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

LEROY CARR — Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order ★ Volume 6 • 1934-1935 | DOCD-5139 (1992) RM | FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Some 60 years after his passing, Leroy Carr's complete issued recordings were chronologically compiled and released on compact disc by Document Records, Ltd. The sixth and last installment in that exhaustively complete series picks up the trail on December 17, 1934, and follows his remaining Vocalion recordings with a spate of Bluebirds waxed on February 25, 1935. Almost every song heard on this collection moves slowly and deliberately, as if to support an extra load of Weltschmerz. Although "Bread Baker" is a robustly hedonistic hymn to physical pleasures, "It's Too Short" cooks like a boogie, and "Just a Rag" is upbeat, throughout most of this collection Carr's subject matter is far from uplifting. "Tight Time Blues" is about abject poverty; "Rocks in My Bed" (the inspiration for one of Duke Ellington's greatest laments) describes the ordeal of insomnia; "Arlena" seems to convey Carr's fear of being abandoned; and "Longing for My Sugar" and "When the Sun Goes Down" are studies in heartache and loneliness. Grimmer still is "Suicide Blues," with its description of brains being blown out of his skull with a gun fired by his own hand. The chilliest title of all is "Six Cold Feet in the Ground," an unmistakable premonition of his own impending demise. During the last months of his short life, Leroy Carr was not at all well. Years of heavy alcohol consumption combined with a case of what appears to have been tuberculosis wore him down and finished him off somewhat abruptly, for on April 29, 1935, 30-year-old Leroy Carr checked out far ahead of schedule in Indianapolis, the town where he had made his first record with guitarist Scrapper Blackwell back in 1928. arwulf arwulf

Abridged from this album’s original booklet notes. Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell made their last sides for Vocalion over the two day period 17/18 December 1934 and if Carr’s choice of material was any indication of his mood, then it was indeed a sombre one. Titles like the mournful Black Wagon (you gonna ride when that black wagon comes), the rolling Shining Pistol (“gonna get me a brand new pistol, with a long shiny barrel”) and the all too real images conjured up by his startlingly matter of fact approach to suicide, were abundant:
Took me a Smith an’ Wesson and blew out my brains (x2) I didn’t take no poison, I couldn’t stand the strain l ain’t no coward and I will tell you why (X2) I just tired of living, but wasn’t afraid to die

Due to its subject matter the song, Suicide Blues, not surprisingly failed to get a release while the up-tempo, almost barrelhouse, It’s Too Short, with its suggestions of sexual inadequacies

Baby I can’t play too long, I’m just a skinny fellow and I ain’t very strong

did favour release. Then Leroy Carr’s contract with Vocalion ended, Tampa Red, who was recording for rival company Bluebird, has claimed that he was responsible for persuading them into changing labels. Apparently Tampa took them to the Bluebird studios but during the signing of the contract a dispute broke out between Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell concerning its terms and conditions, with the latter becoming jealous because Leroy’s fame was getting him the lion’s share of the royalty payment. Despite the antagonism they proceeded to record but after the first four numbers Scrapper became angry again and, depending on which source is to be believed, was either ejected from the studio or departed of his own accord. In hindsight, it is far more likely that the session supervisors, rather than abandon the recording date, chose to calm matters down by placating Blackwell with suggestions of his own session in an adjoining studio (where he cut two instrumentals), leaving Carr to complete the one they had started. Following the altercation, Leroy resumed the session with a ferocious sounding Just A Rag (one can almost envisage the recording engineer asking Carr for the title of the number and being greeted with the frosty retort, it’s just a rag!) but he then lapsed into three introspective blues, each becoming more lachrymose than its predecessor until ending the session with the prophetic Six Cold Feet In The Ground:
Just remember me baby when I’m in six feet of cold, cold ground (x2) Always think of me mama, just say a good man has gone down. Don’t cry for me baby, baby after I’m gone (x2) I jest a good man loved you and ain’t done nothing wrong. Just lay my body baby in six cold feet of ground (x2) Well I have been the loser when the deal done gone down.

Three months later, while at an all-night party, Leroy Carr suffered a severe attack of nephritis and he died on Monday morning 29 April, 1935, just one month into his thirtieth year. His passing was mourned by many musicians some, like Bumble Bee Slim and Little Bill Gaither, cut tributes but the most poignant of these was recorded for Champion the month after his death – My Old Pal Blues by Scrapper Blackwell (BDCD-6030). DOCD-5139
Tracklist :
1        Bread Baker 3:01
Guitar, Speech – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
2        Tight Time Blues 2:55
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
3        Longing For My Sugar 2:53
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
4        Black Wagon Blues 3:03
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
5        Shinin' Pistol 2:54
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
6        Arlena 3:01
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
7        Arlena 3:02
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
8        It's Too Short 2:53
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
9        It's Too Short 2:54
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
10        My Good For Nothin' Gal 2:37
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
11        Suicide Blues 2:58
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
12        Rozetta Blues 2:51
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
13        Church House Blues 2:46
Guitar – Josh White, Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
14        Rocks In My Bed 3:05
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
15        When The Sun Goes Down 2:56
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
16        Bad Luck All The Time 2:46
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
17        Big Four Blues 3:08
Guitar – Scrapper Blackwell
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
18        Just A Rag 3:09
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
19        Ain't It A Shame 3:09
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
20        Going Back Home 3:13
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr
21        Six Cold Feet In The Ground 2:59
Vocals, Piano – Leroy Carr

SIDNEY BECHET – 1940 | The Classics Chronological Series – 619 (1991) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Classics' chronological reissue of Bechet's recordings (at least the regular takes) continues with a pair of songs made with blues singer Josh White, eight very enjoyable performances cut with a quartet consisting of cornetist Muggsy Spanier, guitarist Carmen Mastren and bassist Wellman Braud, and a pair of Bechet's Victor sessions. This is one of the strongest entries in this valuable series. Scott Yanow
Tracklist + Credits :