From the Used Bin
Saturday was one of those damn shopping days. I approached it like MacArthur reconquering the Philipines. This time it was the big periodic food shop, object: bulk food for stocking freezers and kids. I'm a cost concious shopper who goes with a plan and budget in mind. I don't like to wander around feeling things. Costco (equals eastern Price Club or Priceco) for real bulk items in a warehouse. Hundreds of dollars later off to Food 4 Less for everthing not already loaded into the pickup. Hundreds of dollars later I left massive strip malls behind. Having peeked twice into the dungeon of my wallet and discovered the secret rewards of thrift: blues money. I made a bee-line to The Last Record Store.
Shock! After many years as one of the great stores of Downtown Santa Rosa, Baby Huey refused to renew the Last Record Store's lease having other plans. I got there in the last hour in the old location and went right to the used racks. Bonanza! It's always pretty good but this time there was simply too much to buy.
People ask why anyone would part with these finds I bought. I've had a few answers, mostly economic. Now I'm forced to say: I just don't know. I can speculate that some are too out there for the casual blues fan, but how did they come by these in the first place? Several of these are Handy Nominee CDs and the Jessie Mae CD won the Handy in 1993.
new cover:
This is one of Jessie Mae Hemphill's two albums before her stroke in 1993. She was getting notice then. And North Mississippi Hill Country fans this is it! Jessie Mae is the great Sid Hemphill's daughter, one of the great drummers, and a fine stylist. A really fine singer in the old style, and you can tell she grew up next door to Fred McDowell. A fine CD if you have the hots for the southern style and North MS. Second picture is of the old-style Handy Award she won for this CD in 1993.
This is a field recording of Fred doing everything from traditional folk "John Henry" to Ray Charles's "I Got A Woman." And all of it sounding very North Mississippi and all Fred. Wow. On Fat Possum. Recommended for all folkie, country bluesers, and North Miss. types. A Handy Nominee CD.
This is a compilation of some of Junior Kimbrough's best stuff and it's really good. Real North Mississippi to the core. Recommended for those who can dig the North Mississippi style. A Handy Nominee CD.
Back to the Delta and Memphis with Big Jack.
Boy is this good! Big Jack and Kim Wilson do acoustic blues and they do them right! Pinetop Perkins joins them for a couple of swell tunes, and they have a drummer for a couple. Jack and Kim do stuff all the way back to plantation times ("Git Along Little Cindy"), from the Wolf and Delta tradition ("Smokestack Lightnin'"), Little Walter, Elmore James, and others, and some of Big Jack's originals based on Delta tradition. And Kim really plays the harp. Delicious. Recommended. Again, A Handy Award.
Joe Louis Walker plays acoustic blues in Memphis with help from Alvin Youngblood Hart, James Cotton, and Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne, and kills! Mostly duets in classic style, Joe wrote all the songs except one Robert Nighthawk tune. Recommended. A Handy Nominee in 1999 or 2000.
Sonny Boy's output was all 78 or 45 rpm singles, he died at the dawn of blues LPs. This is one of the collections of singles Chess put out relatively late. It's all singles between 1955 when he signed with Chess, and 1962 just before he first went to Europe. I'm resolved now to buy almost anything the greatest sureallistic poet of the blues ever put out. I didn't go wrong with this one. It has two or three tunes that are on his greatest hits and 'essential' compilations. The rest are just as wild and crazy! And that great harp! And the backing by either the Muddy Waters band or by the Robert Lockwood/Willie Dixon/Fred Below studio band. Superb. Recommended. "One Way Out" done rhumba style and other crazyness. Why Sonny Boy was on the automatic first induction list of the Blues Hall of Fame.
This is wild and crazy blues and rock'n'roll of the west Texas type. Hilarious and really influential on all the roadhouse bands, the Fabulous Thunderbirds knew all this stuff. If you like the western style of blues this is hot! A postcard from another time and place in a wild Juarez bar. Recommended. Should have been on the Historical Album Nomination list.
Among the things I couldn't afford: an autographed copy of " The [Malaco] Best of Little Milton"; early CDs of James Armstrong, etc., etc. I would have needed $250 just for the first line stuff. So at the record store I went to Memphis and the Hill Country in my heart.
Shock! After many years as one of the great stores of Downtown Santa Rosa, Baby Huey refused to renew the Last Record Store's lease having other plans. I got there in the last hour in the old location and went right to the used racks. Bonanza! It's always pretty good but this time there was simply too much to buy.
People ask why anyone would part with these finds I bought. I've had a few answers, mostly economic. Now I'm forced to say: I just don't know. I can speculate that some are too out there for the casual blues fan, but how did they come by these in the first place? Several of these are Handy Nominee CDs and the Jessie Mae CD won the Handy in 1993.
new cover:
This is one of Jessie Mae Hemphill's two albums before her stroke in 1993. She was getting notice then. And North Mississippi Hill Country fans this is it! Jessie Mae is the great Sid Hemphill's daughter, one of the great drummers, and a fine stylist. A really fine singer in the old style, and you can tell she grew up next door to Fred McDowell. A fine CD if you have the hots for the southern style and North MS. Second picture is of the old-style Handy Award she won for this CD in 1993.
This is a field recording of Fred doing everything from traditional folk "John Henry" to Ray Charles's "I Got A Woman." And all of it sounding very North Mississippi and all Fred. Wow. On Fat Possum. Recommended for all folkie, country bluesers, and North Miss. types. A Handy Nominee CD.
This is a compilation of some of Junior Kimbrough's best stuff and it's really good. Real North Mississippi to the core. Recommended for those who can dig the North Mississippi style. A Handy Nominee CD.
Back to the Delta and Memphis with Big Jack.
Boy is this good! Big Jack and Kim Wilson do acoustic blues and they do them right! Pinetop Perkins joins them for a couple of swell tunes, and they have a drummer for a couple. Jack and Kim do stuff all the way back to plantation times ("Git Along Little Cindy"), from the Wolf and Delta tradition ("Smokestack Lightnin'"), Little Walter, Elmore James, and others, and some of Big Jack's originals based on Delta tradition. And Kim really plays the harp. Delicious. Recommended. Again, A Handy Award.
Joe Louis Walker plays acoustic blues in Memphis with help from Alvin Youngblood Hart, James Cotton, and Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne, and kills! Mostly duets in classic style, Joe wrote all the songs except one Robert Nighthawk tune. Recommended. A Handy Nominee in 1999 or 2000.
Sonny Boy's output was all 78 or 45 rpm singles, he died at the dawn of blues LPs. This is one of the collections of singles Chess put out relatively late. It's all singles between 1955 when he signed with Chess, and 1962 just before he first went to Europe. I'm resolved now to buy almost anything the greatest sureallistic poet of the blues ever put out. I didn't go wrong with this one. It has two or three tunes that are on his greatest hits and 'essential' compilations. The rest are just as wild and crazy! And that great harp! And the backing by either the Muddy Waters band or by the Robert Lockwood/Willie Dixon/Fred Below studio band. Superb. Recommended. "One Way Out" done rhumba style and other crazyness. Why Sonny Boy was on the automatic first induction list of the Blues Hall of Fame.
This is wild and crazy blues and rock'n'roll of the west Texas type. Hilarious and really influential on all the roadhouse bands, the Fabulous Thunderbirds knew all this stuff. If you like the western style of blues this is hot! A postcard from another time and place in a wild Juarez bar. Recommended. Should have been on the Historical Album Nomination list.
Among the things I couldn't afford: an autographed copy of " The [Malaco] Best of Little Milton"; early CDs of James Armstrong, etc., etc. I would have needed $250 just for the first line stuff. So at the record store I went to Memphis and the Hill Country in my heart.
posted by Rolfyboy6 | 4:17 PM
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