I'm now listening to: The Piano Blues: Leroy Carr Vol.2, 1929-1935 - Magpie, with the inimitable Scrapper Blackwell on guitar. Great music, great sound.
These Magpie discs are the best-sounding Leroy Car anywhere, thanks, Hans, for the tip years ago to seek them out. If he hadn't drank himself to death, you have to wonder how big a star he could have been in the 40s and 50s, Ray Charles and Nat King Cole learned a bunch from him.
And so did T-Bone Walker, Charles Brown and Amos Milburn, to name just a few. He was very influential. Pity Mosaic never did a Carr box, like they did with Walker, Cole, Brown and Milburn.
Favourite on the blues side of things has to be Mississippi John Hurt. I know JSP has received a lot of flak, but this is a neat idea for a compilation: Four discs of Jimmie Rodgers imitators and soundalikes, including some of the earliest of recordings of Gene Autry, Hank Snow, and Ernest Tubb.
I'm listening to Freddie Spruell on his birthday ! https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=freddie spruell
Wikipedia and many other sites describe this as the first commercial country music recording without leaving any room for further speculation. Funny that there's been all kinds of debate over the first blues record, but Eck Robertson's 1922 work is universally accepted as the first country recordings. Anyone know of something ealier that might qualify? Bit skimpy on the tracks, but I'll keep it in consideration, thanks.
I just find it odd that there are no other contenders for that distinction. No one says "[artist] was the first to record blues/rock 'n' roll/punk/metal" without objection, but it seems country had already developed into a distinct genre by the time anything like it was recorded.
Love this topic! Can anyone help me remember: There's a podcast out there called something like Vintage Music or Old Time Music. Crumb is a frequent guest, as expected, and they play a lot of 78s from the era. I think it's a husband and wife. I used to have it in my iTunes library, but I have never been able to find it on any podcatchers since leaving the apple platform. And now I can't even remember the name.
Could it be John Heneghan and Eden Brower? http://www.eastriverstringband.com/ http://www.eastriverstringband.com/radioshow/
I have this also - beautiful red vinyl - not a dud in the bunch. Thankfully a friend at work needledropped it for me so I can play it in the car (and elsewhere).
The originator of Urban Blues. All the 60s blues-rock riffs are contained in Scrapper Blackwell's work on "I Believe I'll Make A Change."
You love country blues. You love vinyl. But where are the new releases? I bought a "new" Skip James Yazoo vinyl re-release of his 1931 sessions a couple of years back, but it looks like it might be- along with all the other Yazoo titles- unauthorized. I can't seem to find much info about it. We discussed it here at the forum a bit, but no definitive answers, as I recall. Anyone? There is some good news, though. Blues Images has put out, through High Horse Records, a vinyl version of Volume 3 of their Blues Classics annual releases. All tracks were re-mastered in 2005 from the finest copies of the original 78 rpm records. Reissued on 180 gram vinyl. http://bluesimages.com/html/product_html/Hi-Horse-Records-Special.html Gotta get me one of these bad boys! Track Listings: (1) Devil Got My Woman • Skip James (2) Love My Stuff • Charley Patton (3) M&O Blues • Willie Brown (4) He Calls That Religion • Mississippi Sheiks (5) Champagne Charlie's My Name • Blind Blake (6) Lost Man Blues • Ida Cox (7) The Gone Dead Train • King Solomon Hill (8) War Time Blues • Blind Lemon Jefferson (9) Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom • Ma Rainey (10) Skoodle Um Skoo • Papa Charlie Jackson (11) Guitar Boogie • Blind Roosevelt Graves and Brother (12) Christmas in Jail • Leroy Carr (13) Tallahatchie River Blues • Mattie Delaney (14) How You Want Your Rollin' Done • Louie Lasky (15) Married Woman Blues • George Torey (16) Cypress Grove Blues • Skip James I did get a nice colored vinyl copy of R. Crumb & Jerry Zoltens' Chimpin' The Blues. Although their conversation wasn't edited out of the recording, sadly.
Thanks! That's the very one. And I had forgotten ERSB, too, whose music I have sampled and enjoyed in the past.
Recently was able to pick up Don Kent's great Mamlish catalog, including S-3806(on top, 3rd in from the left) "Hard Time Blues" a St. Louis 1933-1940 comp that is named for that song, which leads off the lp. Fantastic stuff.