Complete Recorded Works of Son House & The Great Delta Blues Singers isn't entirely devoted to Son House -- there are cuts by several other musicians, including Willie Brown, Garfield Akers, Rube Lacey and Joe Calicott -- but this disc, which contains a complete 1930 session, is the best place to get his earliest songs ("My Black Mama," "Preachin' the Blues," "Dry Spell Blues"), which remain among his masterworks. Thom Owens
Tracklist :
1 Son House– My Black Mama ~ Part 1 3:11
2 Son House– My Black Mama ~ Part 2 3:19
3 Son House– Preachin' The Blues ~ Part 1 3:06
4 Son House– Preachin' The Blues ~ Part 2 2:54
5 Son House– Dry Spell Blues ~ Part 1 3:11
6 Son House– Dry Spell Blues ~ Part 2 3:15
7 Son House– Walkin' Blues 3:00
Guitar – Willie Brown
8 Willie Brown – M & O Blues 3:11
9 Willie Brown – Future Blues 3:01
10 Kid Bailey– Mississippi Bottom Blues 2:49
Guitar – Unknown Artist
11 Kid Bailey– Rowdy Blues 3:00
Guitar – Unknown Artist
12 Garfield Akers– Cottonfield Blues ~ Part 1 2:52
Guitar – Joe Callicott
13 Garfield Akers– Cottonfield Blues ~ Part 2 3:15
Guitar – Joe Callicott
14 Garfield Akers– Dough Roller Blues 3:11
15 Garfield Akers– Jumpin' And Shoutin' Blues 3:09
16 Joe Callicott– Fare Thee Well Blues 3:11
17 Joe Callicott– Traveling Mama Blues 3:15
18 Jim Thompkins– Bedside Blues 3:07
19 Blind Joe (Willie) Reynolds– Outside Woman Blues 2:56
20 Blind Joe (Willie) Reynolds– Nehi Blues 3:15
21 Blind Joe (Willie) Reynolds– Married Man Blues 3:18
22 Blind Joe (Willie) Reynolds– Third Street Woman Blues 2:41
23 Rube Lacy– Mississippi Jailhouse Groan 3:22
24 Rube Lacy– Ham Hound Crave 2:53
Vocals [2nd Vocals] – Ralph Lembo
24.12.24
SON HOUSE — Son House And the Great Delta Blues Singers : Complete Recorded Works (1928-1930) DOCD-5002 (2000) RM | APE (image+.cue), lossless
13.5.21
CHARLEY PATTON – Complete Recordings 1929-1934 (2002) RM | 5CD BOX-SET | FLAC (image+.cue), lossless
At the end of just the first disc on this five-CD set, the listener may feel like he/she was in the audio equivalent of a visual "white-out," so powerful are the sounds on that disc. From the opening bars of"Pony Blues," Charley Patton becomes a gigantic musical presence, who gets even bigger as his work goes on; with a guttural, stentorian voice that paves the way for everyone from Louis Armstrong to early Bob Dylan -- but especially for Howlin' Wolf -- he cuts through the poor condition surviving Paramount pressings like a call from the Great Beyond, almost unnaturally powerful and expressive in its smallest gesture. What's more, Patton must have broken more than his share of strings, because his playing also comes through on these sides better than almost any artist that ever recorded for Paramount, even on ruined masters like "Pea Vine Blues." This is all a lot more than a trip through history for the scholar, and some sides are just too close to some classics of the future to ignore -- "Down In The Dirt Road Blues," which could be where Willie Dixon got the idea for "Down In The Bottom," and the notion that Howlin' Wolf was the man to record it; similarly, "Some Summer Day," from the other end of Patton's career, could easily have been the demo for "Sittin' On Top Of The World" -- actually, the geneology of both songs is a lot more complicated than that, but each of these could easily have been a key part of the evolutionary chain for one or the other. And there is a raw, primordial power to Patton's music that not only grabs the listener but leaves them wanting more; that's why this box makes perfect sense, even for the casual blues listener -- the man never recorded a second-rate side or one that didn't offer at least a few of the attributes that made his best work so powerful. On a cautionary note, however, the producers have actually been a bit misleading by presenting this set as 92 sides by Charley Patton -- there are actually 63 sides by Patton, and the rest, appended to each disc, are recordings by other artists and are believed to have featured Patton, playing and singing or just playing, and people who were featured on Patton's sides; the latter two groups include Son House, Louise Johnson, Henry "Son" Sims, and Willie Brown, with the Big Delta Four filling out the last disc. And these sides offer some fascinating sounds, including killer tracks by Son House in his prime, and oddities like Brown's "Future Blues," which lifts part of its content from Jimmie Rodgers' repertory. The audio is remarkably consistent and, in fact, the whole set is so rewarding, that it raises an interesting notion -- might JSP or another enterprising label consider doing a series of Paramount Records boxes, assembling the surviving sides, blues, gospel, or whatever, in chronological order, as Bear Family did with Sun Records a few years back? Bruce Eder
Baritone Vocals – Will Mosely (faixas: 5-3 to 5-10)
Bass Vocals – Archie Smith (faixas: 5-3 to 5-10)
Lead Vocals – Wheeler Ford (faixas: 5-3 to 5-10)
Tenor Vocals – Ivory Lou Allen (faixas: 5-3 to 5-10)
Vocals – Bertha Lee (faixas: 5-19 to 5-22)
Vocals, Fiddle – Henry Sims (faixas: 3-13 to 3-16)
Vocals, Guitar – Walter Hawkins (faixas: 1-15 to 1-18), Charley Patton (faixas: 1-1 to 1-3, 1-7 to 1-11, 1-13, 1-14, 2-1 to 2-16, 3-1 to 3-12, 4-1, 4-2, 5-1, 5-2, 5-11 to 5-20), Elder J J Hadley (faixas: 1-4, 1-5), Son House (faixas: 4-5 to 4-11), The Masked Marvel (faixas: 1-6, 1-12), Willie Brown (faixas: 4-3, 4-4)
Vocals, Piano – Edith North Johnson (faixas: 2-17 to 2-20), Louise Johnson (faixas: 4-12 to 4-16)
+ last month
PAPA CHARLIE JACKSON — Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order ★ Volume 1 ∙ 1924-1926 | DOCD-5087 (1991) RM | FLAC (image+.cue), lossless
The first 27 of Papa Charlie Jackson's recorded works is, on about ten counts, one of the most important blues documents you can find, d...