Comp time
“An Evening With Eddie Heywood and Billie Holiday” Commodore Records. A 1960 release of recordings from 1944 sessions and an exquisite Chuck Stewart cover photo!
(37 votes, average: 3.46 out of 5)
Loading ...Blues
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(37 votes, average: 3.46 out of 5) Loading ...Hurt’s so good
Mississippi John Hurt “Today!” Vanguard One of the most famous “rediscoveries” of the Folk Blues Revival of the 1960s was that of Mississippi John Hurt, who before this 1966 release (shortly before his death that year) had not recorded since 1928. This is an essential blues album of standards and originals (that have become standards) including my favorite, “Candy Man”. And the cover photo by Ed Freeman! What a simple, beautiful, honest portrait of the man.
Side 1
- Payday
- I’m satisfied
- Candy man
- Make me a pallet on the floor
- Talkin’ Casey Jones
- Corrina, Corrina
Side 2
- Coffee blues
- Louis Collins
- Hot time in the old town tonight
- If you don’t want me. Baby
- Spike driver blues
- Beulah land
(62 votes, average: 3.90 out of 5) Loading ...Heartbreaker
Bobby “Blue” Bland “Ain’t Nothing You Can Do” Duke Records [1964] Cover illustration by Rene Original label was orange. Reissued in 1974 as ABC/Duke DLPX-78. Ain’t Nothing You Can Do/If I Hadn’t Called You Back/Today/Steal Away/After It’s Too Late/ I’m Gonna Cry //Loneliness Hurts/When You Put Me Down/If You Could Read My Mind/Reconsider/Black Night/Blind Man
(39 votes, average: 3.90 out of 5) Loading ...Gotta serve somebody
“Softee Man Blues” Doug Quattlebaum Prestige put out the Bluesville label in the early sixties and recorded some of the best blues artists of the day. The cover photos and art direction was great and included beautiful portraits of many blues legends. This one is a-typical. Some of the records were by little known, but authentic, old time blues men like this one by Doug “softee man” Quattlebaum.
(41 votes, average: 3.46 out of 5) Loading ...Pass the hatchet
Prison Worksongs Recorded at Angola Prison in Louisiana. A Folkways field recording. Collected by Harry Oster.
(50 votes, average: 3.84 out of 5) Loading ...Shakey’s blues
“GOOD TIMES” The vocal & harmonica blues of SHAKEY JAKE (Harris) with Jack McDuff on the B3 and Bill Jennings on guitar. No bass or drums on the session. Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s legendary Englewood Cliffs studio and released on Prestige/Bluesville. (1960) Featuring Worried Blues; My Foolish Heart, (a take on Muddy Water’s Mannish Boy); Sunset Blues; etc.
(28 votes, average: 3.64 out of 5) Loading ...Blues and Haikus
Jack Kerouac with jazz greats Zoot Sims and Al Cohn. (1958). His second album on Hanover after “Poems for a Beat Generation” on which he was accompanied by TV talk show host Steve Allen. Produced by Bob Thiele. Click on the back cover here and hopefully you can read the liner notes by Gilbert Millstein. Kerouac calls Zoot and Al “Holy Blakean babies” and says “Zoot and Al blow thoughtful, sweet metaphysical sorrows.” Kerouac actually sings on one cut with Zoot playing piano for the first time on record. Here’s one of the haikus: “In my winter cabinet/the fly has/died of old age” Beat that.
Track listing: American Haikus; Hard Hearted Old Farmer; The Last Hotel & Some Of The Dharma; Poems from the Unpublished Book of The Blues; Old Western Movies; Conclusion Of The Railroad Earth.
Hear some of this record HERE.
(55 votes, average: 4.44 out of 5) Loading ...Grazin’ in the grass
Swedish blues band Peps & Blues Quality “Sweet Mary Jane” (1969)
(56 votes, average: 4.38 out of 5) Loading ...Snatch and the Poontangs
“For Adults Only” Kent Records, 1969. This is actually a raunchy blues album by Johnny Otis and his son guitarist Shuggie “Inspiration Information” Otis, (thirteen at the time), and vocalist Delmar “Mighty Mouth” Evans under assumed names. The cover looks like R. Crumb, but I read somewhere that Johnny Otis did it (?). This album was “Rated X” and sold in Adult Bookstores.
After “Signifyin’ Monkey,” (which also opens the classic Otis blues LP “Cold Shot”), “Snatch” continues with other examples of classic toasts “Poolshootin Monkey,” (here as “Signifyin Monkey part 2”) and “Hey, Shine” (a Bo Diddley beat with the melody of Otis’ own “Willie and the Hand Jive,) and “Stack a Lee”. “Dirty Dozens” (aka “Yass Yass Yass”) is a classic.
R.I.P Johnny Otis – January 2012 OBIT
(49 votes, average: 3.78 out of 5) Loading ...
