It's The Best Stuff Yet! Great Piedmont Blues

Various Artists
It's The Best Stuff Yet
Frog Records UK

This is a double CD set of rare Piedmont blues packaged in a DVD sized box with a 32-page booklet. One CD is a collection of rare sides, unissued tests, clean originals and field recordings of classic Piedmont blues. The second CD contains the entire 1956 sessions by Blind Willie McTell (The Last Session) that was recorded by Ed Rhodes that includes material that was not included in the original Prestige release of such material. The handsomely illustrated 32-page booklet includes essays from Paul Swinton and Chris Smith, along with full discographical information.

The first disc includes some spectacularly wonderful performances of Piedmont blues with a spotlight primarily, but not exclusively, on the blues of Atlanta. It opens with a wonderful duet by Ruth Willis and Blind Willie McTell, "Talkin' to You Wimmin About the Blues," followed by McTell accompanying a vocal by her. Then comes the sublime first recording by McTell, "Mamma, T'aint Long Fo' Day'," with a wonderful vocal and superlative 12-string slide guitar. Performances like this as much as the better-known "Statesboro Blues" explain why McTell is regarded as among the greatest blues artists who ever played. Also included on this disc is McTell's Library of Congress recording of "Delia's Gone," about a 14-year-old girl shot by her 14-year-old boyfriend.

The McTell sides are not the only brilliant performances here. There is Blind Blake's "West Coast Blues" from his initial recording session, as well as a previously unissued test by Blind Boy Fuller of "Rag, Mama, Rag #1." This superb, animated performance had the great Fuller supported by Gary Davis on guitar and Bull City Red on washboard. Then there are two terrific performances by Prince Moore about who little is known and two wonderful performances from unissued tests by Buddy Moss. "Red River Blues #2" is another fabulous Piedmont fingerpicked blues. Curley Weaver, with harmonica player Eddie Mapp, deliver a bit of hokum on the title track, while there are two dynamic songs from Barbecue Bob with his robust vocals and 12-string guitar playing. Also, there is a radio aircheck of Josh White performing "John Henry," as well as short unexpurgated party disc of "Darktown Strutters," that definitely is not radio-friendly. The great Virginia Piedmont blues artist, John Jackson is heard on two stunning selections from private recordings that show the influence of Blind Blake.

The remaining selections on this first disc are of similar interest and merit. If this was issued as a single disc, one would recommend it highly. The second disc contains the entirety of the recordings, both songs, and interview segments, that Ed Rhodes made with Blind Willie McTell and issued in part as "The Last Session." as we hear him tell stories about the instrumental "Kill It Kid Rag," and "The Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues." There are surprising songs like "Pal of Mine," 'Salty Dog," "My Blue Heaven," and "Wabash Cannonball," along with McTell's remembrances of his early life and more. This second disc is not only a historical document but contains more exquisite blues and folk songs. In addition to this, there is an interview by Larry Cohn of Ed Rhodes discussing Mctell and the recordings produced by Rhodes decades later.

There have been some extremely important releases of historical blues material this year. "It's The Best Stuff Yet!" is as good as any of them and would make a terrific holiday gift to the blues fan in your world, or simply a marvelous gift for oneself. For more information on this release visit Frog Records at their website: https://www.frog-records.co.uk/products/its-the-best-stuff-yet. Frog Records has a superb catalog of vintage blues and jazz reissues including what is generally considered the best sounding reissue of Bessie Smith's music (on 8 CDs).

I purchased this.

Serve Me Barbecue Any Old Time: Blues From The Pit 1927-1942

Barbecue Any Old Time: Blues From The Pit 1927-1942 (Old Hat Records) is a relatively recent compilation of vintage jazz and blues recordings that celebrate barbecue, the distinctly southern American form of cuisine, usually slow--cooked over a pit. While some northerners might use the term to refer to grilling or cooking outside, as Tom Hatchett observes, in his essay in the accompanying booklet, in the South barbecue was a noun that is that special food, brisket in Texas, pork most elsewhere, prepared in the home place’s special tradition.

Producer Marshall Wyatt compiled 24 recordings from the likes of Frankie ‘Half Pint’ Jaxon, Big Boy Teddy Edwards, Memphis Minnie, Barbecue Bob, Blind Boy Fuller, Tiny Parham and His Musicians, Richard M. Jones and His Jazz Wizards, Bessie Jackson, Georgia White, Brownie McGhee, the Mississippi Jook Band, and others. The mastering of the original 78s sounds pretty good. There may be some background hiss from the source recordings which is unavoidable but should not be more than a minor annoyance (if that) to long time collectors of vintage blues.

Wyatt has contributed song notes on all the recordings which range from Half-Pint Jaxon’s celebration of the joys of such cuisine Down at Jaspers Bar-B-Que; the raucous skiffle band feel of The Mississippi Jook Band’s Barbecue Bust; and the double entendre employed by pig meat craving blues singers such as Memphis Minnie with Little Son Joe (Pig Meat on the Line), Blind Boy Fuller with Bull City Red on washboard (I Crave My Pig Meat), Georgia White (Pigmeat Blues on which Richard M. Jones is on piano and Les Paul on guitar) and Bo Carter ((Pig Meat Is What I Crave).

Robert Hicks, known as Barbecue Bo, was a cook, waiter and entertainer at an Atlanta barbecue, and on his Barbecue Blues, displays his driving twelve-string guitar style on a blues that mixes together a bunch of traditional verses. Half-Pint Jaxon also is heard on a cover of Gimme a Pig’s Foot and a Bottle of Beer, with a terrific combo that includes Lil Hardin Armstrong, clarinetist Rubert Cole (who takes the solo)and trumpeter Henry ‘Red’ Allen. As Wyatt observes, it is the only pre-World War II cover of a recording from Bessie Smith’s final session. Band leader and pianist Tiny Parham and His Musicians are heard on a rollicking twenties Chicago jazz recording, Pigs’ Feet and Slaw, while The Four Southern Singers’ Ham Bone Am Sweet, modernizes a minstrel song with vocal harmonies and a washboard-jug band accompaniment.

Other musical delicacies (pun intended) on this include the Jolly Twins’ Come On Down, a spirited guitar duet betweenWalter Roland (normally a pianist) and Sonny Scott) as they celebrate goods with dancing and barbecue as well as Bogus Ben Covington’s I Heard the Voice of a Pork Chop, a lampoon of a Scottish hymn with a banjo and harmonica accompaniment that is not far from the minstrel stages and tent shows. Lucille Bogan, under the recorded name of Bessie Jackson sang the hard hitting Barbecue Bess, where her forceful vocal is strongly supported by Walter Roland’s piano and Josh White’s guitar.

Savannah Churchill’s Fat Meat Is Good Meat, has a solid small group backing that anticipates the post-war jump blues vein with some excellent clarinet from Jimmy Lytell and trumpet by Russ Case. Richard M. Jones, composer of Trouble in Mind, is heard on Smoked Meat Blues, with Shirley Clay’s cornet and Artie Starks’ squeaky clarinet. Under the name of Hank Jones and His Ginger, Lonnie Johnson, his brother James “Steady Roll’ Johnson and an unidentified steel guitarist recorded the instrumental Barbecue Blues, displaying considerable sophistication in their use of musical textures (as noted by Wyatt in his notes). Also worth noting is the two-part Who Did You Give My Barbecue To? by Big Boy Teddy Edwards backed by Big Bill Broonzy and Papa Charlie Jackson.

This mix of lively downhome blues and rollicking early jazz and vocal harmony recordings is a definite musical feast well digesting like the delicious culinary tradition the songs salute. WIth the excellent annotation and engineering of the source material, this is an excellent collection.

This was a purchase.