as being significantly cheaper; there's still plenty of noise on some of the tracks, and even the third version of "West Coast Blues" -- the best-sounding side on disc one -- contains some minor noise and slight distortion. This pattern is repeated throughout the 110 sides, very clean-sounding 78s juxtaposed with what must be the most abominable condition sources imaginable. Nowhere is this more frustrating than what ought to be a highlight of the entire set, "Papa Charlie and Blind Blake Talk About It, Pt. 1" and "Papa Charlie and Blind Blake Talk About It, Pt. 2," pairing the almost primordial bluesman Papa Charlie Jackson with Blake -- yet neither side is in good enough shape to yield more than the most minimally audible playing and vocals; it's just possible to make use of that material, and it is followed by two wonderfully clean-sounding sides featuring Blake and "Chocolate Brown" Irene Scruggs, on which every nuance of his playing can be heard, and then two more that are in wretched shape. Those wildly variable tracks, however, pale next to the dazzling displays of music dexterity that pour out of Blake's fingers and off of his guitar -- he may well have been one of the great virtuoso talents of the 20th century, as you're reminded constantly on these CDs -- and his nearly as impressive vocal skills. The annotation is reasonably thorough if a bit repetitive; there's just not that much known about Blake's life or career -- the producers do appreciate the significance of such matters as his momentary move toward gospel music on "Beulah Land," and provide plenty about his occasional sidemen and collaborators, but basically this set is a lot like his whole legacy, brimming over with talent supported by precious little information."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/8062219548f78023/

Too Tight

2010-09-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

Blind Blake- All The Published Sides (Disc 3)

Album Review:
"As with many comprehensive pre-1940s blues sets, especially those devoted to artists who recorded on the old Paramount label, the five-CD All the Published Sides set is both a godsend and a study in frustration. Paramount wasn't known for its high-quality pressings when it was in business, and its bankruptcy in the early '30s and the destruction of its masters completed the picture, as far as sound quality. That said, this set is a modest improvement over Document Records' various Blind Blake CD issues of the late '80s, as well as being significantly cheaper; there's still plenty of noise on some of the tracks, and even the third version of "West Coast Blues" -- the best-sounding side on disc one -- contains some minor noise and slight distortion. This pattern is repeated throughout the 110 sides, very clean-sounding 78s juxtaposed with what must be the most abominable condition sources imaginable. Nowhere is this more frustrating than what ought to be a highlight of the entire set, "Papa Charlie and Blind Blake Talk About It, Pt. 1" and "Papa Charlie and Blind Blake Talk About It, Pt. 2," pairing the almost primordial bluesman Papa Charlie Jackson with Blake -- yet neither side is in good enough shape to yield more than the most minimally audible playing and vocals; it's just possible to make use of that material, and it is followed by two wonderfully clean-sounding sides featuring Blake and "Chocolate Brown" Irene Scruggs, on which every nuance of his playing can be heard, and then two more that are in wretched shape. Those wildly variable tracks, however, pale next to the dazzling displays of music dexterity that pour out of Blake's fingers and off of his guitar -- he may well have been one of the great virtuoso talents of the 20th century, as you're reminded constantly on these CDs -- and his nearly as impressive vocal skills. The annotation is reasonably thorough if a bit repetitive; there's just not that much known about Blake's life or career -- the producers do appreciate the significance of such matters as his momentary move toward gospel music on "Beulah Land," and provide plenty about his occasional sidemen and collaborators, but basically this set is a lot like his whole legacy, brimming over with talent supported by precious little information."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/80586858e3df679e/

Blind Blake And His Guitar

2010-09-16T19:28:00.000-07:00

Blind Blake- All The Published Sides (Disc 2)

Album Review:
"As with many comprehensive pre-1940s blues sets, especially those devoted to artists who recorded on the old Paramount label, the five-CD All the Published Sides set is both a godsend and a study in frustration. Paramount wasn't known for its high-quality pressings when it was in business, and its bankruptcy in the early '30s and the destruction of its masters completed the picture, as far as sound quality. That said, this set is a modest improvement over Document Records' various Blind Blake CD issues of the late '80s, as well as being significantly cheaper; there's still plenty of noise on some of the tracks, and even the third version of "West Coast Blues" -- the best-sounding side on disc one -- contains some minor noise and slight distortion. This pattern is repeated throughout the 110 sides, very clean-sounding 78s juxtaposed with what must be the most abominable condition sources imaginable. Nowhere is this more frustrating than what ought to be a highlight of the entire set, "Papa Charlie and Blind Blake Talk About It, Pt. 1" and "Papa Charlie and Blind Blake Talk About It, Pt. 2," pairing the almost primordial bluesman Papa Charlie Jackson with Blake -- yet neither side is in good enough shape to yield more than the most minimally audible playing and vocals; it's just possible to make use of that material, and it is followed by two wonderfully clean-sounding sides featuring Blake and "Chocolate Brown" Irene Scruggs, on which every nuance of his playing can be heard, and then two more that are in wretched shape. Those wildly variable tracks, however, pale next to the dazzling displays of music dexterity that pour out of Blake's fingers and off of his guitar -- he may well have been one of the great virtuoso talents of the 20th century, as you're reminded constantly on these CDs -- and his nearly as impressive vocal skills. The annotation is reasonably thorough if a bit repetitive; there's just not that much known about Blake's life or career -- the producers do appreciate the significance of such matters as his momentary move toward gospel music on "Beulah Land," and provide plenty about his occasional sidemen and collaborators, but basically this set is a lot like his whole legacy, brimming over with talent supported by precious little information."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/80485648d045b9d9/

Doin' That Rag

2010-09-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

Blind Blake- All The Published Sides (Disc 1)

Album Review:
"As with many comprehensive pre-1940s blues sets, especially those devoted to artists who recorded on the old Paramount label, the five-CD All the Published Sides set is both a godsend and a study in frustration. Paramount wasn't known for its high-quality pressings when it was in business, and its bankruptcy in the early '30s and the destruction of its masters completed the picture, as far as sound quality. That said, this set is a modest improvement over Document Records' various Blind Blake CD issues of the late '80s, as well as being significantly cheaper; there's still plenty of noise on some of the tracks, and even the third version of "West Coast Blues" -- the best-sounding side on disc one -- contains some minor noise and slight distortion. This pattern is repeated throughout the 110 sides, very clean-sounding 78s juxtaposed with what must be the most abominable condition sources imaginable. Nowhere is this more frustrating than what ought to be a highlight of the entire set, "Papa Charlie and Blind Blake Talk About It, Pt. 1" and "Papa Charlie and Blind Blake Talk About It, Pt. 2," pairing the almost primordial bluesman Papa Charlie Jackson with Blake -- yet neither side is in good enough shape to yield more than the most minimally audible playing and vocals; it's just possible to make use of that material, and it is followed by two wonderfully clean-sounding sides featuring Blake and "Chocolate Brown" Irene Scruggs, on which every nuance of his playing can be heard, and then two more that are in wretched shape. Those wildly variable tracks, however, pale next to the dazzling displays of music dexterity that pour out of Blake's fingers and off of his guitar -- he may well have been one of the great virtuoso talents of the 20th century, as you're reminded constantly on these CDs -- and his nearly as impressive vocal skills. The annotation is reasonably thorough if a bit repetitive; there's just not that much known about Blake's life or career -- the producers do appreciate the significance of such matters as his momentary move toward gospel music on "Beulah Land," and provide plenty about his occasional sidemen and collaborators, but basically this set is a lot like his whole legacy, brimming over with talent supported by precious little information. "
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/8041610095b69c19/

Shake Your Boogie

2010-09-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

Big Joe Williams- Blues For 9 Strings

Biography:
"Big Joe Williams may have been the most cantankerous human being who ever walked the earth with guitar in hand. At the same time, he was an incredible blues musician: a gifted songwriter, a powerhouse vocalist, and an exceptional idiosyncratic guitarist. Despite his deserved reputation as a fighter (documented in Michael Bloomfield's bizarre booklet Me and Big Joe), artists who knew him well treated him as a respected elder statesman. Even so, they may not have chosen to play with him, because -- as with other older Delta artists -- if you played with him you played by his rules.

As protégé David "Honeyboy" Edwards described him, Williams in his early Delta days was a walking musician who played work camps, jukes, store porches, streets, and alleys from New Orleans to Chicago. He recorded through five decades for Vocalion, Okeh, Paramount, Bluebird, Prestige, Delmark, and many others. As a youngster, I met him in Delmark owner Bob Koester's store, the Jazz Record Mart. At the time, Big Joe was living there when not on his constant travels. According to Charlie Musselwhite, he and Big Joe kicked off the blues revival in Chicago in the '60s.

When I saw him playing at Mike Bloomfield's "blues night" at the Fickle Pickle, Williams was playing an electric nine-string guitar through a small ramshackle amp with a pie plate nailed to it and a beer can dangling against that. When he played, everything rattled but Big Joe himself. The total effect of this incredible apparatus produced the most buzzing, sizzling, African-sounding music I have ever heard.

Anyone who wants to learn Delta blues must one day come to grips with the idea that the guitar is a drum as well as a melody-producing instrument. A continuous, African-derived musical tradition emphasizing percussive techniques on stringed instruments from the banjo to the guitar can be heard in the music of Delta stalwarts Charley Patton, Fred McDowell, and Bukka White. Each employed decidedly percussive techniques, beating on his box, knocking on the neck, snapping the strings, or adding buzzing or sizzling effects to augment the instrument's percussive potential. However, Big Joe Williams, more than any other major recording artist, embodied the concept of guitar-as-drum, bashing out an incredible series of riffs on his G-tuned nine-string for over 60 years."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/8025142790b25701/

Memphis Blues Jam

2010-09-08T19:09:00.000-07:00

Furry Lewis, Bukka White & Friends- Party! At Home: Recorded In Memphis 1968

Album Review:
"Party! At Home: Recorded in Memphis 1968 is a fascinating document of two old country blues players, Bukka White and Furry Lewis, playing and talking in a completely relaxed, small-party session, surrounded by friends, none of whom treat the recording going on with any special reverence, meaning the whole set sounds exactly like what it is: a party. Recorded by Bob West in three sessions (one at the home of Albino Red and the other two at Lewis' apartment) in 1968 in Memphis and originally released on LP in 1972 (minus the talking and laughing), it remains one of the most intimate glimpses of the country blues in a neutral setting ever captured on tape. While there are some strong musical performances here by both White ("Hambone Blues") and Lewis (a beautifully natural rendition of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart"), its chief function is historical, letting the light in behind the scenes. The joy the folks at the party have in each other is uplifting, and the music is a bonus. It doesn't add anything startling to the cache of either blues player, but it will make you smile."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/802140695435f82d/

Did They Even Try?

2010-09-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

The Blues- Red, White And Blues

Here is The Blues in all of its glory, or, perhaps, shame. This highly flawed series is unfortunately the longest Blues documentary we have. If you're a serious fan of the music, which you probably are, I highly suggest the Down The Tracks documentaries on Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan, as they have more to do with Blues than this mess. Chasin' Gus' Ghost is also a fantastic Blues and Blues-related documentary. Anyway, let me know what you think of this disastrous series.

Downloading Instructions:
1) Download file below
2) Download GOM Player from Download.com
3) Play downloaded documentary in GOM Player. It will probably ask you to find/download a special Codec. Kindly agree!
4) Install whatever it is they want you to
5) Watch documentary

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/8016661956444097/

Steady Rollin'

2010-09-06T17:48:00.001-07:00

Robert Johnson- Legendary Blues 2

Biography:
"If the blues has a truly mythic figure, one whose story hangs over the music the way a Charlie Parker does over jazz or a Hank Williams does over country, it's Robert Johnson, certainly the most celebrated figure in the history of the blues. Of course, his legend is immensely fortified by the fact that Johnson also left behind a small legacy of recordings that are considered the emotional apex of the music itself. These recordings have not only entered the realm of blues standards ("Love in Vain," "Crossroads," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Stop Breaking Down"), but were adapted by rock & roll artists as diverse as the Rolling Stones, Steve Miller, Led Zeppelin, and Eric Clapton. While there are historical naysayers who would be more comfortable downplaying his skills and achievements (most of whom have never made a convincing case as where the source of his apocalyptic visions emanates from), Robert Johnson remains a potent force to be reckoned with. As a singer, a composer, and as a guitarist of considerable skills, he produced some of the genre's best music and the ultimate blues legend to deal with. Doomed, haunted, driven by demons, a tormented genius dead at an early age, all of these add up to making him a character of mythology who -- if he hadn't actually existed -- would have to be created by some biographer's overactive romantic imagination.

The legend of his life -- which by now, even folks who don't know anything about the blues can cite to you chapter and verse -- goes something like this: Robert Johnson was a young black man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi. Branded with a burning desire to become great blues musician, he was instructed to take his guitar to a crossroad near Dockery's plantation at midnight. There he was met by a large black man (the Devil) who took the guitar from Johnson, tuned it, and handed it back to him. Within less than a year's time, in exchange for his everlasting soul, Robert Johnson became the king of the Delta blues singers, able to play, sing, and create the greatest blues anyone had ever heard.

As success came with live performances and phonograph recordings, Johnson remained tormented, constantly haunted by nightmares of hellhounds on his trail, his pain and mental anguish finding release only in the writing and performing of his music. Just as he was to be brought to Carnegie Hall to perform in John Hammond's first Spirituals to Swing concert, the news had come from Mississippi; Robert Johnson was dead, poisoned by a jealous girlfriend while playing a jook joint. Those who were there swear he was last seen alive foaming at the mouth, crawling around on all fours, hissing and snapping at onlookers like a mad dog. His dying words (either spoken or written on a piece of scrap paper) were, "I pray that my redeemer will come and take me from my grave." He was buried in a pine box in an unmarked grave, his deal with the Devil at an end.

Of course, Johnson's influences in the real world were far more disparate than the legend suggests, no matter how many times it's been retold or embellished. As a teenage plantation worker, Johnson fooled with a harmonica a little bit, but seemingly had no major musical skills to speak of. Every attempt to sit in with local titans of the stature of Son House, Charley Patton, Willie Brown, and others brought howls of derision from the older bluesmen. Son House: "We'd all play for the Saturday night balls, and there'd be this little boy hanging around. That was Robert Johnson. He blew a harmonica then, and he was pretty good at that, but he wanted to play a guitar. He'd sit at our feet and play during the breaks and such another racket you'd never heard." He married young and left Robinsonville, wandering the Delta and using Hazelhurst as base, determined to become a full-time professional musician after his first wife died during childbirth. Johnson returned to Robinsonville a few years later and he encountered House and Willie Brown at a juke joint in Banks, MS; according to House, "When he finished all our mouths were standing open. I said, 'Well, ain't that fast! He's gone now!'" To a man, there was only one explanation as how Johnson had gotten that good, that fast; he had sold his soul to the Devil.

But Johnson's skills were acquired in a far more conventional manner, born more of a concentrated Christian work ethic than a Faustian bargain with old Scratch. He idolized the Delta recording star Lonnie Johnson -- sometimes introducing himself to newcomers as "Robert Lonnie, one of the Johnson brothers" -- and the music of Scrapper Blackwell, Skip James, and Kokomo Arnold were all inspirational elements that he drew his unique style from. His slide style certainly came from hours of watching local stars like Charley Patton and Son House, among others. Perhaps the biggest influence, however, came from an unrecorded bluesman named Ike Zinneman. We'll never really know what Zinneman's music sounded like (we do know from various reports that he liked to practice late at night in the local graveyard, sitting on tombstones while he strummed away) or how much of his personal muse he imparted to Johnson, if any. What is known is that after a year or so under Zinneman's tutelage, Johnson returned with an encyclopedic knowledge of his instrument, an ability to sing and play in a multiplicity of styles, and a very carefully worked-out approach to song construction, keeping his original lyrics with him in a personal digest. As an itinerant musician, playing at country suppers as well as on the street, his audience demanded someone who could play and sing everything from blues pieces to the pop and hillbilly tunes of the day. Johnson's talents could cover all of that and more. His most enduring contribution, the boogie bass line played on the bottom strings of the guitar (adapted from piano players), has become part-and-parcel of the sound most people associate with down-home blues. It is a sound so very much of a part of the music's fabric that the listener cannot imagine the styles of Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, Eddie Taylor, Lightnin' Slim, Hound Dog Taylor, or a hundred lesser lights existing without that essential component part. As his playing partner Johnny Shines put it, "Some of the things that Robert did with the guitar affected the way everybody played. He'd do rundowns and turnbacks. He'd do repeats. None of this was being done. In the early '30s, boogie on the guitar was rare, something to be heard. Because of Robert, people learned to complement theirselves, carrying their own bass as their own lead with this one instrument." While his music can certainly be put in context as part of a definable tradition, what he did with it and where he took it was another matter entirely.

Although Robert Johnson never recorded near as much as Lonnie Johnson, Charley Patton, or Blind Lemon Jefferson, he certainly traveled more than all of them put together. After his first recordings came out and "Terraplane Blues" became his signature tune (a so-called "race" record selling over three or four-thousand copies back in the early to mid-'30s was considered a hit), Johnson hit the road, playing anywhere and everywhere he could. Instilled with a seemingly unquenchable desire to experience new places and things, his wandering nature took him up and down the Delta and as far a field as St. Louis, Chicago, and Detroit (where he performed over the radio on the Elder Moten Hour), places Son House and Charley Patton had only seen in the movies, if that. But the end came at a Saturday-night dance at a juke joint in Three Forks, MS, in August of 1938. Playing with Honeyboy Edwards and Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller), Johnson was given a jug of moonshine whiskey laced with either poison or lye, presumably by the husband of a woman the singer had made advances toward. He continued playing into the night until he was too sick to continue, then brought back to a boarding house in Greenwood, some 15 miles away. He lay sick for several days, successfully sweating the poison out of his system, but caught pneumonia as a result and died on August 16th. The legend was just beginning.

In the mid-'60s, Columbia Records released King of the Delta Blues Singers, the first compilation of Johnson's music and one of the earliest collections of pure country blues. Rife with liner notes full of romantic speculation, little in the way of hard information and a painting standing for a picture, this for years was the world's sole introduction to the music and the legend, doing much to promote both. A second volume -- collecting up the other master takes and issuing a few of the alternates -- was released in the '70s, giving fans a first-hand listen to music that had been only circulated through bootleg tapes and albums or cover versions by English rock stars. Finally in 1990 -- after years of litigation -- a complete two-CD box set was released with every scrap of Johnson material known to exist plus the holy grail of the blues; the publishing of the only two known photographs of the man himself. Columbia's parent company, Sony, was hoping that sales would maybe hit 20,000. The box set went on to sell over a million units, the first blues recordings ever to do so.

In the intervening years since the release of the box set, Johnson's name and likeness has become a cottage growth merchandising industry. Posters, postcards, t-shirts, guitar picks, strings, straps, and polishing cloths -- all bearing either his likeness or signature (taken from his second marriage certificate) -- have become available, making him the ultimate blues commodity with his image being reproduced for profit far more than any contemporary bluesman, dead or alive. Although the man himself (and his contemporaries) could never have imagined it in a million years, the music and the legend both live on."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/80140318686f24c4/

Robert Johnson, Pristine Sound

2010-09-03T21:55:00.000-07:00

Robert Johnson- Legendary Blues

Biography:
"If the blues has a truly mythic figure, one whose story hangs over the music the way a Charlie Parker does over jazz or a Hank Williams does over country, it's Robert Johnson, certainly the most celebrated figure in the history of the blues. Of course, his legend is immensely fortified by the fact that Johnson also left behind a small legacy of recordings that are considered the emotional apex of the music itself. These recordings have not only entered the realm of blues standards ("Love in Vain," "Crossroads," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Stop Breaking Down"), but were adapted by rock & roll artists as diverse as the Rolling Stones, Steve Miller, Led Zeppelin, and Eric Clapton. While there are historical naysayers who would be more comfortable downplaying his skills and achievements (most of whom have never made a convincing case as where the source of his apocalyptic visions emanates from), Robert Johnson remains a potent force to be reckoned with. As a singer, a composer, and as a guitarist of considerable skills, he produced some of the genre's best music and the ultimate blues legend to deal with. Doomed, haunted, driven by demons, a tormented genius dead at an early age, all of these add up to making him a character of mythology who -- if he hadn't actually existed -- would have to be created by some biographer's overactive romantic imagination.

The legend of his life -- which by now, even folks who don't know anything about the blues can cite to you chapter and verse -- goes something like this: Robert Johnson was a young black man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi. Branded with a burning desire to become great blues musician, he was instructed to take his guitar to a crossroad near Dockery's plantation at midnight. There he was met by a large black man (the Devil) who took the guitar from Johnson, tuned it, and handed it back to him. Within less than a year's time, in exchange for his everlasting soul, Robert Johnson became the king of the Delta blues singers, able to play, sing, and create the greatest blues anyone had ever heard.

As success came with live performances and phonograph recordings, Johnson remained tormented, constantly haunted by nightmares of hellhounds on his trail, his pain and mental anguish finding release only in the writing and performing of his music. Just as he was to be brought to Carnegie Hall to perform in John Hammond's first Spirituals to Swing concert, the news had come from Mississippi; Robert Johnson was dead, poisoned by a jealous girlfriend while playing a jook joint. Those who were there swear he was last seen alive foaming at the mouth, crawling around on all fours, hissing and snapping at onlookers like a mad dog. His dying words (either spoken or written on a piece of scrap paper) were, "I pray that my redeemer will come and take me from my grave." He was buried in a pine box in an unmarked grave, his deal with the Devil at an end.

Of course, Johnson's influences in the real world were far more disparate than the legend suggests, no matter how many times it's been retold or embellished. As a teenage plantation worker, Johnson fooled with a harmonica a little bit, but seemingly had no major musical skills to speak of. Every attempt to sit in with local titans of the stature of Son House, Charley Patton, Willie Brown, and others brought howls of derision from the older bluesmen. Son House: "We'd all play for the Saturday night balls, and there'd be this little boy hanging around. That was Robert Johnson. He blew a harmonica then, and he was pretty good at that, but he wanted to play a guitar. He'd sit at our feet and play during the breaks and such another racket you'd never heard." He married young and left Robinsonville, wandering the Delta and using Hazelhurst as base, determined to become a full-time professional musician after his first wife died during childbirth. Johnson returned to Robinsonville a few years later and he encountered House and Willie Brown at a juke joint in Banks, MS; according to House, "When he finished all our mouths were standing open. I said, 'Well, ain't that fast! He's gone now!'" To a man, there was only one explanation as how Johnson had gotten that good, that fast; he had sold his soul to the Devil.

But Johnson's skills were acquired in a far more conventional manner, born more of a concentrated Christian work ethic than a Faustian bargain with old Scratch. He idolized the Delta recording star Lonnie Johnson -- sometimes introducing himself to newcomers as "Robert Lonnie, one of the Johnson brothers" -- and the music of Scrapper Blackwell, Skip James, and Kokomo Arnold were all inspirational elements that he drew his unique style from. His slide style certainly came from hours of watching local stars like Charley Patton and Son House, among others. Perhaps the biggest influence, however, came from an unrecorded bluesman named Ike Zinneman. We'll never really know what Zinneman's music sounded like (we do know from various reports that he liked to practice late at night in the local graveyard, sitting on tombstones while he strummed away) or how much of his personal muse he imparted to Johnson, if any. What is known is that after a year or so under Zinneman's tutelage, Johnson returned with an encyclopedic knowledge of his instrument, an ability to sing and play in a multiplicity of styles, and a very carefully worked-out approach to song construction, keeping his original lyrics with him in a personal digest. As an itinerant musician, playing at country suppers as well as on the street, his audience demanded someone who could play and sing everything from blues pieces to the pop and hillbilly tunes of the day. Johnson's talents could cover all of that and more. His most enduring contribution, the boogie bass line played on the bottom strings of the guitar (adapted from piano players), has become part-and-parcel of the sound most people associate with down-home blues. It is a sound so very much of a part of the music's fabric that the listener cannot imagine the styles of Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, Eddie Taylor, Lightnin' Slim, Hound Dog Taylor, or a hundred lesser lights existing without that essential component part. As his playing partner Johnny Shines put it, "Some of the things that Robert did with the guitar affected the way everybody played. He'd do rundowns and turnbacks. He'd do repeats. None of this was being done. In the early '30s, boogie on the guitar was rare, something to be heard. Because of Robert, people learned to complement theirselves, carrying their own bass as their own lead with this one instrument." While his music can certainly be put in context as part of a definable tradition, what he did with it and where he took it was another matter entirely.

Although Robert Johnson never recorded near as much as Lonnie Johnson, Charley Patton, or Blind Lemon Jefferson, he certainly traveled more than all of them put together. After his first recordings came out and "Terraplane Blues" became his signature tune (a so-called "race" record selling over three or four-thousand copies back in the early to mid-'30s was considered a hit), Johnson hit the road, playing anywhere and everywhere he could. Instilled with a seemingly unquenchable desire to experience new places and things, his wandering nature took him up and down the Delta and as far a field as St. Louis, Chicago, and Detroit (where he performed over the radio on the Elder Moten Hour), places Son House and Charley Patton had only seen in the movies, if that. But the end came at a Saturday-night dance at a juke joint in Three Forks, MS, in August of 1938. Playing with Honeyboy Edwards and Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller), Johnson was given a jug of moonshine whiskey laced with either poison or lye, presumably by the husband of a woman the singer had made advances toward. He continued playing into the night until he was too sick to continue, then brought back to a boarding house in Greenwood, some 15 miles away. He lay sick for several days, successfully sweating the poison out of his system, but caught pneumonia as a result and died on August 16th. The legend was just beginning.

In the mid-'60s, Columbia Records released King of the Delta Blues Singers, the first compilation of Johnson's music and one of the earliest collections of pure country blues. Rife with liner notes full of romantic speculation, little in the way of hard information and a painting standing for a picture, this for years was the world's sole introduction to the music and the legend, doing much to promote both. A second volume -- collecting up the other master takes and issuing a few of the alternates -- was released in the '70s, giving fans a first-hand listen to music that had been only circulated through bootleg tapes and albums or cover versions by English rock stars. Finally in 1990 -- after years of litigation -- a complete two-CD box set was released with every scrap of Johnson material known to exist plus the holy grail of the blues; the publishing of the only two known photographs of the man himself. Columbia's parent company, Sony, was hoping that sales would maybe hit 20,000. The box set went on to sell over a million units, the first blues recordings ever to do so.

In the intervening years since the release of the box set, Johnson's name and likeness has become a cottage growth merchandising industry. Posters, postcards, t-shirts, guitar picks, strings, straps, and polishing cloths -- all bearing either his likeness or signature (taken from his second marriage certificate) -- have become available, making him the ultimate blues commodity with his image being reproduced for profit far more than any contemporary bluesman, dead or alive. Although the man himself (and his contemporaries) could never have imagined it in a million years, the music and the legend both live on."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/80044502ed26e0ee/

Where Do The Blues Come From?

2010-09-02T09:24:00.000-07:00

I'd like to give a big thanks to everyone for their kind words regarding the Jelly Roll Morton posts. Unfortunately, I do not have the PDF file that accompanies the set. If anyone buys the actual product or receives the expensive thing for a birthday gift, feel free to scan the PDF file. There are some things that one feels inclined to purchase despite having downloaded the audio in its entirety, and this is one of them.

I want to give a special thanks to Olde Edo for the exhaustive track listings that he provided us. I'm just curious if any of the songs were improperly labeled, Olde.

I'd like to take this time to urge you all to take a look at Elijah Wald's Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues. It's a fantastic book that takes a much-needed second look at what the word Blues actually means. The entire book revolves around how African Americans' taste in Blues and what they perceived to be Blues during the golden age of recording is totally different from how whites subsequently defined the music. The majority of black Blues fans and musicians seemed to view Blues not as a primal cry expressing great sorrow, but as a modern popular music that was deeply associated with escaping conditions in the South and the promise of moving to cities like Chicago and St. Louis and driving nice cars. Wald also says- get this- that there's no more of a reason to think that Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues singers' music came from guys like Garfield Akers, Son House, Texas Alexander, etc., than there is to think that the countrified Blues players borrowed heavily from the Blues queens because their performances and subsequent records were received so well. Mr. Wald also states that what we hear on the records of the masters from the '20s and '30s is an incomplete picture of their repertoire. He says that record companies demanded 12-bar Blues songs from black musicians who were equally adept at playing waltzes, Pop songs, Hillbilly, Polish folk songs, etc. Wald even makes a claim that it's quite possible that the 12-bar Blues developed in New Orleans, a gigantic port city which exerted a great influence upon every place from Florida to St. Louis. Perhaps Mr. Morton would be happy to hear me say this. On another note, we have a book called Devil at the Confluence which asserts that Blues developed in St. Louis and not in Mississippi, and we have information from Youtube phenom Little Brother Blues that Curley Weaver's daughter said her grandfather was playing "No No Blues" in the 1880s! This would lead us to Nobody Knows Where the Blues Come From, a book I'm strongly looking forward to reading.

So, what are your thoughts on this?

From Congo Square To Madison Square Garden

2010-08-31T19:52:00.001-07:00

Jelly Roll Morton- The Complete Library Of Congress Recordings By Alan Lomax (Disc 8)

Album Review:
"The Complete Library of Congress Recordings of Jelly Roll Morton is staggering in its depth and magnitude. Here is an intimate oral history of music and culture in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast with demonstrative musical accompaniment. Beautifully restored -- especially considering the fact that this material was originally etched onto aluminum platters -- the Morton interviews are able to seep into the mind of the listener with unprecedented clarity and precision, along with numerous instrumental piano solos. Sipping whiskey and narrating in what Alistair Cooke described as his "billiard ball baritone," Morton speaks of spirituals, blues, jazz, ragtime, opera, symphonies, and overtures. He airs his own theories of harmony, melody, discords, rhythms, breaks and riffs, scat singing, swing, and the value of jazz when played slowly so as to enhance its bouquet. He speaks of musical origins, antecedents and precedents, originality and piracy, of nocturnal entertainments, musical cutting contests and impromptu fisticuffs, 24-hour honky tonks and street parades. With all the descriptive power of a Zola novel Morton describes horses, fine food, alcohol, narcotics and body lice; cardsharps, pool sharks, prostitutes, pianists, and hoodoos; race riots and funerals, gang violence and cold-blooded murder. He tells stories of hitting the road and scuffling to get by, even selling bogus patent medicine door to door. He plays Miserere from Verdi's Il Trovatore, explains the use of tangos, waltzes, and habanera rhythms, traces the quadrille origins of the "Tiger Rag," sings Mardi Gras Indian chants, and describes the circumstances which led to his being called "Jelly Roll." Loosened by liquor and encouraged by Alan Lomax, Morton even revives the smutty songs he used to perform in the sporting houses of Storyville. Morton's scatological lyrics to "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" and his own cheerfully lewd "Winin' Boy Blues" are almost as bracing as his version of the ever-popular "Dirty Dozen," peppered with references to inter-species copulation. Even the epically proportioned "Murder Ballad" contains its share of overt sexual verbiage. Disc eight contains a series of interviews recorded in 1949 with New Orleans musicians Johnny St. Cyr, Alphonse Picou, Albert Glenny, Paul Dominguez, Jr., and Sidney Bechet's brother, the trombone-blowing dentist Dr. Leonard Bechet. Also included on this disc is an Adobe Acrobat PDF document packed with extra liner notes, word-for-word transcriptions of all lyrics and dialogue heard on this set, unrecorded interviews and research notes, as well as rare documents from the Jelly Roll Morton archive. The eight discs, a paperback edition of Lomax's excellent biography Mister Jelly Roll, and a wonderfully informative, insightful booklet are encased in a rather ungainly, piano-shaped package that seems precariously fragile. The words and music housed within, however, will now be able to circulate anew and endure in the body politic for many years to come."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/79937486c0358235/

The New Orleans Hustler

2010-08-30T18:59:00.000-07:00

Jelly Roll Morton- The Complete Library Of Congress Recordings By Alan Lomax (Disc 7)

Album Review:
"The Complete Library of Congress Recordings of Jelly Roll Morton is staggering in its depth and magnitude. Here is an intimate oral history of music and culture in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast with demonstrative musical accompaniment. Beautifully restored -- especially considering the fact that this material was originally etched onto aluminum platters -- the Morton interviews are able to seep into the mind of the listener with unprecedented clarity and precision, along with numerous instrumental piano solos. Sipping whiskey and narrating in what Alistair Cooke described as his "billiard ball baritone," Morton speaks of spirituals, blues, jazz, ragtime, opera, symphonies, and overtures. He airs his own theories of harmony, melody, discords, rhythms, breaks and riffs, scat singing, swing, and the value of jazz when played slowly so as to enhance its bouquet. He speaks of musical origins, antecedents and precedents, originality and piracy, of nocturnal entertainments, musical cutting contests and impromptu fisticuffs, 24-hour honky tonks and street parades. With all the descriptive power of a Zola novel Morton describes horses, fine food, alcohol, narcotics and body lice; cardsharps, pool sharks, prostitutes, pianists, and hoodoos; race riots and funerals, gang violence and cold-blooded murder. He tells stories of hitting the road and scuffling to get by, even selling bogus patent medicine door to door. He plays Miserere from Verdi's Il Trovatore, explains the use of tangos, waltzes, and habanera rhythms, traces the quadrille origins of the "Tiger Rag," sings Mardi Gras Indian chants, and describes the circumstances which led to his being called "Jelly Roll." Loosened by liquor and encouraged by Alan Lomax, Morton even revives the smutty songs he used to perform in the sporting houses of Storyville. Morton's scatological lyrics to "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" and his own cheerfully lewd "Winin' Boy Blues" are almost as bracing as his version of the ever-popular "Dirty Dozen," peppered with references to inter-species copulation. Even the epically proportioned "Murder Ballad" contains its share of overt sexual verbiage. Disc eight contains a series of interviews recorded in 1949 with New Orleans musicians Johnny St. Cyr, Alphonse Picou, Albert Glenny, Paul Dominguez, Jr., and Sidney Bechet's brother, the trombone-blowing dentist Dr. Leonard Bechet. Also included on this disc is an Adobe Acrobat PDF document packed with extra liner notes, word-for-word transcriptions of all lyrics and dialogue heard on this set, unrecorded interviews and research notes, as well as rare documents from the Jelly Roll Morton archive. The eight discs, a paperback edition of Lomax's excellent biography Mister Jelly Roll, and a wonderfully informative, insightful booklet are encased in a rather ungainly, piano-shaped package that seems precariously fragile. The words and music housed within, however, will now be able to circulate anew and endure in the body politic for many years to come."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/7989955789fd902d/

Misbehavin'

2010-08-29T15:52:00.001-07:00

Jelly Roll Morton- The Complete Library Of Congress Recordings By Alan Lomax (Disc 6)

Album Review:
"The Complete Library of Congress Recordings of Jelly Roll Morton is staggering in its depth and magnitude. Here is an intimate oral history of music and culture in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast with demonstrative musical accompaniment. Beautifully restored -- especially considering the fact that this material was originally etched onto aluminum platters -- the Morton interviews are able to seep into the mind of the listener with unprecedented clarity and precision, along with numerous instrumental piano solos. Sipping whiskey and narrating in what Alistair Cooke described as his "billiard ball baritone," Morton speaks of spirituals, blues, jazz, ragtime, opera, symphonies, and overtures. He airs his own theories of harmony, melody, discords, rhythms, breaks and riffs, scat singing, swing, and the value of jazz when played slowly so as to enhance its bouquet. He speaks of musical origins, antecedents and precedents, originality and piracy, of nocturnal entertainments, musical cutting contests and impromptu fisticuffs, 24-hour honky tonks and street parades. With all the descriptive power of a Zola novel Morton describes horses, fine food, alcohol, narcotics and body lice; cardsharps, pool sharks, prostitutes, pianists, and hoodoos; race riots and funerals, gang violence and cold-blooded murder. He tells stories of hitting the road and scuffling to get by, even selling bogus patent medicine door to door. He plays Miserere from Verdi's Il Trovatore, explains the use of tangos, waltzes, and habanera rhythms, traces the quadrille origins of the "Tiger Rag," sings Mardi Gras Indian chants, and describes the circumstances which led to his being called "Jelly Roll." Loosened by liquor and encouraged by Alan Lomax, Morton even revives the smutty songs he used to perform in the sporting houses of Storyville. Morton's scatological lyrics to "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" and his own cheerfully lewd "Winin' Boy Blues" are almost as bracing as his version of the ever-popular "Dirty Dozen," peppered with references to inter-species copulation. Even the epically proportioned "Murder Ballad" contains its share of overt sexual verbiage. Disc eight contains a series of interviews recorded in 1949 with New Orleans musicians Johnny St. Cyr, Alphonse Picou, Albert Glenny, Paul Dominguez, Jr., and Sidney Bechet's brother, the trombone-blowing dentist Dr. Leonard Bechet. Also included on this disc is an Adobe Acrobat PDF document packed with extra liner notes, word-for-word transcriptions of all lyrics and dialogue heard on this set, unrecorded interviews and research notes, as well as rare documents from the Jelly Roll Morton archive. The eight discs, a paperback edition of Lomax's excellent biography Mister Jelly Roll, and a wonderfully informative, insightful booklet are encased in a rather ungainly, piano-shaped package that seems precariously fragile. The words and music housed within, however, will now be able to circulate anew and endure in the body politic for many years to come."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/79858693447caba8/

Dance Of The Freak

2010-08-27T15:25:00.001-07:00

Jelly Roll Morton- The Complete Library Of Congress Recordings By Alan Lomax (Disc 5)

Album Review:
"The Complete Library of Congress Recordings of Jelly Roll Morton is staggering in its depth and magnitude. Here is an intimate oral history of music and culture in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast with demonstrative musical accompaniment. Beautifully restored -- especially considering the fact that this material was originally etched onto aluminum platters -- the Morton interviews are able to seep into the mind of the listener with unprecedented clarity and precision, along with numerous instrumental piano solos. Sipping whiskey and narrating in what Alistair Cooke described as his "billiard ball baritone," Morton speaks of spirituals, blues, jazz, ragtime, opera, symphonies, and overtures. He airs his own theories of harmony, melody, discords, rhythms, breaks and riffs, scat singing, swing, and the value of jazz when played slowly so as to enhance its bouquet. He speaks of musical origins, antecedents and precedents, originality and piracy, of nocturnal entertainments, musical cutting contests and impromptu fisticuffs, 24-hour honky tonks and street parades. With all the descriptive power of a Zola novel Morton describes horses, fine food, alcohol, narcotics and body lice; cardsharps, pool sharks, prostitutes, pianists, and hoodoos; race riots and funerals, gang violence and cold-blooded murder. He tells stories of hitting the road and scuffling to get by, even selling bogus patent medicine door to door. He plays Miserere from Verdi's Il Trovatore, explains the use of tangos, waltzes, and habanera rhythms, traces the quadrille origins of the "Tiger Rag," sings Mardi Gras Indian chants, and describes the circumstances which led to his being called "Jelly Roll." Loosened by liquor and encouraged by Alan Lomax, Morton even revives the smutty songs he used to perform in the sporting houses of Storyville. Morton's scatological lyrics to "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" and his own cheerfully lewd "Winin' Boy Blues" are almost as bracing as his version of the ever-popular "Dirty Dozen," peppered with references to inter-species copulation. Even the epically proportioned "Murder Ballad" contains its share of overt sexual verbiage. Disc eight contains a series of interviews recorded in 1949 with New Orleans musicians Johnny St. Cyr, Alphonse Picou, Albert Glenny, Paul Dominguez, Jr., and Sidney Bechet's brother, the trombone-blowing dentist Dr. Leonard Bechet. Also included on this disc is an Adobe Acrobat PDF document packed with extra liner notes, word-for-word transcriptions of all lyrics and dialogue heard on this set, unrecorded interviews and research notes, as well as rare documents from the Jelly Roll Morton archive. The eight discs, a paperback edition of Lomax's excellent biography Mister Jelly Roll, and a wonderfully informative, insightful booklet are encased in a rather ungainly, piano-shaped package that seems precariously fragile. The words and music housed within, however, will now be able to circulate anew and endure in the body politic for many years to come."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/7978330394e01f8a/

Morton, American Composer

2010-08-26T19:03:00.001-07:00

Jelly Roll Morton- The Complete Library Of Congress Recordings By Alan Lomax (Disc 4)

Album Review:
"The Complete Library of Congress Recordings of Jelly Roll Morton is staggering in its depth and magnitude. Here is an intimate oral history of music and culture in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast with demonstrative musical accompaniment. Beautifully restored -- especially considering the fact that this material was originally etched onto aluminum platters -- the Morton interviews are able to seep into the mind of the listener with unprecedented clarity and precision, along with numerous instrumental piano solos. Sipping whiskey and narrating in what Alistair Cooke described as his "billiard ball baritone," Morton speaks of spirituals, blues, jazz, ragtime, opera, symphonies, and overtures. He airs his own theories of harmony, melody, discords, rhythms, breaks and riffs, scat singing, swing, and the value of jazz when played slowly so as to enhance its bouquet. He speaks of musical origins, antecedents and precedents, originality and piracy, of nocturnal entertainments, musical cutting contests and impromptu fisticuffs, 24-hour honky tonks and street parades. With all the descriptive power of a Zola novel Morton describes horses, fine food, alcohol, narcotics and body lice; cardsharps, pool sharks, prostitutes, pianists, and hoodoos; race riots and funerals, gang violence and cold-blooded murder. He tells stories of hitting the road and scuffling to get by, even selling bogus patent medicine door to door. He plays Miserere from Verdi's Il Trovatore, explains the use of tangos, waltzes, and habanera rhythms, traces the quadrille origins of the "Tiger Rag," sings Mardi Gras Indian chants, and describes the circumstances which led to his being called "Jelly Roll." Loosened by liquor and encouraged by Alan Lomax, Morton even revives the smutty songs he used to perform in the sporting houses of Storyville. Morton's scatological lyrics to "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" and his own cheerfully lewd "Winin' Boy Blues" are almost as bracing as his version of the ever-popular "Dirty Dozen," peppered with references to inter-species copulation. Even the epically proportioned "Murder Ballad" contains its share of overt sexual verbiage. Disc eight contains a series of interviews recorded in 1949 with New Orleans musicians Johnny St. Cyr, Alphonse Picou, Albert Glenny, Paul Dominguez, Jr., and Sidney Bechet's brother, the trombone-blowing dentist Dr. Leonard Bechet. Also included on this disc is an Adobe Acrobat PDF document packed with extra liner notes, word-for-word transcriptions of all lyrics and dialogue heard on this set, unrecorded interviews and research notes, as well as rare documents from the Jelly Roll Morton archive. The eight discs, a paperback edition of Lomax's excellent biography Mister Jelly Roll, and a wonderfully informative, insightful booklet are encased in a rather ungainly, piano-shaped package that seems precariously fragile. The words and music housed within, however, will now be able to circulate anew and endure in the body politic for many years to come."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/7975914666782c94/

Hello Central, Give Me Dr. Jazz

2010-08-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

Jelly Roll Morton- The Complete Library Of Congress Recordings By Alan Lomax (Disc 3)

Album Review:
"The Complete Library of Congress Recordings of Jelly Roll Morton is staggering in its depth and magnitude. Here is an intimate oral history of music and culture in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast with demonstrative musical accompaniment. Beautifully restored -- especially considering the fact that this material was originally etched onto aluminum platters -- the Morton interviews are able to seep into the mind of the listener with unprecedented clarity and precision, along with numerous instrumental piano solos. Sipping whiskey and narrating in what Alistair Cooke described as his "billiard ball baritone," Morton speaks of spirituals, blues, jazz, ragtime, opera, symphonies, and overtures. He airs his own theories of harmony, melody, discords, rhythms, breaks and riffs, scat singing, swing, and the value of jazz when played slowly so as to enhance its bouquet. He speaks of musical origins, antecedents and precedents, originality and piracy, of nocturnal entertainments, musical cutting contests and impromptu fisticuffs, 24-hour honky tonks and street parades. With all the descriptive power of a Zola novel Morton describes horses, fine food, alcohol, narcotics and body lice; cardsharps, pool sharks, prostitutes, pianists, and hoodoos; race riots and funerals, gang violence and cold-blooded murder. He tells stories of hitting the road and scuffling to get by, even selling bogus patent medicine door to door. He plays Miserere from Verdi's Il Trovatore, explains the use of tangos, waltzes, and habanera rhythms, traces the quadrille origins of the "Tiger Rag," sings Mardi Gras Indian chants, and describes the circumstances which led to his being called "Jelly Roll." Loosened by liquor and encouraged by Alan Lomax, Morton even revives the smutty songs he used to perform in the sporting houses of Storyville. Morton's scatological lyrics to "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" and his own cheerfully lewd "Winin' Boy Blues" are almost as bracing as his version of the ever-popular "Dirty Dozen," peppered with references to inter-species copulation. Even the epically proportioned "Murder Ballad" contains its share of overt sexual verbiage. Disc eight contains a series of interviews recorded in 1949 with New Orleans musicians Johnny St. Cyr, Alphonse Picou, Albert Glenny, Paul Dominguez, Jr., and Sidney Bechet's brother, the trombone-blowing dentist Dr. Leonard Bechet. Also included on this disc is an Adobe Acrobat PDF document packed with extra liner notes, word-for-word transcriptions of all lyrics and dialogue heard on this set, unrecorded interviews and research notes, as well as rare documents from the Jelly Roll Morton archive. The eight discs, a paperback edition of Lomax's excellent biography Mister Jelly Roll, and a wonderfully informative, insightful booklet are encased in a rather ungainly, piano-shaped package that seems precariously fragile. The words and music housed within, however, will now be able to circulate anew and endure in the body politic for many years to come."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/7972877919d9acae/

Oh, Play It, Mr. Jelly!

2010-08-24T12:10:00.000-07:00

Jelly Roll Morton- The Complete Library Of Congress Recordings By Alan Lomax (Disc 2)

Album Review:
"The Complete Library of Congress Recordings of Jelly Roll Morton is staggering in its depth and magnitude. Here is an intimate oral history of music and culture in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast with demonstrative musical accompaniment. Beautifully restored -- especially considering the fact that this material was originally etched onto aluminum platters -- the Morton interviews are able to seep into the mind of the listener with unprecedented clarity and precision, along with numerous instrumental piano solos. Sipping whiskey and narrating in what Alistair Cooke described as his "billiard ball baritone," Morton speaks of spirituals, blues, jazz, ragtime, opera, symphonies, and overtures. He airs his own theories of harmony, melody, discords, rhythms, breaks and riffs, scat singing, swing, and the value of jazz when played slowly so as to enhance its bouquet. He speaks of musical origins, antecedents and precedents, originality and piracy, of nocturnal entertainments, musical cutting contests and impromptu fisticuffs, 24-hour honky tonks and street parades. With all the descriptive power of a Zola novel Morton describes horses, fine food, alcohol, narcotics and body lice; cardsharps, pool sharks, prostitutes, pianists, and hoodoos; race riots and funerals, gang violence and cold-blooded murder. He tells stories of hitting the road and scuffling to get by, even selling bogus patent medicine door to door. He plays Miserere from Verdi's Il Trovatore, explains the use of tangos, waltzes, and habanera rhythms, traces the quadrille origins of the "Tiger Rag," sings Mardi Gras Indian chants, and describes the circumstances which led to his being called "Jelly Roll." Loosened by liquor and encouraged by Alan Lomax, Morton even revives the smutty songs he used to perform in the sporting houses of Storyville. Morton's scatological lyrics to "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" and his own cheerfully lewd "Winin' Boy Blues" are almost as bracing as his version of the ever-popular "Dirty Dozen," peppered with references to inter-species copulation. Even the epically proportioned "Murder Ballad" contains its share of overt sexual verbiage. Disc eight contains a series of interviews recorded in 1949 with New Orleans musicians Johnny St. Cyr, Alphonse Picou, Albert Glenny, Paul Dominguez, Jr., and Sidney Bechet's brother, the trombone-blowing dentist Dr. Leonard Bechet. Also included on this disc is an Adobe Acrobat PDF document packed with extra liner notes, word-for-word transcriptions of all lyrics and dialogue heard on this set, unrecorded interviews and research notes, as well as rare documents from the Jelly Roll Morton archive. The eight discs, a paperback edition of Lomax's excellent biography Mister Jelly Roll, and a wonderfully informative, insightful booklet are encased in a rather ungainly, piano-shaped package that seems precariously fragile. The words and music housed within, however, will now be able to circulate anew and endure in the body politic for many years to come."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/796800944e1f48f9/

Mr. Jelly Lord

2010-08-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

Jelly Roll Morton- The Complete Library Of Congress Recordings By Alan Lomax (Disc 1)

Album Review:
"The Complete Library of Congress Recordings of Jelly Roll Morton is staggering in its depth and magnitude. Here is an intimate oral history of music and culture in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast with demonstrative musical accompaniment. Beautifully restored -- especially considering the fact that this material was originally etched onto aluminum platters -- the Morton interviews are able to seep into the mind of the listener with unprecedented clarity and precision, along with numerous instrumental piano solos. Sipping whiskey and narrating in what Alistair Cooke described as his "billiard ball baritone," Morton speaks of spirituals, blues, jazz, ragtime, opera, symphonies, and overtures. He airs his own theories of harmony, melody, discords, rhythms, breaks and riffs, scat singing, swing, and the value of jazz when played slowly so as to enhance its bouquet. He speaks of musical origins, antecedents and precedents, originality and piracy, of nocturnal entertainments, musical cutting contests and impromptu fisticuffs, 24-hour honky tonks and street parades. With all the descriptive power of a Zola novel Morton describes horses, fine food, alcohol, narcotics and body lice; cardsharps, pool sharks, prostitutes, pianists, and hoodoos; race riots and funerals, gang violence and cold-blooded murder. He tells stories of hitting the road and scuffling to get by, even selling bogus patent medicine door to door. He plays Miserere from Verdi's Il Trovatore, explains the use of tangos, waltzes, and habanera rhythms, traces the quadrille origins of the "Tiger Rag," sings Mardi Gras Indian chants, and describes the circumstances which led to his being called "Jelly Roll." Loosened by liquor and encouraged by Alan Lomax, Morton even revives the smutty songs he used to perform in the sporting houses of Storyville. Morton's scatological lyrics to "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" and his own cheerfully lewd "Winin' Boy Blues" are almost as bracing as his version of the ever-popular "Dirty Dozen," peppered with references to inter-species copulation. Even the epically proportioned "Murder Ballad" contains its share of overt sexual verbiage. Disc eight contains a series of interviews recorded in 1949 with New Orleans musicians Johnny St. Cyr, Alphonse Picou, Albert Glenny, Paul Dominguez, Jr., and Sidney Bechet's brother, the trombone-blowing dentist Dr. Leonard Bechet. Also included on this disc is an Adobe Acrobat PDF document packed with extra liner notes, word-for-word transcriptions of all lyrics and dialogue heard on this set, unrecorded interviews and research notes, as well as rare documents from the Jelly Roll Morton archive. The eight discs, a paperback edition of Lomax's excellent biography Mister Jelly Roll, and a wonderfully informative, insightful booklet are encased in a rather ungainly, piano-shaped package that seems precariously fragile. The words and music housed within, however, will now be able to circulate anew and endure in the body politic for many years to come."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/79650144a48b01e9/

His Stove Won't Work & His Door's Messed Up!

2010-08-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

Casey Bill Weldon- Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1935-1936)

Album Review:
"Nearly nothing is known about Casey Bill Weldon, a fine blues performer who recorded 100 titles under his own name. He is believed to have recorded with the Memphis Jug Band in 1927 (when he led his first sessions) and then nothing was heard from him until 1935, when he re-emerged as a steel guitarist and vocalist, recording for Vocalion and Bluebird. Three CDs from Document have all of Weldon's post-1934 recordings. The music ranges from lowdown blues to good-time romps with Weldon usually joined by Peetie Wheatstraw (whose vocal style influenced him) or Black Bob on piano and sometimes Bill Settles on bass. One four-song session is with a version of the Washboard Rhythm Kings that has clarinetist Arnett Nelson, Tampa Red on kazoo and/or guitar, and Washboard Sam on washboard, in addition to Weldon. Among the 25 numbers on this CD are "What's the Matter With My Milk Cow," "My Stove Won't Work," "Howlin' Dog Blues," "Somebody Changed the Lock on That Door," and "Let Me Be Your Butcher." Blues collectors will want to explore Casey Bill Weldon's music."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/79648464bcf88c8d/

Little Brother Blues

2010-08-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

Little Brother Montgomery- These Are What I Like

Biography:
"A notable influence on the likes of Sunnyland Slim and Otis Spann, pianist Little Brother Montgomery's lengthy career spanned both the earliest years of blues history and the electrified Chicago scene of the 1950s. By age 11, Montgomery had given up on attending school to instead play in Louisiana juke joints. He came to Chicago as early as 1926 and made his first 78s in 1930 for Paramount, including two enduring signature items, "Vicksburg Blues" and "No Special Rider," recorded in Grafton, WI. Bluebird recorded Montgomery more prolifically in 1935-1936 in New Orleans.

In 1942, Little Brother Montgomery settled down to a life of steady club gigs in Chicago, his repertoire alternating between blues and traditional jazz (he played Carnegie Hall with Kid Ory's Dixieland band in 1949). Otis Rush benefited from his sensitive accompaniment on several of his 1957-1958 Cobra dates, while Buddy Guy recruited him for similar duties when he nailed Montgomery's "First Time I Met the Blues" in a supercharged revival for Chess in 1960. That same year, Montgomery cut a fine album for Bluesville with guitarist Lafayette "Thing" Thomas that remains one of his most satisfying sets.

With his second wife, Janet Floberg, Montgomery formed his own little record company, FM, in 1969. The first 45 on the logo, fittingly enough, was a reprise of "Vicksburg Blues," with a vocal by Chicago chanteuse Jeanne Carroll (her daughter Karen followed in her footsteps around the Windy City)."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/79559084f43cba2d/

Memphis Maestro

2010-08-19T12:35:00.000-07:00

Furry Lewis- The Complete Vintage Recordings Of Furry Lewis (1927-1929)

Album Review:
"This release supplants both the Yazoo In His Prime and the Wolf Records 1990 Complete Works collections released earlier. This time everything that Lewis recorded for Victor and Vocalion during those extraordinary two years of work during the 1920's has been gathered together, including both parts of "Kassie Jones." The sound has been improved as well, and the notes are decent if, as is usual with Document, unexceptional. But this is one instance where Document's release of the complete works of an artist are preferable to Yazoo's picking and choosing."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/79515958abf66e0d/

Alabama Bound

2010-08-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

Sonny Scott- The Complete Recordings In Chronological Order (1933)

Album Review:
"Most of Sonny Scott's recordings are to be found on volume one of Walter Roland's complete recorded works as reissued by the Document label some 60 years after they were cut during a brief visit to New York City in July of 1933. The first album ever to be devoted primarily to Scott includes a handful of collaborations with Roland amongst recordings that feature Scott as primary performer in his own element, his voice and guitar reminiscent of Ed Bell, Curley Weaver, or Buddy Moss. The modus, mood, and subject matter throughout the 17 tracks are firmly rooted in the loam of west central Alabama; there are references to coal mining, the gathering of firewood, the endless peregrinations of river water, and various tribulations associated with being alive and scuffling to survive in the world. The "Highway No. 2 Blues" refers to a road that crosses the Sipsey River north of Mantua about 20 miles southwest of Tuscaloosa. The "Black Horse Blues," dutifully represented by a vintage photograph on the album cover, and should not be confused with an identically titled song by Blind Lemon Jefferson. "
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/79515097791ba3c9/

Pullum & His Piano Men

2010-08-17T11:27:00.000-07:00

Joe Pullum- Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1934-1935)

Biography:
"Pullum, a Houston-born nightclub singer, was one of the more obscure blues stars. He was accompanied on his few recordings by two pianists; Rob Cooper on his earlier discs, and Andy Boy on his later efforts. Pullum's major success was with his self-written song, "Black Gal What Makes Your Head So Hard?" (1934). It sold in large quantities and was covered by Leroy Carr, Mary Johnson, Jimmie Gordon, Josh White and the Harlem Hamfats. His subsequent recordings did not fare as well.

Pullum recorded four sessions, which yielded a total of 30 tracks tracks, between April 1934 and February 1936. The tracks included two intended sequels to "Black Gal," but overall sales were modest. Pullum later performed on radio on the Houston station, KTLC, backed by another pianist, Preston "Peachy" Chase. Pullum relocated to Los Angeles, California in the 1940s, and he further interpreted "Black Gal" into "My Woman", accompanied by Lloyd Glenn, on Swingtime Records in 1948. He also reputedly recorded a demo with Specialty Records in 1953.

Although he was a gifted songwriter, few of his contemporaries seemed able to recall him.

Pullum died in 1964, probably aged 58. All of his known recordings were collated on two Document albums released in 1995."
-Wikipedia.org

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/7944624646a8d07f/

The Music Of James Wayne

2010-08-15T20:08:00.000-07:00

James Wee Willie Wayne- Travelin' From Texas To New Orleans

Biography:
"James Waynes was credited with that name on his earliest recordings. Later it became James Wayne and from 1955 onwards, Wee Willie Wayne. He was an R&B singer with a distinctive voice, who was discovered in Texas by Bob Shad, the man probably best known to R&R fans as the owner of the Time, Brent and Shad labels in NYC in the late fifties and early sixties. However, Shad started out recording Southern R&B and blues on his Sittin' In With label in 1948. It was for this label that Wayne made his first recording (in Houston) and his only hit: "Tend To Your Business", which reached # 2 on the Billboard R&B charts in 1951. Shad next recorded Waynes at the WGST studio in Atlanta, Georgia. Among the five songs recorded there was the all-time classic "Junco Partner" (subtitled "Worthless Man" on the old 78), which became a local hit. Waynes was then signed by Imperial, who recorded him in New Orleans. Although he was backed by some of the Crescent City's finest session men (Lee Allen, Edward Frank, Justin Adams, Frank Fields), the style on these records is more Texas than New Orleans. After excursions to Aladdin and Old Town, Waynes returned to Imperial in 1955 and recorded "Travelin' Mood" (among others) on May 27, 1955. Both "Junco Partner" and "Travelin' Mood" became standards in the repertoire of many New Orleans musicians, like Dr. John, Professor Longhair, James Booker and Snooks Eaglin. Further records appeared on the Peacock and Angletone labels, before Waynes was signed by Imperial for a third time in 1961. On February 22 of that year he rerecorded his hit "Tend To Your Business" in a more contemporary style, along with five other tracks. Imperial reissued "Travelin' Mood" on Imperial 5725 and also released a compilation of old and new Wayne material with that title on Imperial LP 9144. Sales were disappointing, though, and the 1961 Imperial recordings were probably his last ones."
-dontaskmeidontknow.blogspot.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/79390406ed7ca54a/

Gabriel Brown Of Florida

2010-08-14T13:38:00.000-07:00

Gabriel Brown- And His Guitar

Biography:
"A highly original country blues guitarist and singer, Gabriel Brown was discovered in Florida by folk music researchers in the '30s and launched on a recording career that lasted several decades. Although he never reached the record sales or celebrity of a Lightnin' Hopkins, the seemingly undying faith of one his producers meant that Brown at least had the chance to record prolifically. And the man's career was unusual for a blues artist, not many of whom can list experience working with director and actor Orson Welles on their resumés. Brown's first champion was the black writer Zora Neale Hurston, who spent time in Florida collecting information for her research on folklore as well as her original novels. This was where she first came in contact with Brown, who made enough of an impression on her that in 1935 she encouraged noted folk and blues collector Alan Lomax to extend a Georgia recording trip further south into Florida in order to nab some of Brown's material.

The result was Brown's recording debut in a series of performances cut for the Library of Congress. Details of the man's life are a bit sketchy, gaps occurring in between these recordings and his arrival as a performer in New York City in the '40s as well as the period leading up to his death in Florida in the early '70s in a boating accident. As usual with blues artists, there are sometimes several variations on what might have happened, including him actually dying a decade earlier. Sometimes Hurston is the one who gets the credit with bringing Brown to the Big Apple to work in a light opera she'd written, but apparently the bluesman was already in the big city when he was enlisted to perform in Polk County, Hurston's attempt at setting a musical comedy inside a turpentine camp. And by this time Brown already had a new relationship with a producer that would be even more important to his career than Hurston had been. That was Joe Davis, whose busy half a century in the record business included working as a songwriter, publisher, A&R man, record label owner, and record producer. He would continually record Brown for the next decade, searching for an elusive "hit" sound and sometimes sitting on as many as a dozen finished masters in the process.

Brown's background at the time he came to the attention of Hurston already stood in contrast to many self-educated earlier country blues performers. He was a graduate of the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College, and also was said to have studied medicine. He began playing music on the Hawaiian guitar and singing with a group in this style known as the Sun to Sun Singers. By the time the Library of Congress caught up with him, though, he had transitioned to the regular acoustic guitar and was playing in a slide style, but one that really sounds very little like any other recorded bluesman. In 1934, Brown was invited to the National Folk Festival in St. Louis as a representative of the state of Florida and won first prize as both a folk singer and guitarist.

The following year he began a four year involvement with the Federal Arts Theatre, at that point under the direction of Welles. In the late '30s, he was a featured singer on the radio in Cincinnati in the wooly Sheep and Goats Club program, and also appeared in the show St. Louis Woman. In 1943, Brown wound up on U.S.O. shows and entered the civil service, working for a branch of the Army Signal Corps in Asbury Park, NJ. The same coastal club scene that would later be glorified by rocker Bruce Springsteen was a performing home for Brown in the '40s. The first recording session under the auspices of Davis took place in 1943, and the two would continue working together until 1952. A pattern emerged from these sessions involving the creation of a backlog of unreleased material, some of which was only heard by the blues audience following the reissue booms of the '70s and '80s.

At one point a few years before his own death, Davis had to take legal action to quash a bootleg reissue of the Brown sides that were in the can; eventually, legal collections of the bluesman came out on labels such as Flyright and Krazy Kat. The material that did get commercially issued during Brown's lifetime was not always chosen for artistic reasons, or promoted in any kind of tasteful or even accurate manner. Davis, ever mindful of the commercial potential of smutty material, was most enthusiastic about titles such as "It's Getting Soft," promoted with postcards of a man leading a sexy lass into a motel room and urging her to "Hurry up honey, it's getting soft!" The fellow is also carrying a bucket of ice cream, of course. Meanwhile, more intelligent Brown performances languished in the can, but at least Davis had the foresight to continue scheduling recording sessions with the Florida bluesman. In the late '40s, some of these recordings were licensed to Coral, a subsidiary label of Decca. When Davis went to work as an A&R man for MGM, Brown was part of the roster of artists brought to the label. MGM not surprisingly tried to promote the blues singer as a kind of pop vocalist. The final sessions Davis cut with Brown in 1952 are considered some of his finest recordings, but were never even offered to MGM."

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/7935020844bb717b/

Walker, Short & To The Point

2010-08-11T14:38:00.000-07:00

Phillip Walker- Someday You'll Have These Blues

Album Review:
"Recorded in 1975-76 and initially out on the short-lived Joliet logo (later Alligator picked it up; it's now out on HighTone), this collection wasn't quite the masterpiece that its predecessor was ("Breakin' Up Somebody's Home" and "Part Time Love" were hardly inspired cover choices), the set does have its moments -- the uncompromising title track and "Beaumont Blues, " to cite a couple."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/792483596f94c723/

More Stackhouse

2010-08-09T10:11:00.000-07:00

Houston Stackhouse- Cryin' Won't Help You

Biography:
"The mentor of Delta slide virtuoso Robert Nighthawk, Houston Stackhouse never achieved the same commercial or artistic success as his famed pupil, and remained little known outside of his native Mississippi. Born in the small town of Wesson on September 28, 1910, he was a devotee of Tommy Johnson, whose songs he frequently covered; neither an especially gifted singer nor guitarist, he was quickly surpassed by the young Nighthawk, although the student repaid his debts by backing Stackhouse on a series of sessions cut during the mid- to late '60s. Outside of the rare European tour, Stackhouse was primarily confined to playing Delta border towns throughout the majority of his career; he died in Houston, Texas in 1980."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/79172797402c2b41/

UK Stackhouse Release

2010-08-02T18:26:00.000-07:00

Houston Stackhouse- Big Road Blues

Biography:
"The mentor of Delta slide virtuoso Robert Nighthawk, Houston Stackhouse never achieved the same commercial or artistic success as his famed pupil, and remained little known outside of his native Mississippi. Born in the small town of Wesson on September 28, 1910, he was a devotee of Tommy Johnson, whose songs he frequently covered; neither an especially gifted singer nor guitarist, he was quickly surpassed by the young Nighthawk, although the student repaid his debts by backing Stackhouse on a series of sessions cut during the mid- to late '60s. Outside of the rare European tour, Stackhouse was primarily confined to playing Delta border towns throughout the majority of his career; he died in Houston, Texas in 1980."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/789469928a97c7b5/

His Woman's A Black Panther

2010-07-29T19:33:00.000-07:00

Johnny Shines- Last Night's Dream

Album Review:
"It's no wonder that this album, cut in 1968 with British blues maven Mike Vernon at the helm, works so well. When you team a rejuvenated Shines with his longtime compadres Horton, Spann, bassist Willie Dixon, and drummer Clifton James, a little blues history was bound to be made."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/788199095c66ddca/

One Man Band, Jesse Fuller

2010-07-29T13:21:00.000-07:00

Jesse Fuller- Fuller's Favorites

Biography:
"Equipped with a band full of instruments operated by various parts of his anatomy, Bay Area legend Jesse Fuller was a folk music favorite in the '50s and '60s. His infectious rhythm and gentle charm graced old folk tunes, spirituals, and blues alike. One of his inventions was a homemade foot-operated instrument called the "footdella" or "fotdella." Naturally, Fuller never needed other accompanists to back his one-man show. His best-known songs include "San Francisco Bay Blues" and "Beat It on Down the Line" (the first one covered by Janis Joplin, the second by the Grateful Dead).

Born and raised in Georgia, Jesse Fuller began playing guitar when he was a child, although he didn't pursue the instrument seriously. In his early twenties, Fuller wandered around the southern and western regions of the United States, eventually settling down in Los Angeles. While he was in Southern California he worked as a film extra, appearing in The Thief of Bagdad, East of Suez, Hearts in Dixie, and End of the World. After spending a few years in Los Angeles, Fuller moved to San Francisco. While he worked various odd jobs around the Bay Area, he played on street corners and parties.

Fuller's musical career didn't properly begin until the early '50s, when he decided to become a professional musician -- he was 55 years old at the time. Performing as a one-man band, he began to get spots on local television shows and nightclubs. However, Fuller's career didn't take off until 1954, when he wrote "San Francisco Bay Blues." The song helped him land a record contract with the independent Cavalier label, and in 1955 he recorded his first album, Folk Blues: Working on the Railroad with Jesse Fuller. The album was a success and soon he was making records for a variety of labels, including Good Time Jazz and Prestige.

In the late '50s and early '60s Jesse Fuller became one of the key figures of the blues revival, helping bring the music to a new, younger audience. Throughout the '60s and '70s he toured America and Europe, appearing at numerous blues and folk festivals, as well as countless coffeehouse gigs across the U.S. Fuller continued performing and recording until his death in 1976."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/78810965358ebe9f/

Barrel House Man

2010-07-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

Will Ezell- Complete Recorded Works (1927-1931)

Album Review:
"With the exception of some sessions accompanying other singers, the complete Will Ezell is on this single CD. A talented blues and boogie-woogie pianist, Ezell led four mostly instrumental solo sessions (resulting in 12 performances). In addition, his dates backing singers Marie Bradley, Ora Brown, Bertha Henderson, and Slim Tarpley are also included on this enjoyable and historic CD. Among the more rewarding selections are "Barrel House Man," "Mixed Up Rag," "Heifer Dust," "Playing the Dozen," and "Pitchin' Boogie.""
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/7870312138d7530e/

Get It While It's Hot

2010-07-25T13:20:00.001-07:00

Firstly, I would like everyone to know that I will continue to upload music to this blog. The music on this blog is strictly for your listening pleasure. In accordance with the laws of the U.S.A., you may not rip it to cd, distribute it, or sell it. If there are any artists, representatives of artists, or friends of artists who do not wish to see a particular album posted on this site, please inform me.

With that being said, I'd like to announce that I'm selling some compact discs, video tapes, and dvds which I no longer listen to/watch. You can find the names of the items and their respective prices below. Prices are not negotiable. Written below are detailed descriptions of the items and the condition in which you'll find them.

Hubert Sumlin- Healing Feeling
8 dollars
11 songs
Back left of jewel case has small sticker mark that is the size of a newborn kitten's fingernail (I don't know how else to describe it!)

Memphis Slim- I Am The Blues
8 dollars
14 songs
Unopened/brand new

Country Blues- The Essential
8 dollars
36 songs
Case is in very good condition, liner notes are in perfect condition, excellent value for the money

Led Zeppelin- The Song Remains The Same
8 dollars
VHS
Functions as well as any other video tape out there

Deep Purple- Bombay Calling
8 dollars
DVD
This is a Korean DVD which will play in your dvd player or computer if you live in the U.S.A., in perfect condition, 113 minutes

Rush- Permanent Waves
7 dollars
CD
Jewel case is in very good condition, CD and liner notes are in perfect condition, part of the 'Rush Remasters' series, please help me get this out of my house!

Bruce Dickinson- The Chemical Wedding
6 dollars
CD
Everything is in perfect condition, please get this off my hands!

T-Bone Walker- Stormy Monday (American Blues Legends Series)
7 dollars
CD
This is live T-Bone, recorded in Europe in 1968
CD and liner notes are in perfect condition, jewel case has a separation at the top that causes case to separate when opened

The Cult- The Cult
5 dollars
CD
Jewel case is in good condition; certainly not perfect
CD and liner notes look good as new

As you can see, I really want to get rid of a lot of this stuff. My descriptions of the items are honest. I'm not out to cheat anyone. I just want to get these items off my hands without feeling as if I wasted a million dollars on them.

If you are interested in buying anything, please let me know. Thank you!

Poet Of Brownsville

2010-07-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

Sleepy John Estes- Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1929-1937)

Album Review:
"For those with enough interest, Document's Complete Works, Vol. 1 (1929-1937) is invaluable, offering an exhaustive overview of Sleepy John Estes' early recordings. The early to mid-'30s were the most fruitful years of Estes' long career, during which he recorded most of the best songs of his career: "The Girl I Love, She Got Long Curly Hair," "Someday Baby Blues," "Milk Cow Blues," "Drop Down Mama," and "Down South Blues." Of course, these are all available on I Ain't Gonna Be Worried No More 1929-1941, along with a more regimented set of classic performances from the late '30s. All of which leaves Complete Works, Vol. 1 (1929-1937) as a mixed blessing, more intriguing and important for serious fans than those simply wishing to get a taste of what made Sleepy John Estes great."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/785694271b73eadb/

Honeydrippin' Roosevelt

2010-07-21T10:36:00.000-07:00

Roosevelt Sykes- Chicago Boogie

Album Review:
"This Delmark CD issue is taken from Roosevelt Sykes' first early-'50s recordings for the Regal label, with a few tracks taken from the early '60s, and issued by Delmark originally. Sykes was fresh from a long tenure with RCA Victor and Bluebird, and artistically hungry for the first time in at least a decade. The sides here reflect that fresh-start feel. Sykes performs here like a young lion artist who is trying to blow the doors off the joint to prove himself, rather than as a seasoned veteran. There are three different sessions here: one from March 14, 1950 (with Jump Jackson on drums), another from April 10, 1951 (with J.T. Brown on tenor sax, Ransom Knowling on bass, and Jackson on drums), and a final one from May 17, 1963 (with St. Louis Jimmy on vocals on four of the nine). This stuff is the Sykes' mother lode. Not only have none of these tracks ever appeared on CD before, nine of them are issued here for the very first time anywhere. Here is the piano-pumping, wailing singer, digging deep and having a ball on the title track, "Drivin' Wheel," "Rock It," "Green Onion Top," "44 Blues," and "West Helena Blues," with 12 others in the mix. Sound quality here is pretty much great and the sequencing is primo. This is an indispensable addition to any Roosevelt Sykes' shelf, and one hell of an introduction for novices."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/7854425162136f5e/

Jug Jazz

2010-07-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

Clifford Hayes- Clifford Hayes & The Dixieland Jug Blowers

Album Review:
"Jug band material in the hokum and country blues variety. This one goes about as far to the margin as any jug band ever journeyed, thanks to Clifford Hayes' violin and Earl McDonald's jug."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/7833104215408b6b/

I'm Gonna Ride To Your Funeral In A V8 Ford

2010-07-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

Buddy Moss- Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 3 (1935-1941)

Album Review:
"This disc contains the Georgia Cotton Pickers songs on which Buddy Moss played on December 7, 1930. Although he is playing harmonica rather than guitar, they're necessary for any completists, and Bob's work is so closely related to Moss's music, that it's impossible to overlook any of it."
-Allmusic.com

Note: This Allmusic.com review is nonsensical, as the material on the disc was recorded well after 1930. The cover of the cd tells us that. Also, Moss seems to be playing guitar on every track.

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/78143393e90f4d02/

Moonlight Blues

2010-06-29T19:01:00.000-07:00

Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell- Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 4 (1932-1934)

Album Review:
"People living in the early 21st century would do well to consider complete immersion in more than an hour's worth of vintage Vocalion blues records made during the darkest days of the Great Depression by pianist Leroy Carr and guitarist Scrapper Blackwell. Vol. 4 in Document's Complete Recorded Works of Leroy Carr contains 23 sides dating from March 1932 through August 1934, with three takes of "Mean Mistreatin' Mama" (suffused with a mood that almost certainly inspired Big Maceo's sound) and an extra version of Carr's beautifully straightforward "Blues Before Sunrise." This is not a "get up and shake your butt" kind of collection, and anyone who complains that it isn't has missed the entire point of historic blues appreciation altogether. In order to connect with this music you need to take a few deep breaths and let these men work on your nervous system with songs that hover and contemplate existence in the middle of the night (as in "Midnight Hour Blues"' "when the blues creep up on you and carry your mind away"), sometimes upgrading to the purposeful lope or the brisk walk, depending on what kind of real-life stuff is being processed. "Hold Them Puppies" and "You Can't Run My Business No More" seem to pulse with energy born of the friction that sometimes arises between two people who don't always see eye to eye. "Court Room Blues" is a boogie with complications in the air; "Take a Walk Around the Corner" is a boogie with murder in its eye. "I Ain't Got No Money Now" is a handsome cousin to Clarence "Pinetop" Smith's "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out." As for "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," Carr has borrowed the title from the bedrock of African-American spirituals, but the song itself, like "Hurry Down Sunshine," "Moonlight Blues," and more than half the material on this collection, is a slow bluesy rumination on the difficulties of life in the world. "
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/777995158ce380a7/

When The Sun Goes Down

2010-06-14T06:43:00.000-07:00

Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell- Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 3 (1930-1932)

Album Review:
"Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 3 (1930-1932) continues Document's exhaustive overview of Leroy Carr's recordings for Vocalion between 1928 and his death in 1935. Though Carr produced a few classics during the year and a half covered by this volume (including "Alabama Women Blues" and "New How Long How Long Blues, Pt. 2"), the vast majority of listeners will have trouble working through this material, much of which sounds very similar. Still, it's the only way to hear the complete work of this important bluesman, which is more than enough for serious blues fans."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/77221700283dfc8b/

Leroy & Scrapper

2010-06-10T19:47:00.000-07:00

Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell- Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 2 (1929-1930)

Album Review:
"During the 1990s, blues legend Leroy Carr's complete recorded works were reissued in chronological sequence by Document Records Ltd. in six volumes with additional test pressings and alternate takes added to an appendix along with ultra-rare sides by Texas piano man Black Boy Shine. While later editions on other labels may boast of improved audio quality, nobody has ever covered Leroy Carr's recorded legacy more thoroughly or comprehensibly. Document's second volume contains all of his originally issued recordings dating from June 7, 1929 to January 2, 1930. Throughout this seven month stretch, Carr delivered his customary assortment of slow blues and ambling reflections, along with half a dozen upbeat boogie and hokum tunes, greatly spurred by the guitar and singing voice of Scrapper Blackwell. One should never rush into historic blues material looking for instantaneous kicks without stopping to breathe in the majestic honesty of real blues delivered at relaxed tempos without any gimmicks or punch lines. (The slow, thoughtful version of Carr's famous "How Long, How Long Blues" heard on this collection was the first of several sequels, and may be contrasted with a highly sexualized interpretation by Tampa Red's Hokum Jug Band wherein Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon does a very convincing impression of an aroused woman being steadily tupped by her lover.) For restless individuals who want to dive directly into humorous foot-tapping entertainment, the "upbeat" titles are "Naptown Blues," "Gettin' All Wet," "That's Tellin' 'Em," "Papa Wants a Cookie," "Memphis Town," and "The Dirty Dozen.""
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/7710572467168808/

Creators Of Urban Blues

2010-06-02T04:56:00.001-07:00

Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell- Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1928-1929)

Album Review:
"Completists, specialists and academics take note -- Document's Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1928-1929) offers an exhaustive overview of Leroy Carr's early recordings. Less dedicated listeners will probably find the long running time, exacting chronological sequencing, poor fidelity (all cuts are transferred from original acetates and 78s), and number of performances a bit off-putting, even though the serious blues listener will find all these factors to be positive."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/76797799c3a2c69c/

North Carolina's Algia Mae Hinton

2010-05-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

Algia Mae Hinton- Honey Babe

Album Review:
"Although North Carolina native Algia Mae Hinton began playing guitar in the late '30s at the age of ten, Honey Babe, her first full- length album (an EP appeared in the mid-'80s on Audio Arts) wasn't released until 1999 when Hinton was 68. A casual collection of Piedmont blues, folk pieces, and gospel tunes, Honey Babe is full of warmth and joy, and even features a little of Hinton's trademark buck dancing. She sounds like a cross between Etta Baker and Elizabeth Cotten, also both from North Carolina, although she isn't quite as precise a guitarist as the former (Hinton's title tune, "Honey Babe," is a variation on Baker's signature "Railroad Bill" progression) or as timeless a writer as the latter (whose "Freight Train" and "Shake Sugaree" compositions have become folk-blues standards). She shares Cotten's fragile, delicate singing style as well, although Hinton's wry humor is all her own, and her sheer delight in music and motion is everywhere evident on this album. Among the highlights are "Honey Babe," "Snap Your Fingers," and an impressive turn at the banjo for "Out of Jail." "
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/7667948847e868f9/

Lonnie In The '40s & '50s

2010-05-28T01:41:00.001-07:00

Lonnie Johnson- Me And My Crazy Self

Album Review:
"With a firm emphasis on the less schmaltzy side of Johnson's 1947-1952 stint at Cincinnati's King Records, this 20-tracker finds the blues pioneer coming into the age of electric blues and R&B quite adroitly. His dignified vocal style similarly weathered the ensuing decades nicely -- "You Can't Buy Love," "Friendless Blues," and the title track are bittersweet outings sporting multiple levels of subtlety."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/766267408a5b8e69/

Indianapolis Grit

2010-05-15T06:29:00.001-07:00

Pete Franklin- Guitar Pete's Blues

Interview:
"Q: Have you always played in the same style, or have you tried to change recently to keep up with the times?

A: Well, in a way of speaking I have changed a bit, to keep up, but generally it is along the same lines. I like a certain blues that I like better. And I can play two types. In fact I can play folk blues...

Q: What do you consider "folk blues"?

A: These are the original blues that came out of the cotton fields. And then there is, like I said, the modern type on the style of T-Bone Walker, B.B. King, and all the rest. Well, I try to play a little of that too.

Q: But you like the old style best.

A: That's my heart. The old style is what I really dig the most.

Q: Are there very many playing in the old style left in Indianapolis still?

A: Well, just about all the guys I named off are old, not that old. They aren't ancient, I'll put it that way.

As far as young musicians playing folk blues- you never find them. The youngest one that I know is Meshack Thacker and he's about 35 or 36 years old. Frankly, I believe that me and Meshack are the youngest.

Q: Are the older people who play country blues from all around the South or are most of them from, say, Mississippi, or...

A: Every one of them I know is from the South except me. The others are not from any certain section. I know them from Kentucky, from Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, from Mississippi. All over.

Q: Do you think that there is a certain sound that developed, perhaps from the influence of the people coming from different parts of the South, into what could be called the "Indianapolis blues sound"?

A: Yes, I think so.

Q: Could you define or characterize it?

A: Well, just about all of us that lived in Indianapolis at that time played on the order of Scrapper Blackwell.

Q: So that Scrapper was a very influential person then...

A: No, there were guys that played guitar like that before Scrapper was born but they just were never heard of!

Q: Then it's not really true that Scrapper was a large influence around Indianapolis and that people copied his style.

A: In other words, I could play a guitar plenty before I ever went around the corner with Scrapper Blackwell and I definitely didn't learn anything from him. Neither did I copy his records. But just being around him every day and being around Jesse Eldridge every day, now that's who I tried to practice after.

Q: Do you think that Scrapper learned as much from Jesse as he did develop his own style?

A: Well, now Jesse didn't only play blues, he played more than blues. Scrapper, he played only blues.

Q: With regards to blues do you think that Scrapper would have listened to Jesse or developed his own style?

A: Scrapper didn't originate that style of playing. I don't know who did but I been hearing that style of playing guitar ever since I was a small boy. Like I said, a lot of them boys didn't even know Scrapper. I'm not down on Scrapper, because I think that he was one of the best that ever lived playing blues, but as far as creating that whole style by himself, he didn't. I can say the same for Wes Montgomery. I showed Wes some chords, and almost everyone who played guitar in Indianapolis knew Wes, he didn't originate that style. Those octaves what he plays, he originated that style. I'll go along with that, but when he left Indianapolis he wasn't playing no octaves, and I'm sorry that he played those octaves because, frankly, Wes plays so much guitar till them octaves... His fingers were as fast as greased lightning but he sat there playing with them octaves. He felt the same way but the public liked it. I'll tell you something else, Wes Montgomery hated blues anyway you burn it? He was a jazz man all times. I knew him before he could tune a guitar."
-Living Blues Magazine, www.WeenieCampbell.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/76122529aaffae3f/

Just Like Minnie

2010-05-10T07:10:00.000-07:00

Jo Ann Kelly- Black Rat Swing (Disc 1)

Album Review:
"This double CD by the best blueswoman England ever produced isn't new; it's actually a compilation from material already available on the Mooncrest label. But it's hard to criticize the recycling (unless you already own the other discs), as it provides a superb introduction to her raw style. Helped out by a number of others, this is a varied set, ranging from the unaccompanied "Levee Camp Moan," to several live cuts, or her cover of Big Bill Broonzy's "Key to the Highway." Listening to the 45 tracks here (actually a condensation of the other CDs), the first question has to be: Why is she so unknown? In many ways, Kelly was everything Memphis Minnie aspired to be, an excellent guitar player, blessed with one of the most affecting voices in blues, and a huge compositional talent (her own "Love Blind," for example, sits perfectly naturally next to the traditional "Death Have Mercy"). Recorded between 1964 and 1968, she was still in her ascendancy -- dying at the young age of 46 -- and acoustic blues still seemed like a way forward. To call this a vital album of British blues isn't overstating the case at all. Jo Ann Kelly was one of the best, and this is all the proof anyone needs."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/759181520c50de0f/

Tuna & Blues Sandwich

2010-05-03T07:34:00.000-07:00

Hot Tuna- Hot Tuna

Album Review:
"When Hot Tuna's self-titled debut album was released in May 1970, it seemed like the perfect spin-off project for a major rock group, Jefferson Airplane's lead guitarist and bass player indulging in a genre exercise by playing a set of old folk-blues tunes in a Berkeley coffeehouse. The music seemed as far removed from the Airplane's acid rock roar as it did from commercial prospects, and thus, it allowed these sometimes overlooked bandmembers to blow off some steam musically without threatening their day jobs. In retrospect, however, it's easy to hear that something more was going on. Friends since their teens, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady had developed a musical rapport that anchored the Airplane sound but also existed independently of it, and shorn of the rock band arrangements and much of the electricity (Casady still played an electric bass), their interplay was all the more apparent. Kaukonen remained the accomplished fingerpicking stylist he had been before joining the Airplane, while Casady dispensed with the usual timekeeping duties of the bass in favor of extensive contrapuntal soloing, creating a musical conversation that was unique. It was put at the service of a batch of songs by the likes of the Reverend Gary Davis and Jelly Roll Morton with the occasional Kaukonen original thrown in, making for a distinct style. Kaukonen's wry singing showed an intense identification with the material that kept it from seeming repetitious despite the essential similarities of the tunes. (Harmonica player Will Scarlett also contributed to the mood.) The result was less an indulgence than a new direction. "
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/75668300ef28aed7/

A Mystery Man's Blues

2010-04-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Gene Campbell- Complete Recorded Works (1929-1931)

Biography:
"Nothing is known about the life of blues guitarist and singer Gene Campbell beyond his surviving 78s and the dates and matrix numbers of his recording sessions. Given his stylistic leanings (he has a vocal approach somewhat similar to Texas Alexander), Campbell is usually listed as a Texan, but that remains conjecture. He did do his first recording session in Dallas, tracking two songs for Brunswick Records in 1929. Ten more songs for Brunswick were cut in Chicago in May 1930, followed by four more back in Dallas later that year in November. Campbell's last known session resulted in eight tracks recorded on January 22 and 23, 1931, in Chicago, again for Brunswick Records, and that's where the trail ends, with Campbell vanishing into thin air."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/753355243448a184/

He Murdered His Baby

2010-04-14T04:56:00.001-07:00

Buddy Moss- Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 2 (1933-1934)

Album Review:
"For completists, specialists and academics, Document's Complete Recordings, Vol. 2: 1933-1934 is invaluable, offering an exhaustive overview of Buddy Moss' early recordings. For less dedicated listeners, the disc is a mixed blessing. There are some absolutely wonderful, classic performances on the collection, but the long running time, exacting chronological sequencing, poor fidelity (all cuts are transferred from original acetates and 78s), and number of performances are hard to digest. The serious blues listener will find all these factors to be positive, but enthusiasts and casual listeners will find that the collection is of marginal interest for those very reasons. "
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/749561292ff6c976/

A Mighty Tight Woman

2010-04-03T20:19:00.001-07:00

Sippie Wallace- Mighty Tight Woman

Album Review:
"Mighty Tight Woman from 1967 represents the unusual marriage of the classic blues era with the urban folk revival of the '60s, pitting a couple of blues legends with their improbable inheritors. The star of the album is Sippie Wallace, one of the original "red hot mamas" of the '20s and '30s vaudeville circuit, who cut her first record ("Up the Country") in 1923; rediscovered in 1965 and performing again, she is joined here by the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, with whom she also teamed up for a couple of live shows. The record attracted little attention, but it did manage to showcase the abilities and personality of the 69-year-old blueswoman, who surely enjoyed strutting her stuff with her young white hippie admirers; furthermore, four tracks boast first-rate accompaniment by Otis Spann, Muddy Waters' exemplary pianist. On these tracks, above all, Wallace seems wonderfully in her element. The Jug Band themselves have the good sense to remain on the sidelines for the most part (compared with their usual over-the-top exuberance), allowing the veteran Wallace to do her own thing, performing in classic blues style. The album's repertoire consists largely of Wallace's earlier tunes, including "Up the Country," "Special Delivery," and the title track; also included is her tribute to the modern-day Joe Lewis, Mohammed Ali. In the final cut -- the jazz standard "Everybody Loves My Baby (But My Baby Don't Love Nobody But Me)" -- Kweskin and company do join in full swing, offering a magnificent duet between kazoo and comb; the band also fares pretty well on "Separation Blues," in which vocalist Maria Mulduar lends a nice support to Wallace's refrain. All in all, Mighty Tight Woman is not a must-have on anyone's list, but it is probably much more overlooked than it deserves. The unlikely three-way collaboration shows a more serious and subtle side of Kweskin's Jug Band, and -- most importantly -- it provides a welcome new vehicle and audience for both Wallace and Spann, two legitimate blues masters."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/74579290a548d738/

Let's Go Riding

2010-03-09T05:30:00.000-08:00

Various Artists- Mississippi Blues Guitars, 1926-1935

Biography:

"Freddie Spruell (or Papa Freddie, as he is sometimes known) is often cited as the first performer to record an actual blues song, a claim that isn't exactly accurate. Spruell recorded ten tracks for OKeh, Paramount, and Bluebird between 1926 and 1935, but vaudeville-styled blues pieces like "Crazy Blues" by Mamie Smith appeared in 1920, while Blind Lemon Jefferson was recording the first hard blues tracks at least a year earlier, in 1925. Spruell could well be considered the first Delta blues performer to record, however, when he cut "Milk Cow Blues" in Chicago on June 25, 1926. He recorded two more sides in 1928, including "Tom Cat Blues," and five tracks (under the name Mr. Freddie) on April 12, 1935, a session that yielded perhaps his best song, the rag-inspired "Let's Go Riding," which featured second guitar from Carl Martin. Spreull's Social Security file indicates he was born on December 28, 1893, and although he is generally considered a Mississippi bluesman, it appears he moved to Chicago with his parents as a small boy, and his ties to the Delta are more stylistic than geographical. "Let's Go Riding" appeared on the Ghost World soundtrack in 2001."

-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/734993837bb76284/