LUCILLE BOGAN (BESSIE JACKSON) - 1923-1930 Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1994) FLAC (tracks), lossless

A native of Amory, MS who came up in Birmingham AL, Lucille Bogan sang about life as she knew it in a rough and tumble environment that provided her with plenty of material for songs about gambling ("War Time Man Blues," "Roll and Rattler"), the production and peddling of bootleg liquor ("Whiskey Selling Woman"); prostitution ("Tricks Ain't Walking No More"); marijuana ("Pot Hound Blues"); turbulent domestic relationships ("My Man Is Boogan Me," "House Top Blues") and unconventional sexual preferences ("B.D. Woman's Blues," "Women Won't Need No Men"). She sang the blues in a gutsy, honest manner that placed her in league with Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Back in the 1990s, Document reissued 66 of Bogan's records dating from the years 1923-1935 in a chronological survey that filled three CDs. Volume one opens with "The Pawn Shop Blues," recorded in Atlanta, GA for the Okeh record label in July 1923 with Henry Callens at the piano. Bogan shared material with several of her contemporaries; "Pawn Shop" was also recorded during this period by Martha Copeland, and several of Bogan's earliest efforts competed with versions of the same songs by Gladys Bryant, Lena Wilson, Alberta Hunter, Viola McCoy, and Trixie Smith. Bogan's piano accompanists during this phase of her career included Thomas A. Dorsey, Eddie Heywood, Sr., Eddie Miller, Frank James, and early boogie-woogie innovator Will Ezell, whose affair with Bogan is believed to have contributed to the singer's estrangement from her first husband. On some of the Brunswick dates, she was accompanied by Tampa Red and Cow Cow Davenport. The banjoist heard on "Kind Stella Blues," "Jim Tampa Blues," and "War Time Man Blues" was none other than Papa Charlie Jackson, himself a solid link with Gertrude "Ma" Rainey. arwulf arwulf 
Tracklist 
1 The Pawn Shop Blues 2:54
Piano – Eddie Heywood  
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
2 Lonesome Daddy Blues 3:00
Piano – Henry Callens
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
3 Chirpin' The Blues 2:41
Piano – Henry Callens
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
4 Triflin' Blues 3:04
Piano – Henry Callens
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
5 Don't Mean You No Good Blues 3:18
Piano – Henry Callens
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
6 Sweet Patunia 2:43
Piano – Alex Channey
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
7 Levee Blues 2:26
Piano – Alex Channey
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
8 King Stella Blues 2:40
Piano – Will Ezell
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
9 Jim Tampa Blues 2:47
Banjo, Vocals [Shouts] – Papa Charlie Jackson
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
10 War Time Man Blues 2:39
Guitar – Papa Charlie Jackson
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
11 Cravin' Whiskey Blues 2:40
Piano – Will Ezell
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
12 Nice And Kind Blues 2:35
Piano – Will Ezell
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
13 Women Won't Need No Men 2:55
Piano – Will Ezell
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
14 Doggone Wicked Blues 2:46
Piano [Prob.] – Will Ezell
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
15 Oklahoma Man Blues 2:25
Piano [Prob.] – Will Ezell
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
16 New Way Blues 2:47
Guitar – Tampa Red
Piano [Poss./Or] – Georgia Tom
Piano [Prob./Or] – Cow Cow Davenport
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
17 Pay Roll Blues 2:54
Guitar – Tampa Red
Piano [Poss./Or] – Georgia Tom
Piano [Prob./Or] – Cow Cow Davenport
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
18 Coffee Grindin' Blues 3:24
Guitar – Tampa Red
Piano [Poss./Or] – Georgia Tom
Piano [Prob./Or] – Cow Cow Davenport
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
19 Pot Hound Blues 3:07
Guitar – Tampa Red
Piano [Poss./Or] – Georgia Tom
Piano [Prob./Or] – Cow Cow Davenport
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
20 My Georgia Grind 2:52
Piano – Charles Avery
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
21 Whiskey Selling Woman 3:09
Piano – Charles Avery
Vocals – Lucille Bogan

LUCILLE BOGAN (BESSIE JACKSON) - 1930-1933 Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 2 (1994) FLAC (tracks), lossless

The second volume of Lucille Bogan's complete recorded works as reissued during the 1990s by Document is packed with 22 recordings made in Chicago between March 1930 and July 1933, with piano accompaniment by Charles Avery and Walter Roland. These records were cut during the toughest years of the Great Depression, and Bogan sang very candidly about what she and thousands of other women did in order to survive. The life of a prostitute struggling to get by is boldly sketched in songs like "Tricks Ain't Walking No More" and "Struttin' My Stuff." On the "Sloppy Drunk Blues," a song also recorded by Scrapper Blackwell and Leroy Carr, Bogan bluntly states that she loves her moonshine whiskey better than she loves her man. The words to her "House Top Blues" describe the ravages of both alcoholism and domestic violence; "Mean Twister" bemoans the death and devastation left in the wake of a cyclone. "Alley Boogie" and the "New Muscle Shoals Blues," on the other hand, are more like earthy honest celebrations of free love, unashamed and unfettered by socially imposed morality. Some of these recordings sound exactly like a 78 rpm platter spinning on a wind-up phonograph, the steel needle riding the groove through to the end of the song. Other editions of reissued recordings by this artist employed noise reduction technology; Document's approach in 1994 was to present the music as it sounds in its original format. arwulf arwulf 
Tracklist
1 They Ain't Walking No More 3:05
2 Dirty Treatin' Blues 2:52
3 Sloppy Drunk Blues 3:14
4 Alley Boogie 3:03
5 Crawlin' Lizard Blues 3:02
6 Struttin' My Stuff 2:47
7 Black Angel Blues 3:04
8 Tricks Ain't Walking No More 3:14
9 Red Cross Man 3:08
10 T & N O Blues 2:55
11 My Baby Come Back 2:43
12 Forty-Two Hundred Blues 2:41
13 Walkin' Blues 2:53
14 House Top Blues 2:51
15 Baking Powder Blues 2:56
16 Groceries On The Shelf 2:55
17 Seaboard Blues 2:47
18 Roll And Rattler 2:31
19 Superstitious Blues (Hooch House Blues) 2:49
20 Mean Twister 2:54
21 Troubled Mind 2:46
22 New Muscle Shoals Blues 2:48
Credits
Piano – Charles Avery (tracks: 1 to 4), Unknown Artist (tracks: 5 to 8), Walter Roland (tracks: 9 to 22)
Piano [Poss.] – Charles Avery (tracks: 5 to 8)
Speech – Walter Roland (tracks: 12, 18)
Vocals – Lucille Bogan

LUCILLE BOGAN (BESSIE JACKSON) - 1934-1935 Complete Recordings, Vol. 3 (1994) FLAC (tracks), lossless

The third and final volume of Lucille Bogan's complete works as presented by Document in 1994 allows the listener to savor 23 recordings made between July 1934 and March 1935, with pianist Walter Roland, and guitarists Bob Campbell and Josh White. It was during this period that Bogan chose to record under the name of Bessie Jackson. "You Got to Die Some Day" has a familiar ring to it, and might well be the source for a line in Eddie Durham and Jimmy Rushing's "Sent for You Yesterday," a major hit for Count Basie and other big-band leaders during the late 1930s. "I Hate That Train Called the M. and O." is one of several Bogan songs inspired by locomotives. Because this particular train separated her from the man that she loved, the emotions expressed here are undiluted and powerfully direct. "Pig Iron Sally," like the train songs rooted in the industrialized territory where she lived and worked, is the testimony of a woman who protects herself by claiming to be filled with Evil. The underlying message is as clear and concise as a crossbow: "Do Not Mess with Me." In many ways, the blues is often used like a diary. Whenever she expressed herself in front of a recording microphone, this singer reflected on who she was, the kind of a world she lived in, and the sort of people who inhabited it. "B.D. Woman's Blues" is about "Bull Dykes"; women who exclusively prefer the company of other women and display what are considered to be masculine characteristics. "Barbecue Bess" is a lusty conflation of flesh (sexual pleasures) and meat (carnivorous dining), both delectable topics for insatiable appetites. "Shave 'Em Dry" exists here in three versions. The first, a cover of a song by Ma Rainey, is a straightforward blues garnished with traditional references to interpersonal relationships and straight-edged razor blades. The two unissued takes could never have been put before the public in the '30s because of the outrageously pornographic lyrics, but were most likely quite popular on the private party circuit. Stash Records made an obscene take available to an appreciative new generation in 1976 on their Copulatin' Blues collection. The sexual imagery is every bit as extreme as the smuttiest outbursts of Jelly Roll Morton's 1938 Library of Congress sessions. After bragging about nipples as stiff as thumbs and seemingly Olympic bouts of frenzied copulation, Bogan (or Bessie Jackson, as she was then called) conjures up a weird architectural edifice as the man's erect penis poses as a church steeple and his sphincter becomes the portal, through which "...the crabs walks in like people!" After describing this bizarre hallucination, which suggests a passage from either the electroshock journals of Antonin Artaud or Lautreamont's Les Chants de Maldoror, she busts out laughing and has to struggle to contain herself in order to finish her wild performance. After 1935, Lucille Bogan stopped making records and moved back to Birmingham, AL, where she managed her son's band, known as Bogan's Birmingham Rhythm Busters. This group, which included trumpeter Martin Barnett, saxophonist Lee Golden, pianist Robert McCoy, and washboard percussionist Clarence Curly, cut two sides for Vocalion in March of 1937. It's a pity that Document didn't dig these up and include them as a footnote at the end of this collection. Lucille Bogan eventually moved to Los Angeles where she died a victim of coronary sclerosis in 1948. Since the reissue of most of her works by Document in 1994, her name and voice have become familiar to small numbers of dedicated classic blues lovers worldwide. arwulf arwulf  
Tracklist
1 You Got to Die Some Day 2:42
Lucille Bogan
2 Lonesome Midnight Blues 2:34
Lucille Bogan
3 Boogan Ways Blues 2:57
Lucille Bogan
4 My Man Is Boogan Me 2:51
5 Pig Iron Sally 3:00
Lucille Bogan
6 I Hate That Train Called the M. and O. 3:10
7 Drinking Blues 2:58
Lucille Bogan
8 Tired as I Can Be 2:39
Lucille Bogan
9 Sweet Man, Sweet Man 3:04
10 Reckless Woman 2:54
Lucille Bogan
11 Down in Boogie Alley 2:53
12 Changed Ways Blues 2:57
13 Bo-Easy Blues 3:02
14 That's What My Baby Likes 3:02
15 Shave 'Em Dry 2:50
Lucille Bogan / Traditional
16 Shave 'Em Dry 3:22
Lucille Bogan / Traditional
17 Shave 'Em Dry 3:18
Lucille Bogan / Traditional
18 Barbecue Bess 2:42
Lucille Bogan
19 B.D. Woman's Blues 3:01
Lucille Bogan
20 Jump Steady Daddy 2:50
Lucille Bogan
21 Man Stealer Blues 3:02
Lucille Bogan
22 Stew Meat Blues 2:57
Lucille Bogan
23 Skin Game Blues 2:56
Lucille Bogan
Credits
Guitar – Walter Roland (tracks: 6, 8)
Vocals – Lucille Bogan
Guitar [Prob.] – Bob Campbell (tracks: 6, 8), Josh White (tracks: 21)
Piano – Walter Roland (tracks: 1 to 5, 7, 9 to 23 )
Speech – Walter Roland (tracks: 5)