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)
