Columbia / Legacy Roots N’ Blues Reissues

Columbia / Legacy Roots N’ Blues Reissues
Columbia

The latest batch of Roots N’ Blues reissues from Sony Corporation maintain up the series’ high standard. One of the latest releases is Bessie Smith, The Complete Recordings Vol. 4 (Columbia/Legacy C2K 52838) which brings us near the end of her recording career, and contains some of her most celebrated recordings, including Me and My Gin, Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out, Empty Bed Blues, You’ve Got to Give Me Some. Other numbers may not be as well known, but are memorable for the total conviction of the performances. James P. Johnson’s stride piano enlivens a number of performances , and the cornet of Ed Allen or Louis Metcalfe is heard on several tracks. But it is the majesty of Bessie’s vocals that make this so memorable, and the sound reproduction from the vintage 78s is quite good.

Blind Willie Johnson, The Complete  (Columbia Legacy C2K 52835), duplicates what has been available for a couple years on two Yazoo albums. Blind Willie Johnson was one of the most astonishing practitioners of the bottleneck guitar (his standard guitar playing was adequate), and sang in a raspy, hoarse shouting style with an intensity reminiscent of  Son House. House’s formidable slide guitar playing can sound rudimentary and mechanical compared to Johnson. Johnson’s recordings including Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed, It’s Nobody’s Fault But

Mine, If I Had My Way I’d Tear the Building Down, Lord I Can’t Help But Keep From Crying, You’ll Need Somebody on Your Bond and John the Revelator are classics of African-American roots music, and influenced numerous numerous others who adapted them including Gary Davis, Son House, Muddy Waters, and Fred McDowell. Johnson’s masterpiece was Dark Was the Night- Cold Was the Ground with his wordless vocalising and slide guitar accompaniment, that later Ry Cooder played homage to. Sam Charters provides a lengthy annotation that covers Johnson’s life, his music, and his impact. This is essential music, the only question being whether one already has the Yazoo albums.

New Orleans Barrelhouse Boogie (Columbia/Legacy CK 52834) collects Champion Jack Dupree’s first recordings made for Okeh in 1940 and 1941. Several of the 25 recordings are previously unissued alternate takes to issued sides. Most of the songs here find Dupree’s piano and vocals backed by just  a bass, although the final eight recordings feature Jesse Ellery’s nimble guitar. New Orleans Barrelhouse Boogie is a fitting title, describing his driving two handed piano style, although his bass heavy playing here lacks the touch and articulation found in his later recordings. A major reason for Dupree’s appeal was his soulfully delivered vocals that were ebulliently delivered, and his downhome country supper lyrics which touched a chord with those listening to him sing about ‘those greens those Cabbage Greens.’ Junker’s Blues  and Angola Blues reflect his New Orleans roots, while New Low Down Dog is a barrelhouse version of a Leroy Carr recording which he later recorded as Stumbling Blocks. While Dupree sang about drugs and prison, these songs were not based upon Dupree’s personal experiences, but from knowing people, and personalizing their stories. This marriage of lyric and performance that make these Champion Jack

Dupree recordings stand up half a century later. This collects some of his finest recordings.

The Slide Guitar, Bottles, Knives & Steel Vol. 2 (Columbia/Legacy CK 52725) is the second such collection in the Roots N’ Blues series. While there are no selections from Robert Johnson or Blind Willie Johnson, this provides a diverse sampling of slide players, with a healthy number of selections featuring Tampa Red, perhaps the most influential of all slide guitarists. One interesting song by him is Things Bout Coming My Way, heard in both instrumental and vocal versions. Derived from Sitting on Top of the World, he later revamped it as It Hurts Me Too. Perhaps the most influential slide guitarist in blues hisory, he was not represented in Rhino’s supposedly essential collection. Sam Montgomery, who recoded as the King of Spades is heard on the previously unissued Where the Sweet Orages Grow, a Kokomo Blues variant recored a few months before Robert Johnson waxed Sweet Home Chicago. Other slide guitarists heard here include  Casey Bill Weldon’s with lively Hawaiian style playing on the Hokum Boys’ Caught Us Doing It; Barbecue Bob backs Nellie Florence’s powerful singing; Curley Weaver’s slide is heard with the Georgia Browns and supporting Buddy Moss  sober vocals; and  Sylvester Weaver, is heard on the selections by Helen Humes and his partner Walter Beasely.

The most intriguing of these releases may be the two compact disc set, White Country Blues-

Lighter Shade of Blue (Columbia/Legacy C2K 47466), devoted to recordings of blues by various white performers of what was then marked as old time or hillbillymusic. As the respected country music historian Charles Wolfe notes, there was a distinct white country blues tradition that certainly reflected the influences of pioneering African-American performers, but reached a different audience. Some performances, like Frank Hutchinson’s lively K.C. Blues are not far removed from contemporaneous recordings of Furry Lewis, and the hawaiian style steel guitar heard on some of these will remind some of Tampa Red’s hokum recordings, or Casey Bill Weldon. In a blindfold test, the Blue Ridge Ramblers might be mistaken for a Memphis based jug band, and Larry Hensley stays pretty faithful to Blind Lemon Jefferson Match Box Blues, even if he can’t replicate all of the nuances of Jefferson’s recording. After all, who can.  Other recordings, like those by Charlie Poole with the North Carolina Ramblers, are string band blues performances that have few recorded counterparts by African-American musicians. While some of the performances here are more country than blues, they are more than dry historical specimens, and illustrate the influence and reach of the blues outside of the African-American community long before the rock and roll era. They also show how skillfully and movingly the music was adapted by white southerners who were drawn to the power and simplicity of the blues, just like many of us are drawn to the blues today.

This review appeared in issue 188 of Jazz & Blues Report from 1994. The original review also included "The Okeh Rhythm & Blues Story 1949-1957" which I will reprint on Monday the 28th. I received review copies from Columbia Records. 

How Long How Long Blues

Today's blog is devoted to simply presenting a number of renditions of a song most associated with Leroy Carr, How Long, How Long Blues. This was a major hot for Carr and became one of the true blues classics.

First up is Carr's original recording

Second is Tampa Red although I wish we just had the music, not the video and audio of a 78 playing.

Ida Cox's How Long Daddy speaks about that southbound train. It predates Carr's recording. Cox was one of the early blues greatest talents.

Kokomo Arnold also did a terrific rendition of this

Let us not forget some superb instrumental piano renditions including Count Basie

And no instrumemntal rendition touches me as much as that by the great Jimmy Yancey.

A year before he died, Jimmy Yancey did this with Mama Yancey singing wonderfully

Carr' song was a favorite of blues shouters like Jimmy Rushing, Jimmy Witherspoon and Big Joe Turner. Here is the Boss of the Blues singing it from the essential album The Boss of the Blues Sings Kansas City Jazz.

Other singer-pianists have done including Memphis Slim and Champion Jack Dupree. I have included Dupree's rendition from 1945.

It has been a song that jazz performers have interpreted such as Coleman Hawkins. There is a superb duet performance by Archie Shepp and pianist Horace Parlan on the terrific album Trouble in Mind. Here is Coleman Hawkins.

Among recent blues renditions, I consider the best to be from pianist Butch Thompson and guitarist Pat Donohue. Here is Thompson channeling Jimmy Yancey as I close this blog post.

Chris Barber's Blues Legacy Lost and Found

Trombonist Chris Barber has been a mainstay of the British trad jazz scene for over five decades. With Lonnie Donegan he helped lunch the skittle music scene with ‘Rock Island Line,’ while his own band backed numerous legends including some from the world of blues and gospel. Not long ago he came across some old 1/4 inch magnetic tapes of some of the legendary blues artists he brought over to England in the 50 and 60s. The result are three volumes, Chris Barber Presents The Blues Legacy: Lost and Found Series (MVD Audio).

Volume 1 opens with Barber introducing Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the legendary gospel singer and guitarist. When she arrived in England with her arrangements from her days with Lucky Millender’s Big Band, Barber and his combo was flustered, but were able to back her on a variety of her classic sacred repertoire including Every Time I Feel the Spirit, Didn’t It Rain, Up Above My Head I Hear Music In The Air, and Old Time Religion, with the backing provided by barber and his band matching the exuberance of her performance if the overall sound of the performances occasionally sounds messy and chaotic. This Train, is performed solo with some fine guitar featured and her effectively dramatic vocal. Vocalist Ottilie Patterson joins her for one of two renditions of Old Time Religion, and When the Saints Go Marching In. The rest of this volume is devoted to performances by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee who mostly perform without a band and are in typical form for the two opening with Midnight Special, Climbin’ on Top of the Hill (a reworking of Sitting on Top of the World), the remarkable harmonica feature Fox Chase, How Long How Long Blues, another harp solo Callin’ Mama Blues, and Betty and Dupree. While the repertoire will be familiar, these concert performances are strong ones. Also included is an joyous duo version of When the Saints Go Marching In, followed by Little Light of Mine, on which Barber and band and accompaniment although playing somewhat more restrained here. Chris Barber and Band close with another gospel number with Ottilie Patterson taking the front stage.

Volume 2 opens with Chris Barber’s contemporary recollections of the 1958 recordings by Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry that open this volume. There is a nice duo of Poor Man Blues, while Ottilie Patterson takes lead on the vocal backed by Barber and the duo on When Things Go Wrong, and How Long Blues. Barber provides another spoken introduction to the performances by Muddy Waters with Otis Spann presented here, which he noted was an amazing experience. Muddy and Spann were terrific and Barber’s band does a credible job in support although the drummer on several tracks is a bit stiff and tad heavy handed. Repertoire played included Hootchie Kootchie Man, Blow Wind Blow, Baby Please Don’t Go, Long Distance Call, I Can’t Be Satisfied,Blues Before Sunrise (an interesting to hear Muddy refer to this as originally made by a friend of his before he died), and Walking Through the Park. Muddy goes solo on ‘Rolling Stone,’ and revisits ‘Feel Like Going Home.’ Spann is exceptional while Barber and the band try to be unobtrusive in supporting Muddy, who certainly sounds fine here. Perhaps not indispensable, these tracks are a nice addition to Muddy’s discography in any event Next up are fine three tracks by Champion Jack Dupree including a nice Christmas blues, a humorous lament about his mother-in-law, and his own very distinctive rendition of Tampa Red’s When Things Go Wrong. The disc closes with a 1962 performance by the great Louis Jordan with whom Barber’s traditional jazz band provides nice support for a nice duet between the saxophonist-vocalist Jordan and Ottilie Patterson on T’aint Nobody’s Business. There is a nice mix of performers and some genuinely good performances on this volume.

Sonny Boy Williamson opens the final volume, Volume 3, with some performances from 1964. Barber mentions the great shows presented by Lippman and Rau which led to his performance that opens with United Blues/ Help Me as the band plays the melody before Williamson enters with his harp and launches into the song. Then Barber recalls some of the performances of him including some jazz songs like ‘C-Jam Blues,’ as well as staples of his repertoire as So Sad to Be Lonesome, his reworking of Robert Lockwood’s Take a Little Walk With Me, Bye Bye Bird, Your Funeral, My Trial, and Pontiac Blues. Like Brownie and Sonny, he closes his set with some gospel songs, Saints, and This Little Light of Mine, with Ottilie Patterson sharing the vocal.’ The music does get a bit chaotic but still remains fun with the joyful sound and Sonny Boy’s harp blends well with the trad jazz backing. Jimmy Witherspoon came over in 1964 and played at a festival Barber helped organize, and Spoon sounds terrific on his first trio of tunes, although the backing remains a bit rough on Times Getting Tougher Than Tough, and Roll ‘Em Pete. The backing behind Howlin’ Wolf with Hubert Sumlin seems a bit tighter as Wolf howls through Howlin’ For My Darling, Dust My Broom, and May I have a Talk With You. Sumlin sounds really good if a bit underamplified while Wolf’s vocals are ferocious, and the backing band almost sounds like a urban blues band as opposed to a Dixieland group. Jimmy Witherspoon has five more vocals to close this set, and the backing is a bit more together here as he reprised Everyday I Have the Blues, and When I’ve Been Drinkin’.

There are some very good performances on all three volumes although I give the nod to those on the latter two volumes. One would be hard-pressed to call any of these essential but fans of Muddy, Sonny Boy, Wolf and Spoon will especially find performances that may merit their consideration.

I recently received a double CD in commemoration of Chris Barber’s 80th Birthday which I hope to write-up shortly. I noticed that I had never posted this review of three blues-related CDs by this important English musician and music evangelist. This review originally appeared in the July 2008 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 306). I likely received my review copy from a publicist.

Classic New Orleans Sounds on Smithsonian Folkways

Another in Smithsonian-Folkways “Classic” series, the anthology Classic Sounds of New Orleans from Smithsonian Folkways compiles a variety of recordings that were issued by Folkways when it was under the auspices of the late Moses Asch. This compilation by Robert H. Cataliotti mines the recordings of New Orleans music by Frederick Ramsey, Jr., and Samuel Barclay Charters along with other recordings make for a varied grouping of performances, that includes jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, gospel, spirituals and other roots music expressions.

The music on this opens and closes with the Eureka Brass Band who kick things off with the classic hymn, Just a Closer Walk With Thee, and ends with their propulsive rendition of Lord, Lord, Lord. The latter number may be familiar to fans of todays Crescent City Brass Band such as the Tréme Brass Band that have recorded it, but the performances by Eureka harken back to what many would think of the classic traditional New Orleans Jazz sound. Eureka Brass Band was an amazing group and I would recommend either of their releases on the American Music label. Also representing the Brass Band tradition is the late Doc Paulin’s renditions of We Shall Walk Through The Streets of the City, both as a dirge and as a march with a second line rhythm. The melody is the same as Red River Valley, and Doc Paulin’s sons still carry on the family tradition in the Paulin Brothers Band.”

Street music is represented by an anonymous shoeshine boy vocals and hand slapping on Shine - Hambone, the solo harmonica rendition of Tiger Rag by Freddie L. Small, and Dora Bliggen’s call of a fruit vendor on the streets, Blackberries! It is followed by Red White and Blue Got the Golden Band, by Mardi Gras Indians from assorted tribes. Certainly this 1956 recording is amongst the earliest of this tradition. It is followed by several spirituals/gospel performances including Dark Was the Night by Reverend Lewis Jackson and Charlotte Rucell.

New Orleans Jazz is represented with Kid Punch Miller (with Sam Charters on piano) doing Bucket’s Got a Hole In it, and an absolutely brilliant drum solo, Spooky Drums #1 by Baby Dodds. Clarinetist Emile Barnes leads an enthusiastic rendition of Milenberg Joys, while The Six and Seventh Eighths String Band of New Orleans are heard on Clarinet Marmalade, which should delight fans of skittle bands. Two celebrated New Orleans guitarists, Snooks Eaglin and Lonnie Johnson, are heard on celebrated New Orleans classics. Eaglin turns the classic High Society Rag, into a brilliant solo guitar showcase while Johnson does a nice Careless Love, recorded in 1967, long after he had left his native city. Billie and De De Pierce, another couple mainstays of the New Orleans scene in the fifties and sixties are heard on a nice blues Lonesome Road, warmly sung by the pianist Billie Pierce. It is followed by Kid Clayton’s Corrine, Corrina, with the famed pianist Sweet Emma Barrett part of his group.

After these performances, another Snooks Eaglin performance, of Saint James Infirmary, makes the transition to the blues although this recording and other contemporaneous ones of Eaglin gave the mistaken impression that he was a solo street singer when he know he played rhythm and blues and contemporary jazz at the time. In any event Eaglin’s guitar playing is marvelous, even if acoustic. A medley of pianist HJ Boiusseau provides a glimpse into a the period between ragtime and jazz. Like Lonnie Johnson, Champion Jack Dupree left his home city when young, yet the influence of some of the pianists who taught him was always evident in his playing including the second line rhythms in Rattlesnake Boogie. In contrast to Dupree, the great Roosevelt Sykes grew up in Arkansas and Delta and moved to St. Louis, becoming one of the greatest of all blues pianists, but he moved to New Orleans in1962 where he became a fixture of the music scene. His adaptation of Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone, displays a technical facility and sophistication that many celebrated blues pianists would be unable to match.

A nice Jimmy’s Blues by trumpeter Kid Clayton has some fine clarinet from Albert Burbank, tailgating trombone from Kid Avery and barrelhouse piano from Sweet Emma, followed by another splendid solo performance by Lonnie Johnson, C.C. Rider. Another staple of the traditional New Orleans repertoire, Shake It and Break It, is heard in a performance by Billie Pierce, with Lawrence Tocca, not her husband De De, on trumpet. Sam Charters noted at the time this recording was first issued that it was one of the most exciting recordings done in new Orleans in years.

All in all, this is a splendid compilation of a wide range of New Orleans music. In includes a marvelous booklet with a concise overview of the collection as well as observations on all of the included recordings. It is a terrific introduction to traditional New Orleans music.


Smithsonian Folkways provided an electronic download for my review.

Champion Jack's One Last Time

Recorded right after his Forever and Ever album, and a little more than half a year before his death in January 1992, One Last Time (Bullseye Blues), provides a fitting final studio recording by the New Orleans pianist and vocalist. According to producer Ron Levy, this was a session Dupree wanted to do, as he told Levy after completing Forever and Ever, he didn’t know if he’d be back. Dupree was joined here by Kenn Landing, his regular guitarist of the time, and several Crescent City musicians including Earl Turbington, Jr., on alto saxophone, and Walter Payton on bass.


This opens with Bad Blood which he previously recorded for the classic Blues From the Gutter album that was on Atlantic, and if this version doesn’t match the earlier recording, it is more than a credible performance with Turbington’s bluesy horn and Landing’s stinging guitar sounding very nice. He plays tribute to some past blues masters including Roosevelt Sykes on She’s Jail Bait, and Louis Jordan on Somebody Done Changed the Lock on the Door, and Early in the Morning. While credited to Dupree, Give Me Flowers When I’m Livin’, where he asks to give him his rewards while he can enjoy them, goes back to Peetie Wheatstraw. Ironically, I believe it was one of Wheatstraw’s last recordings as well.


With his fine backing section, Dupree lays down his barrelhouse piano, and sings authoritatively with his relaxed, grainy voice that really could deliver a lyric and tell a story. His performances here belie his age. While I do not concur with annotator Bob Porter’s view that this is the best of Dupree’s three Bullseye Blues albums (I prefer Forever and Ever), it is a very good listen. With Columbia/Legacy’s release of his Okeh recordings, Atlantic’s Blues From the Gutter, and imports of his recordings for King, and various New York labels, there is no shortage of superb Jack Dupree.


This review appeared in the October 1993 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 185) and I believe One Last Time is still available as is Blues From The Gutter (which is available as part of reissue with another Dupree album),  while the Sony/Legacy New Orleans Barrelhouse Boogie is available used.  All of Dupree's 3 Bullseye Blues albums along with Blues From The Gutter and other recordings (not the Sony) are available as downloads.  JSP has issued a 4CD box of his earliest recordings which I hope to discuss at some future time.  


I likely received a review copy from Rounder Records at the time this review originally ran.

Happy Thanksgiving

Inspired by Marc Myers and his blog at jazzwax.com, I have put together a playlist that might inspire a nice Thanksgiving Feast.

Robert Lighthouse “Turkey Leg Woman” from his album “Deep Down In the Mud” on Right on Rhythm Records and originally done by Dr. Ross and available on the Arhoolie CD “Boogie Disease.”

“Eat That Chicken” by Charles Mingus from Atlantic album “Oh Yeah”

“I Ate Up the Apple Tree” by Dirty Dozen Brass Band

“Beans and Corn Bread” Louis Jordan

“Corn Bread” by Hal Singer Sextette and reissued on the Bear Family CD, “1948:Blowing The Fuse-28 R&B Classics”

“Cornbread And Butter Beans” by the Carolina Chocolate Drops from the CD “Heritage.”

“Cabbage Greens” by Champion Jack Dupree available on JSP 4 CD box set of Dupree’s early recordings.

“Hey Sweet Potato” by Buddy Johnson from CD collection “The R&B Years - 1947”

“Sweet Potato Man” by Willie King from CD “One Love.”

“Red Beans” by Snooks Eaglin from his “Teasin’ You” CD

“Cherry Pie” by Marvin and Johnny and also by Swamp Pop artist Jay Randall (Reissued on “Swamp Gold Vol. 2”. Here is link to Marvin & Johnny’s original, reissued on English Ace label. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhfNJASU7NM

“Sweetie Cakes” Count Basie from the “April in Paris” CD

“Do Fries Come With That Shake” Tommy Brown from the BoneDog CD “Rockin’ My Blues Away.”

Of course, Thanksgiving in great part is about "Family," as recorded by Jim Hall and Bill Frisell from their CD "Hemispheres," on ArtistShare.

I hope all of you who celebrate Thanksgiving have a wonderful day and celebrate the things thatv really matter.