The many Specialty blues reissues of note include Mercy Dee Walton's One Room Country Shack. The title track, one of Mercy Dee's two top ten R&B recordings, may be familiar from versions by Buddy Guy or Mose Allison, but Dee's dry vocal really captures the starkness of his blues poetry. While compiler Billy Vera notes Mercy Dee's sophisticated lyrics bear some comparison to Percy Mayfield, his themes and some of his lyrics reflect the rural sharecropping life he grew up in.
His three Specialty recordings are included here along with 18 other sides, some of which served as demos perhaps. Sides like Love is a Mystery show a bit of versatility as he is in the club blues mode of a Charles Brown, while Winter Blues almost sounds like a remake of One Room Country Shack, although with totally different lyrics. A similar accompaniment is heard on Dark Muddy Bottom with its powerful depiction of a sharecropper's life getting up at 4:30 to hit up his beat up team. A boogie backing is found on other songs like Pauline while Get to Gettin', a duet with Lady Fox, is a New Orleans flavored rocker.
The unissued sides are a welcome addition to his sparse recorded legacy, and while there may be a certain sameness to some of the songs here musically, the wit and imagery of his songs, his understated vocal delivery and Texas blues piano make Mercy Dee's recordings a treasure to his fans.
I received a review copy from Fantasy Records which owned the Specialty catalog. This review originally appeared in the Jazz & Blues Report in 1993. Here is "One Room Country Shack."
Among recent reissues in Fantasy's The Legends of Specialty series are the second volumes devoted to Roy Milton, Joe Liggins, Jimmy Liggins and Percy Mayfield along with a volume of Art Neville's Specialty recordings. Another reissue, Shouting the Blues, includes Joe Turner's recordings for the Texas Freedom label Big Maceo's Specialty sides, and recordings by Smilin' Smokey Lynn and H-Bomb Ferguson. Musically, most of these recordings date from the heyday of jump blues, the late forties through the mid-fifties. All six releases contain Billy Vera's perceptive annotations and discographical information.
By virtue of his success with his brothers today, Art Neville is perhaps the best known of any of these artists. His Specialty Recordings: 1956-58 collect the recordings he made after recording Mardi Gras Mambo with the Hawketts for Chess. These early sides include some demos along with such sides as Oooh Wee-Baby, Cha Dooky Doo, with its famous distorted guitar and a duet with Larry Williams on Rocking Pneumonia and Boogie Woogie Flu. These sides did not enjoy great commercial success when initially issued, and while there is unquestionable historical interest to some of these sides, and fans of New Orleans R&B will be interested, this is one of the weaker Specialty reissues.
Shouting The Blues is dominated by some great jump blues by Joe Turner and Smilin' Joe Lynn. Turner's eight songs were initially issued on the Houston Freedom label and three (including the rocking Adam Bit the Apple) include Goree Carter's T-Bone Walker inspired guitar and a great jump band. Big Maceo had suffered a stroke and was unable to play at the time he recorded his enjoyable,
but not essential 1949 Specialty recordings. On these, his protege Johnnie Jones took the piano chair. Smilin' Smokey Lynn was a Los Angeles based shouter heard with trumpeter Don Johnson's band. He
is an enjoyable singer, if not in the same league as Turner. Many of his performances are rehashed versions of R&B hits. State Street Boogie reworks James 'Widemouth' Brown's Boogie Woogie Nighthawk, the torrid Run Mister Rabbit, Run, derives from Hot Lips Page, and Feel Like Ballin' Tonight, derives from Roy Brown's Good Rockin' Tonight. The imaginative Chesterfield Baby, celebrates Lynn's women who satisfies his soul. Closing with two previously unissued tracks by H-Bomb Ferguson, this is an interesting but not essential collection.
This review appeared in Jazz & Blues Report in 1993. I am splitting it up and will include this top paragraph with all three parts. I received my review copies from Fantasy Records. I am not sure about the availability of these albums, although one might check ebay. Here is Art Neville's Specialty Recording of Cha Dooky Doo.
Among recent reissues in Fantasy's The Legends of Specialty series are the second volumes devoted to Roy Milton, Joe Liggins, Jimmy Liggins and Percy Mayfield along with a volume of Art Neville's Specialty recordings. Another reissue, Shouting the Blues, includes Joe Turner's recordings for the Texas Freedom label Big Maceo's Specialty sides, and recordings by Smilin' Smokey Lynnand H-Bomb Ferguson. Musically, most of these recordings date from the heyday of jump blues, the late forties through the mid-fifties. All six releases contain Billy Vera's perceptive annotations and discographical information.
Not quite as consistent (as releases by Percy Mayfield and Roy Milton) is Rough Weather Blues, the second volume by Jimmy Liggins and His Drops of Joy. Vera suggests that Jimmy Liggins recordings are among the closest to rock'n'roll records of anyone of his generation. These sides feature some hard rocking rhythm sections along Saxophonist Harold Land and Charles 'Little Jazz' Ferguson on the earliest sides here which include an extended five minute plus jam on Charlie Parker's Now's The Time, while the latest sides include a undubbed version of Drunk, one of his biggest records. Maxwell Davis is present on many of the latter sides. Liggins, no mean guitarist, gets a fair amount of solo space particularly on the later recordings included here.
Brother Joe, was more commercially successful than Jimmy with a more mellow, melodic jump blues style. His first recordings were made for the Exclusive label and had such hits as I Got A Right to Cry, Tanya and standards like When It's Sleepy Time Down South, and When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano. While he remade some of his hits for Specialty, including The Honeydripper, he had hits with Pink Champagne and Frankie Lee. The second volume of his Specialty Recordings, Dripper's Boogie, collects 20 recordings that date from 1950 to 1954. His somewhat flat vocals have a certain charm. Several of the vocals are by Candy Rivers and Dell St. John. A solid pianist and arranger, he had smooth jump combos, often with saxophonists Willie Jackson and Maxwell Davis as he waxed hot on novelties like Boogie Woogie Lou or cool on ballads like Tenderly with Candy Rivers clean delivery. Dripper's Boogie is a remake of one of his Exclusive recordings that is marked by his deliberate, clipped phrasing. Those interested in Joe Liggins' output would be advised to check out his earlier Specialty volume first.
This review appeared in Jazz & Blues Report in
1993. I am splitting it up and will include this top paragraph with all
three parts. I received my review copies from Fantasy Records. I am not
sure about the availability of these albums, although one might check
ebay. Here is a popular Jimmy Liggins track, although not on this recording.
Among recent reissues in Fantasy's The Legends of Specialty series are the second volumes devoted to Roy Milton, Joe Liggins, Jimmy Liggins and Percy Mayfield along with a volume of Art Neville's Specialty recordings. Another reissue, Shouting the Blues, includes Joe Turner's recordings for the Texas Freedom label, Big Maceo's Specialty sides, and recordings by Smilin' Smokey Lynn
and H-Bomb Ferguson. Musically, most of these recordings date from the heyday of jump blues, the late forties through the mid-fifties. All six releases contain Billy Vera's perceptive annotations and discographical information.
The two prime reissues have to be Memory Pain (Specialty) by Percy Mayfield, and Groovy Blues (Specialty), by Roy Milton. Blues Poet is a label bestowed on many, but no more deservingly than on Percy Mayfield, who was also an urbane vocalist whose recorded such classics as Please Send Me Someone To Love, Strange Things Happening (both heard here in alternate takes), I Need Love So Bad and The Voice Within. While Specialty's earlier volume of Mayfield's recordings, The Poet of the Blues is the essential Mayfield collection, this contains a number of excellent performances (although a few rough spots may be heard), and has a 1960 demo of his Hit the Road Jack, that became a monster hit for Ray Charles.
Drummer-vocalist Roy Milton was Specialty's first and biggest star until Little Richard. The Oklahoma born Milton was nearly forty when his easy going shuffle R.M. Blues was a hit in 1945, and proceded to make numerous 'jump blues' recordings over the next decade as his band the Solid Senders produced a scaled down version of the territory big bands of the thirties (such as that of Count Basie or Jay MacShann). As Billy Vera notes, economic factors led to the demise of the big bands, while recording techniques improved to make it possible for a five to eight piece combo to have almost as much a punch as a full big band leading many swing era musicians like Milton to adopt the approach of the Count Basie riff-oriented blues-based territory band in a smaller configuration with bluesy novelty vocals, honking sax solos, solid riffs, bass-heavy boogie rhythm and a heavy accent on the second and fourth beats. Few succeeded with this formula as did Milton whose warmly delivered vocals and solid rhythm anchored a strong combo which featured the wonderful boogie woogie piano of Camille Howard (who also takes several of the vocals, but her singing is not as earthy as her playing). Milton was equally at home with a rocking shuffle, or a remake of a standard like On the Sunny Side of The Street (with his vocal indebted to Louis Armstrong), or My Blue Heaven. Big Band roots are revealed by the versions of One O'Clock Jump and I Want a Little Girl from the Count Basie canon, and Thomas Dorsey's Marie. While Camille Howard's vocal on the title track, Groovy Blues, is bland, the music here is anything but bland.
This review appeared in Jazz & Blues Report in
1993. I am splitting it up and will include this top paragraph with all
three parts. I received my review copies from Fantasy Records. I am not sure about the availability of these albums, although one might check ebay. Here is Percy Mayfield singing Memory Pain.
John Lee Hooker Everybody’s Blues Specialty Fantasy has issued the second of its Specialty John Lee Hooker reissues, Everybody’s Blues. It contains twenty more choice early examples of the King of The Boogie. The first eight recordings were made by Bernie Besman and involve Hooker’s own reworking of traditional blues themes.
Hooker’s driving boogie accompaniment, with his calculated extension beyond the 12-bar form, makes Do My Baby Think of Me sound completely different from Little Brother Montgomery’s Special Rider Blues. In contrast, the following Three Long Years Today is a brooding Hooker slow blues. Another similarly styled blues, Walkin’ This Highway, is marked by Hooker’s somewhat violent sounding guitar playing. Four Women in My Life (also issued on Modern) is a stunning, relatively straight rendition of a delta blues theme which sounds like someone is playing rhythm with Hooker, although not credited. Eight of the performances were recorded with a small jump combo who bring a certain amount of chaos to the talking blues I‘m Mad, where Hooker complains menacingly about working hard to take care of his woman while his woman plays around, Boogie Rambler, derived from Gatemouth Brown’s recordings, the jaunty version of Rosco Gordon’s No More Doggin’, and the title cut which is a recast version of Eddie Boyd’s Five Long Years.
The final four tracks find Hooker solo again and the version of Percy Mayfield’s I Need Love So Bad illustrates how Hooker can take straight blues lyrics and through his guitar embellishments, his extending a verse past 12 bars, and through deliberately not rhyming lines, makes a familiar song into what clearly becomes his own slow blues. One would never have guessed its source.The liner notes on this set of vintage Hooker are the same as on Graveyard Blues, the earlier Specialty reissue of Hooker. The two Specialty albums are the two best collections of John Lee Hooker’s early recordings currently available in the United States.
The English Ace Records has issued The Legendary Modern Recordings 1948-1954 which may be found at better stores carrying imports. This contains most of Hooker’s most commercially successful recordings including Boogie Chillen and the original I’m in the Mood, and one can only hope that Virgin Records’ Flair subsidiary will make this available in the US soon. Other recommended early Hooker includes the Krazy Kat collection of Joe Van battle recordings of Hooker along with some real obscurities, Boogie Awhile, and Do You Remember Me, Hooker’s explosive Federal recordings which are some of the most intense post war country blues recordings made.
This is available as a download and used. I likely received a review copy from the record company. This review originally appeared in the May 1994 Jazz & Blues Report (issue 191). Here is an early John Lee Hooker rendition of Worried Life Blues.
Art Rupe was just honored as one of the two Ahmet Ertegun honorees (to non-musicians for contributions to Rock and Roll) by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and will be honored along with Dr. John, Neil Diamond, and Tom Waits. Rupe was an important independent record company pioneer whose Specialty Records label produced some of the classic jump blues, gospel and early rock and roll recordings. As Billy Vera says in the booklet accompanying the 5 CD box set, The Specialty Story, “If Art Rupe and his Specialty Records, had done nothing more than give us Little Richard, he would still deserve a place in the rock ’n’ roll triumvirate along with Sam Phillips (Sun Records) and Leonard and Phil Chess (Chess Records). … In little over ten years activity, Specialty Records growth paralleled, and perhaps defined, the evolution of black popular music—from the “race” music of the 1940s to the rock ’n’ roll of the 1950s.”
Specialty issued some amazing recordings. The core of the label’s output can be found on the afore-mentioned The Specialty Story which includes (among its 130 recordings) recordings that charted as well as recordings by artists or are of songs that would later become important. The box, specifically does exclude Specialty’s jazz recordings and only provides a token representation of the important Gospel catalog of the label. After Fantasy acquired the Specialty catalog (in 1990 I believe), they began issuing a great number of reissues from the Specialty catalog. Concord Music acquired the Fantasy catalog and have some new reissues of such material as well as many of the fantasy reissues remain still available. Concord did in 2006 issue some budget reissues that I reviewed initially for the December 2006 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 289), which I am posting today in part to salute Mr. Rupe.
Those purchasing these budget reissues may well wish to check out the prior excellent reissues of these artists as well as releases by such important performers as Guitar Slim, Little Richard, Brother Joe May, The Pilgrim Travelers, Don & Dewey and Wyonna Carr.
Concord Music Group’s release of six initial Specialty Profile budget reissues hopefully will introduce some to the great music that has been issued by Fantasy Records prior to Concord’s acquisition of the label last year. Originally called Juke Box, Specialty was one of the independent labels that emerged after World War II that was central in the release of so much rhythm’n’blues, gospel and blues as well as some of the most important pioneering rock ’n’ roll recordings. These releases have 14 performances by the featured artist and a second bonus CD with ten performances by various Specialty artists.
Roy Milton, inspired by the big bands led his Solid Senders, the prototypical jump blues band, that in its tight, punchy sound captured some of the flavor of the bigger bands on a program of blues and jump numbers. Milton was a swinging drummer and an ingratiating vocalist with a terrific band that featured the wonderful pianist Camille Howard. Milton had many charting records, which became staples of the emerging rhythm and blues music. Two of his recordings Milton’s Boogie, his version of Count Basie’s Boogie Woogie and Milton’s Hop Skip & Jump were recorded by Elmore James pianist Little Johnnie Jones while such numbers as R.M. Blues and Information Blues still appeal with the strong driving swing and superb musicianship. This is terrific stuff.
John Lee Hooker recorded prolifically between the late forties and early fifties for a variety of labels including Specialty who acquired sides produced by Bernie Besman in Detroit. The 14 selections presented by Specialty capture Hooker on his driving one-chord boogies such as his revisiting of his first hit, Boogie Chillen, his slow brooding lament about a cheating woman which he would later visit for Vee-Jay, I’m Mad, and the hot duet with harmonica player Eddie Burns, Burnin’ Hell, where he proclaims “Ain’t no heaven, ain’t no burning hell” as he lays down a hot boogie guitar riff.“ There is a small combo version of Rosco Gordon’s No More Doggin’. This is this writer’s favorite period of John Lee Hooker’s recording with some of his most powerful recordings to which this disc is an excellent introduction.
After Fats Domino, probably no New Orleans artist had the impact of one Lloyd Price whose recording Lawdy Miss Clawdy, was one of the first rhythm and blues hit recordings to cross over to a white audience in a massive fashion. Price went on to a celebrated recording and performing career. The 14 selections here come from two CDs of his music and is a reasonable sample of his earliest recordings, dating from 1952 or 1953 with the exception of 1956’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Dance. Price’s earliest recordings for Specialty had him backed by Dave Bartholomew’s legendary studio band with Fats Domino on piano for the Lawdy Miss Clawdy session while later sessions included pianists Edward Frank and Huey ‘Piano’ Smith and such horn players as Wallace Davenport and Herb Hardesty. These tracks are classic New Orleans R&B with tracks like Mailman Blues, or Where You At? being hot rockers. Price’s youth perhaps leads to some vocals sounding as a bit overwrought (If Crying Was Murder).
Larry Williams was Lloyd Price’s second cousin, and born in New Orleans although his family moved to the West Coast in his youth, returning to the New Orleans a couple of times, including stints with his cousin as driver and valet and then briefly with Fats Domino. He joined Specialty around the time Little Richard had quit music and with hits like Bony Moronie, Short Fat Fanny and Dizzy Miss Lizzy, which also influenced an imaginative John in Liverpool. He was a solid pianist, pounding out his boogie rocking licks backed by some of the best studio bands in Hollywood with transplanted New Orleans drummer Earl Palmer anchoring things. These were splendid rock and roll recordings. There is a nice rendition of his cousin’s Just Because along with Sonny Bono’s High School Dance and She Said Yeah, the coupling Bad Boy and Slow Down, covered by the Beatles, and Little School Girl, a reworking of the blues classic Good Morning Little Schoolgirl. Williams could not handle success leading to drug problems and an early death, but his legacy is these terrific recordings.
Percy Mayfield was labeled The Poet Laureate of the Blues, for his wonderfully crafted sophisticated blues. As a performer, he sang with an intimacy that matched the sophistication of his lyrics. Until disfigured in an auto accident he had the looks to make him a major star and still remained an major songwriter (hired by Rat Charles) as well as a performer who continued to make thoughtful and sophisticated recordings until his death. His songs, including Please Send Me Someone to Love, Strange Things Happening, The River’s Invitation, Lost Love (aka Baby Please) and Lost Mind, have become blues standards and his original recordings are terrific. Given that only 14 selections were chosen, Mayfield’s early demo of Hit the Road, Jack, might have been omitted along with the duet with Joy Hamilton, Sugar Mama-Peachy Papa, as they are below the level of these other included recordings.
The last of the reissues is devoted to the legendary Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers and includes of a nice sampling of his early gospel recordings along with several of his earliest pop recordings. Nine of the selections are Cooke as a member of the Soul Stirrers in which he shares the lead with Paul Foster whose vocals are as remarkable as Cooke’s. Listen to the closing I’m Gonna Build Right on That Shore, where Foster takes the first lead with Cooke taking the lead mid- song and then the two trade lead verses. Its a remarkable performance but just one of several classic gospel recordings here including renditions of Thomas Dorsey’s Peace in the Valley, Cooke’s Touch the Hem of His Garment and Jesus Gave Me Water. The five pop performances by Cooke include I’ll Come Running Back to You, Lovable and I Don’t Want to Cry, but Cooke’s mostly are overshadowed by his later pop recordings. Still, this is a fine overview of early Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers recordings that sound fresh even today.
Specialty Records was one of the great labels of the late forties through the fifties documenting the classic jump blues and gospel of the time and the emergence of rock’n’roll. These reviews appeared as a composite review back in the April 1994 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 190).I have updated the review to include the CD title in the body of the review and other info as apprpriate. The Wyonna Carr is currently available on amazon as a download or CD, the Camille Howard is available used or as a download while the Lloyd Price reissue may be difficult to find.
Three more reissues from the Specialty catalog make some classic 50’s rhythm and blues available. While none of these might be termed indispensable, the releases by the women, Camille Howard and Wyonna Carr, are particularly valuable in making available recordings by some of the women who have been unrepresented in such reissues.
Lloyd Price should be familiar from his highly successful recording career, starting with Lawdy Miss Clawdy that was recorded at his first Specialty session with Dave Bartholomew’s band which included Fats Domino, Ernest McLean, Herb Hardesty and Earl Palmer. This collection, Vol. 2 Heavy Dreams, is the second collection of Price’s Specialty recordings and includes a couple of songs from the March 1952 session that produced Lawdy Miss Clawdy (including an alternate take of Chee Koo Baby), and surveys his recording career for Specialty which ended in April 1956. Most of these sessions were recorded in New Orleans with many of the same musicians, except other pianists replaced Domino while Lee Allen’s booting sax is added to some of the later recordings. Much of this is stomping R&B, full of that Crescent City Bounce with Earl Palmer riding the cymbals while rocking out a second line rhythm, and some is Roy Brown influenced blues although by the time of his last session, some of the songs clearly are oriented to the rock and roll market, for which he would have many hits on for his own labels and ABC-Paramount. Most of the Specialty hits are on the earlier collection.Generally this is solid stuff, although there are a few lesser titles here.
Best remembered as Roy Milton’s pianist, and sometimes vocalist, Camille Howard was a formidable member of Milton’s Solid Senders, one of the more popular and influential rhythm and blues groups of the late forties. She sang on several of Milton’s hits, and made a number of recordings under her own name on Specialty, many with Milton and members of the Solid Senders. Many are included on Vol.1 Rock Me Daddy, the first album devoted to her music. She is still alive (actually when I wrote this, this was not true as she passed in March 1993 at the age of 79), although her current religious affiliation leads her to be reticent in talking about the rhythm and blues heyday. Camille Howard certainly was an excellent boogie woogie pianist, on a level with Sammy Price, Lloyd Glenn, and, dare I suggest, Jay MacShann. Her clean, deft touch helped her providing an easy rocking, solid foundation for her recordings, and those with Roy Milton. A relaxed singer, she handles the easy going blues and jump tunes along with ballads. Compared to Hadda Brooks, her vocals on ballads and torch songs strike me as less melodramatic, although I have only heard a smattering of Brooks’ recordings. The 25 recordings here are solid performances and makes this more than simply a fine supplement to the two Roy Milton collections on Specialty. (Specialty did issue a subsequent compilation of her recordings, X-Temporaneous Boogie, and of course she can be heard on those classic Roy Milton jump blues, also on Specialty. She was truly a wonderful pianist and singer).
Cleveland native, Wyonna Carr, originally recorded for Specialty as a gospel singer, enjoying some success with The Ball Game. In 1955 she convinced Specialty’s owner, Art Rupe, to record her on pop material. Jump Jack Jump! brings together 23 of her pop tunes along with one gospel song. The opening three songs, the title cut, the rocking ;Till the Well Runs Dry, and Boppity Bop (Boogity Boog), shows that Specialty at first envisioned her as their answer to Ruth Brown and LaVern Baker, while Hurt Me, sounds like an effort to capture the sound of the Platters, and It’s Rainin’ Outside, has a strong gospel flavor. Her rendition of Should I Ever Love Again is a nice version of a ballad some will associate with New Orleans’ singer Tommy Ridgely, and probably her biggest record. Carr was a strong songwriter as well as a fine singer, and certainly of her many songs these hold up as well as some of the better known hits of the times. Her Please Mr. Jailer where she entreats him to treat her man all right, is fairly memorable as is her clever lyrics on the perky Nursery Rhyme Rock. Most of these were produced by Art Rupe or Bumps Blackwell, although some later sides were produced by Sonny Bono. Some of Bono’s songs such as, I’m Mad at You, are forgettable. For a variety of reasons including lack of luck, her career never took off, and she did not have a rhythm and blues smash. After Specialty, she recorded an album for Reprise Records, and eventually moved back to Cleveland. Billy Vera mentions she suffered depressive periods, and ‘retreated into her shell and faded from sight.’ When she died in 1976, she generally had been forgotten, but this collection will certainly generate a reassessment of her music. (Specialty also reissued a fine album of her gospel sides that is well worth checking out.)
For FTC purposes, Fantasy Records sent me the review copies of these.
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