Rare Blueblood Blues

Andrew "Blueblood" McMahon- Blueblood



Biography:
"Chicago bassist who worked extensively with Howlin' Wolf's band before stepping out front as a vocalist with an album for the local Dharma label, Blueblood."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/712999060c58db5d/

Big Walter's Harmonica

Big Walter Horton- Big Walter Horton With Carey Bell



Album Review:
"The teacher/pupil angle might be a bit unwieldy here -- Bell was already a formidable harpist in his own right by 1972, when Horton made this album -- but there's no denying that a stylistic bond existed between the two. A highly showcase for the often recalcitrant harp master, and only his second domestic set as a leader."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/71211438d4496662/

Tampa Red, By Request

Tampa Red- Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 11 (1939-1940)



Biography:
"Out of the dozens of fine slide guitarists who recorded blues, only a handful -- Elmore James, Muddy Waters, and Robert Johnson, for example -- left a clear imprint on tradition by creating a recognizable and widely imitated instrumental style. Tampa Red was another influential musical model. During his heyday in the '20s and '30s, he was billed as "The Guitar Wizard," and his stunning slide work on steel National or electric guitar shows why he earned the title. His 30-year recording career produced hundreds of sides: hokum, pop, and jive, but mostly blues (including classic compositions "Anna Lou Blues," "Black Angel Blues," "Crying Won't Help You," "It Hurts Me Too," and "Love Her with a Feeling"). Early in Red's career, he teamed up with pianist, songwriter, and latter-day gospel composer Georgia Tom Dorsey, collaborating on double entendre classics like "Tight Like That."

Listeners who only know Tampa Red's hokum material are missing the deeper side of one of the mainstays of Chicago blues. His peers included Big Bill Broonzy, with whom he shared a special friendship. Members of Lester Melrose's musical mafia and drinking buddies, they once managed to sleep through both games of a Chicago White Sox doubleheader. Eventually alcohol caught up with Red, and he blamed his latter-day health problems on an inability to refuse a drink.

During Red's prime, his musical venues ran the gamut of blues institutions: down-home jukes, the streets, the vaudeville theater circuit, and the Chicago club scene. Due to his polish and theater experience, he is often described as a city musician or urban artist in contrast to many of his more limited musical contemporaries. Furthermore, his house served as the blues community's rehearsal hall and an informal booking agency. According to the testimony of Broonzy and Big Joe Williams, Red cared for other musicians by offering them a meal and a place to stay and generally easing their transition from country to city life.

Today's listener will enjoy Tampa Red's expressive vocals and perhaps be taken aback by his kazoo solos. His songwriting has stood the test of time, and any serious slide guitar student had better be familiar with Red's guitar wizardry."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/7112816710cb410f/

Two Centuries Ago

Cowboy Roy Brown- Street Singer



Biography:
"Cowboy Roy Brown was born on April 20, 1875, the son of a fiddle-playing Arkansas preacher. Brown's father taught him to play guitar and he was soon accompanying him at church services. In 1882, when Brown was seven, he moved with his father to Butler County, MO, just across the border from Arkansas on the Black River. Brown moved to Kansas City while in his twenties, and after spending a decade or so there, he moved to Marion, IL, then to Milwaukee, WI, and then to Deadwood, SD, before eventually settling in St. Louis, where he made his living as a street singer. Playing on an ancient guitar he had named "Baby" and punctuating his songs with blasts on a kazoo he called "Leon," Brown worked a versatile street repertoire of folk, blues, gospel, pop, and cowboy songs. He was recorded doing his street act in the mid-'50s (when he was in his seventies or early eighties) and the session was eventually released a half-century later by Delmark Records in 2007 under the title Street Singer."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/71059904657bc7b3/

Rare Country LP

Hank Thompson & His Brazos Valley Boys- Vintage Collections



Album Review:
"The French LP Hank Thompson & His Brazos Valley Boys is a compilation of live radio performances Thompson and his band gave in 1952, just as his career was beginning to take off with the massive success of "The Wild Side of Life." Even though neither that song, or any of his earlier, lesser hits, are included on this collection, the album doesn't suffer as a result. Thompson & the Brazos Valley Boys sound tough and inspired, bringing a considerable amount of grit to his swinging honky tonk. The record remains an item for collector's only, but for those willing to seek it out, it is an enjoyable and fascinating historical artifact."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/7091368969cff5c9/

Rare Dink Johnson

Dink Johnson- Mr. Johnson Signing Off



Album Review:
"Although Dink Johnson could also play the clarinet and drums, he was best known for his piano playing -- at least during the final decades of his life -- and on Mr. Johnson Signing Off, his role is that of a singing pianist. The main focus of this hour-long CD is recordings that the New Orleans native/Los Angeles transplant made for the Euphonic label around 1950, when he had about four years left to live. These spirited, good-natured performances often bring to mind Fats Waller, another singing pianist who was known for his healthy sense of humor. As much of a virtuoso as Waller was, he wasn't afraid to laugh -- Waller definitely knew how to have fun, and Johnson brings a similar outlook to the table whether he is performing Jelly Roll Morton pieces (including "Kansas City Stomp" and "Original Jelly Roll Blues") or interpreting familiar Tin Pan Alley standards such as "Lady Be Good" and "Exactly Like You." Comparing Johnson to Waller isn't saying that Johnson was trying to be an exact clone; Johnson was his own man, and Waller was hardly his only influence. Johnson's piano playing also owes a lot to Jelly Roll Morton and James P. Johnson (two other pianists who had a major impact in the '20s), as well as the Southern piano blues tradition. Johnson's humorous performances on Mr. Johnson Signing Off are quite a contrast to the bebop and cool jazz going on in 1950; at a time when many bop and cool artists were pointing jazz in a more complex, intellectual direction, Johnson continued to approach jazz as party music -- an approach that went over well in Southern California. Outside of his adopted home of L.A., Johnson wasn't as well known as he should have been. But that fact doesn't make Mr. Johnson Signing Off any less enjoyable."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/708504961c0f2c5f/

Willie Borum's Blues

Memphis Willie B.- Hard Working Man Blues



Biography:
"Willie Borum, better known under his recording sobriquet of Memphis Willie B., was a mainstay of the Memphis blues and jug band circuit. Adept at both harmonica and guitar, Borum could add pep to any combination he worked in, as well as leaving a striking impression as a solo artist.

He was born in 1911 in Shelby County, TN. He took to the guitar early in his childhood, being principally taught by his father and Memphis medicine show star Jim Jackson. By his late teens, he was working with Jack Kelly's Jug Busters, working for tips on the street with the occasional house party and country supper rounding out his meager paycheck. This didn't last long, as Borum joined up with the Memphis Jug Band, one of two professional outfits in existence at that time. The group frequently worked what later became W.C. Handy Park in Memphis, their touring stretching all the way down to New Orleans during the Mardi Gras. Sometime in the '30s he learned to play harmonica, being taught by no less a master than Noah Lewis, the best harp blower in Memphis and mainstay of Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers. As his style began to move further away from a strict jug band approach, Willie B. began working on and off with various traveling Delta bluesmen, performing at various functions with Rice Miller, Willie Brown, Garfield Akers, and Robert Johnson. He finally got to make some records in New York under his own name in 1934 for Vocalion, but quickly moved back into playing juke joints and gambling houses with Son Joe, Joe Hill Louis and Will Shade until around 1943, when he became a member of the U.S. Army.

It was a much different world he returned to and after a brief fling at trying to pick up where he left off, Borum soon cashed in his chips and started looking for a day job. That would have been the end of the story, except in 1961 -- with the folk and blues revival in full hootenanny steam -- Borum was tracked down and recorded an absolutely marvelous session at the Sun studios for Prestige's Bluesville label. It turned into a little bit of a career upswing for the next few years; Willie B. started working the festival and coffeehouse circuit with old Memphis buddies Gus Cannon and Furry Lewis. But then just as quickly, he dropped out of the music scene and eventually out of sight altogether. The reports of his death in the early '70s still remain unconfirmed as of press time."
-Allmusic.com

Download Link: http://www.zshare.net/download/70795352baf42ffe/