LEROY CARR — Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order ★ Volume 5 • 1934 | DOCD-5138 (1992) RM | FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Vol. 5 in Document's Complete Recorded Works of Leroy Carr focuses upon one of his last great periods of recording activity, from mid-August to mid-December 1934, providing the listener with 19 titles and three alternate takes. In addition to his main man Scrapper Blackwell, Carr is heard with guitarist Josh White on this collection, which is as strong as any other volume in Document's meticulously thorough Leroy Carr retrospective. Most of this music moves at an easy and unhurried pace, which is ideal for expressing simple intimate truths about loneliness, heartbreak, and interpersonal relationships. The ambling "George Street Blues" is more or less a sequel to Carr's "I Ain't Got No Money Now," and both songs are distantly related to Clarence "Pinetop" Smith's "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out." While the instrumentation is almost invariably confined to piano and guitar, "Big Four Blues" is punctuated with blasts from a hand-held imitation train whistle. As is the case with almost everything Leroy Carr ever recorded, most of these songs describe passions, habits, and full-blown addictions unflinchingly. "Hustler's Blues" contains Carr's famous line "Whiskey is my habit, good women is all I crave," while "Eleven Twenty-Nine Blues" offers a concise account of how "My gal got arrested and they put her in the county jail." Performances with extra rhythmic punch are the brisk "Barrelhouse Woman," the boogie-based "Bo Bo Stomp," "Don't Start No Stuff," and "Muddy Water," during which an unnamed river overflows its banks and meets Leroy Carr at his doorstep. arwulf arwulf

Abridged from this album’s original booklet notes. By mid-1934 Leroy Carr‘s health and general demeanour were in sharp decline. Unbeknownst to him, but later confirmed by his death certificate, he was suffering from kidney failure. In an attempt to dull the pain that this was causing, he drank even more excessively. Whatever the drinking might have been doing to Carr’s health it didn’t seem to have any adverse effect on the quality of his recordings. If there was any noticeable change it was more in the element of foreboding expressed by his blues. It was as if he could almost foresee that he was headed for an early grave “this old life I’m living sure ain’t gonna last me very long”-, but just how early would’ve probably surprised even Leroy Carr: His perennial problem of coming to terms with unsuccessful relationships were also becoming more focused during that period. In Cruel Woman Blues he sang with renewed bitterness:
All of this schooling education didn’t mean a thing to me (x2) When I met a good looking woman that was the end of me This woman treated me mean, she’s the cruellest I’ve ever seen (x2) The house is always dirty and her cooking I swear it didn’t clean

In early August, Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell had made a “guest” appearance at a Josh White session as his accompanists. Four songs were cut, two of which, not unnaturally, were Leroy Carr numbers. One was Carr’s 1932, Gone Mother, while the other was the recently recorded, Mean Mistreater, which had also been covered on Bluebird the previous June by Tampa Red covered on Bluebird the previous June by Tampa Red. The collaborations with White were subsequently released as by Pinewood Tom And His Blues Hounds and this brief liaison may well account for White’s appearance as second guitarist at two of Carr’s sessions in December 1934. The first of which was held on 14th December and it would seem that it was far from successful, as of the numbers recorded only half were commercially released; those that weren’t required more than one attempt to achieve the desired result. Even then these didn’t come up to the Company’s expectation despite the driving interaction between Josh White’s facile guitar and that of Scrapper’s string-slapping on numbers like Broken Hearted Man. One song that was issued from the session was the prison blues Eleven Twenty Nine but its subject was quite unlike his earlier Prison Bound or Christmas In Jail; it was far from the perspective of a girlfriend sent to the chain gang:
Now I’m gonna see the judge and talk to him myself (x2) Tell him that he sent my gal to the county road and left me by myself. Then I heard the jailer say, „Hello prisoners fall in line (x2) I’m also talkin’ about that long-chain woman that got 11.29

It was a common, though rarely remarked upon, occurrence for chain gangs to be of mixed sex and, perversely, it was the older women who did the labouring while the younger ones performed less strenuous tasks like carrying shovels etc, hence Carr’s well observed reference to the jailer’s comment of, “also talkin’ about that long chain woman that got 11.29” – 11.29 being a year. DOCD-5138
Tracklist :
1        Southbound Blues 2:48
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
2        Barrel House Woman 2:51
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
3        Barrel House Woman No. 2 2:38
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
4        Florida Bound Blues 2:44
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
5        Cruel Woman Blues  2:55
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
6        Muddy Water 2:43
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
7        I Believe I'll Make A Change 2:55
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
8        Black Gal (What Makes Your Head So Hard?) 3:01
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
9        Don't Start No Stuff 2:58
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
10        George Street Blues 3:02
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
11        Bo Bo Stomp 2:51
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
12        Big Four Blues 3:04
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
13        Hard Hearted Papa 3:05
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
14        Hard Hearted Papa 3:00
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
15        You Left Me Crying 2:57
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
16        You Left Me Crying 3:07
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
17        Broken Hearted Man 2:45
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
18        Evil-Hearted Woman 2:46
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
19        Good Woman Blues 2:56
Guitar, Speech – Josh White
Speech – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
20        Hustler's Blues 2:35
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
21        Eleven Twenty-Nine Blues 2:57
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
22        You've Got Me Grieving 3:08
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr