A Mighty Tight Woman

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

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Let's Go Riding

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

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Move Over, Tommy Johnson

Shirley Griffith- Mississippi Blues

Biography:

"When I mention Shirley Griffith to anyone, I invariably get the same two questions – he’s a man and his name is Shirley? and Shirley Griffith who? Yes to the first question and I’ll spend the rest of this post explaining the latter. In short Shirley Griffith was a deeply expressive singer and guitarist who learned first hand from Tommy Johnson as a teenager in Mississippi. Griffith missed his opportunity to record as a young man but recorded three superb albums: Indiana Ave. Blues (1964, with partner J.T. Adams), Saturday Blues (1965) and Mississippi Blues (1973). The fact that all three albums are out of print goes a ways in understanding why Griffith remains so little known. He also didn’t benefit all that much from the renewed blues interest of the 1960s; he never achieving the acclaim of late discovered artists like Mississippi Fred McDowell, the critical appreciation of a Robert Pete Williams or the excitement surrounding rediscovered legends like Son House, Skip James or Mississippi John Hurt. He did achieve modest notice touring clubs with Yank Rachell in 1968, performed at the first Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1969 and appeared at the Notre Dame Blues Festival in South Bend, Indiana in 1971. Griffith passed away in 1974.

Born in 1907 near Brandon, Mississippi, Griffith was certainly old enough to have made records in the 1920s and '30s and in fact had at least two opportunities to do so. In 1928, his friend and mentor, Tommy Johnson, offered to help him get started, but, by his own account, he was too “wild and reckless” in those days. In 1928, he moved to Indianapolis where he became friendly with Scrapper Blackwell and Leroy Carr. In 1935, Carr offered to take Griffith to New York for a recording session but Carr died suddenly and the trip was never made. It was Art Rosenbaum who was responsible for getting Griffith on record and who also precipitated the comeback of Scrapper Blackwell. Rosenbaum produced Griffith’s Bluesville albums. “I recall one August afternoon”, he wrote in the notes to Saturday Blues, “shortly after these recordings were made; Shirley sat in Scrapper Blackwell’s furnished room singing the Bye Bye Blues with such intensity that everyone present was deeply moved, though they had all heard him sing it many times before. Scrapper was playing , too, and the little room swelled with sound. When they finished there was a moment of awkward silence. Finally Shirley smiled and said: ‘The blues’ll kill you. And make you live, too.’”"

-Sundayblues.org

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Blind Snooks

Snooks Eaglin- New Orleans Street Singer (Bonus Tracks)

Album Review:

"Ford "Snooks" Eaglin's first released recordings, the ones collected here, suggested to the world that Eaglin was a great lost country-blues player when he was, in fact, an excellent electric guitar player and a gospel-influenced singer who much preferred playing R&B with a band. When folklorist Harry Oster heard Eaglin busking with his guitar on a street in the French Quarter in 1958, he whisked him over to Louisiana State University and recorded the tracks collected here, either assuming that Eaglin was a folk artist, or possibly even asking him to portray one for the sake of the recording. Either way, New Orleans Street Singer was a revelation when it was released by Folkways Records a year later in 1959, presenting to the world a gifted guitar player and a naturally soulful singer who brought a kind of jazzy New Orleans feel and groove to the folk-blues standards he was covering. The album is no less a revelation in the 21st century in this expanded edition from Smithsonian Folkways, although hindsight allows us to realize that the folk stance was probably more Oster's preference than Eaglin's. The guitar work is quick and fluid, with lead bursts that surprise and delight, continually settling on unexpected but highly effective chordal resolves (the original instrumental "Sophisticated Blues" is a case in point), and the singing throughout is steady and informed, sounding a bit like Ray Charles, with tinges of both gospel and jazz phrasing. In Eaglin's hands traditional fare like "Saint James Infirmary," the near-ragtime "High Society," and the familiar "Mama, Don't You Tear My Clothes" (a variant of "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down") all become reborn and re-formed into definitive versions. The seven additional tracks expand the original album to around 70 minutes in length, and the alternate takes included of "Careless Love," "Driftin' Blues," and "The Lonesome Road" show that Eaglin didn't necessarily approach a song the same way twice in a row."

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Long Island Boy Gets The Blues

Leslie West- Got Blooze

Album Review:

"Guitar hero Leslie West has issued countless albums over the years, mostly either as a member of Mountain or as a solo artist. But he has never set out to record an album comprised entirely of classic blues rockers. Then 2005's Got Blooze came along. While this sort of thing has been done by countless fellow veteran classic rock acts of late (the best-known of the bunch being Aerosmith's Honkin' on Bobo), it turns out to be custom-made for a player like West. Throughout the 12-track set, West keeps things raw and gritty, as evidenced by such standouts as the extraordinary "Third Degree" and a cover of the oft-overlooked Cream gem, "Politician." West also surrounds himself with a fantastic rhythm section, comprised of Vanilla Fudge's Tim Bogert on bass and session ace Aynsley Dunbar on drums (turns out the pair pulled double duty, as they also backed ex-Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee on an additional album full of covers, Retraced). While we probably could have done without the umpteenth cover of "Baby Please Don't Go" (AC/DC, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, and countless others have played it over the years), overall, Got Blooze is a welcome return for West, and easily his strongest, most focused work in quite some time."

-Allmusic.com

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Play It, Mr. Kokomo

Kokomo Arnold- Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 3 (1936-1937)



Biography:
"Another invaluable offering from the blues archivists at Document, Kokomo Arnold's Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 3 (1936-1937) compiles 22 performances, recorded between May 1936 and March 1937. Despite the inclusions of a few Arnold classics, including "Dark Angel" and "Wild Water Blues," the disc is a mixed blessing. The combination of a long running time, chronological sequencing, and poor fidelity make for a difficult listen. While serious blues listeners won't have a problem with any of these factors, beginners are advised to look elsewhere first."
-Allmusic.com

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Early Texas Blues In The Modern Age

Thomas Shaw- Blind Lemon's Buddy



Biography:
"Thomas Edgar Shaw was born in Brenham, Texas, and as a young man he worked with Blind Lemon Jefferson, J. T. Smith and Ramblin' Thomas. In the 1960s and 1970s he recorded for the Advent, Blue Goose and Blues Beacon labels. He recorded "Hey Mr. Nixon" and "Martin Luther King". Shaw died during open heart surgery in February 1977."
-Wikipedia.org

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