So deeply ingrained are perceptions of race and ethnicity in North American culture that certain artists who recorded during the 1920s and '30s have since been assigned to a sort of categorical limbo, as questions regarding whether a musician was of African or European ancestry continue to confound critics, discographers, and music historians. Despite the healthy diversity embodied by variably pigmented musicians capable of playing piano blues back to back with hillbilly string band music, a term like "racially ambiguous" has emerged to indicate that someone inadvertently violated preconceptions about who is supposed to have sounded like whom. Such is the case with mandolinist Joe Evans and guitarist Arthur McClain. Billed as the Two Poor Boys, this little-known pair of rural improvisers hailed from the eastern region of Tennessee -- where black and white players seem to have had a way of sharing musical ideas to a greater extent than was common at the time -- and left about 20 recordings for posterity to ponder. Their available works were reissued by Document in the early '90s. Had Gennett issued more than one of the seven sides this duo cut in Birmingham, Alabama during the summer of 1927, their complete works may not have fit onto one compact disc. As it is, "Little Son of a Gun" is a delightful bit of kazoo-driven hokum, good enough to make one wish that the people in charge at Gennett had also released titles like "Midnight Creepers," "I Want to Ride in Your Car," and "They Wanted a Man to Lead the Lions Around." arwulf arwulf
What does survive of the Evans and McClain legacy is a marvelous blend of toe-tapping blues and struts, reflective airs, and full-throttle Appalachian-style breakdowns. It all compares nicely with the works of Chicago-based mandolin handlers Al Miller and Charlie McCoy, as well as legendary backwoods Georgians Peg Leg Howell and Eddie Anthony. Other parallels could be drawn with Kentucky's Kessinger Brothers, Kansas City steel guitarist Casey Bill Weldon, the Dallas String Band, and the Mississippi Sheiks, source of the famous blues standard "Sitting on Top of the World," which the Poor Boys waxed in 1931. (An alternate take of that blues is not included here, nor is a record they chose to title "Boogity Woogity.") Recorded by the Kessingers in 1929 and by Evans and McClain two years later, "Sourwood Mountain" is a traditional fiddle ditty named for a towering land mass that exists northeast of Knoxville. The song would be revisited in 1962 on Frank Proffitt's album Traditional Songs and Ballads of Appalachia. The Two Poor Boys' treatment of "Down in Black Bottom" is closely based upon Bert "Snake Root" Hatton's version of 1927. This blues appears to have originated in St. Louis, for Black Bottom was the name of that city's rough-and-tumble riverfront red-light district. It was also the inspiration for "Don't Go Down in Black Bottom," a cautionary opus recorded by vocalist Black Bottom McPhail with Scrapper Blackwell in 1932 and again in 1938 with backing by Jack Newman and Blind John Davis. Hatton's original may be found on Document's fascinating compilation St. Louis 1927-1933.
Abridged from this album’s booklet notes. Joe Evans and Arthur McClain are reported to have come from Fairmount, in eastern Tennessee, a region where blacks were outnumbered twelve to one by whites, and this goes some way to explaining the evident hillbilly influences on their music. Otherwise, all we know about “The Two Poor Boys” is in the grooves of their 78s. Of six masters cut in Birmingham, Alabama in 1927, only Little Son Of A Gun (Look What You Done) was issued, with Birmingham vocal group the Dunham Jazz Singers harmonizing a blues on the reverse. Little Son Of A Gun is a typical piece of ‘20s pop music, done as lively two guitar, two kazoo novelty. Joe Evans & Arthur McClain played blues, of course: Two White Horses In A Line is from Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Sitting On Top Of The World is the Mississippi Sheiks’ hit from the year before, done with violin in a manner imitative of the original version. The mandolin heard on Two White Horses is played with an impressively even touch on John Henry Blues, a song traversed the colour line. Mill Man Blues and My Baby Got A Yo-Yo raise some intriguing questions, for the former song is verbally almost identical with a 1928 recording by Billy Bird, which itself has a guitar accompaniment virtually the same as that on My Baby Got A Yo-Yo. Evans & McClain’s other issued blues were piano-guitar duets like Mill Man Blues, the playing entirely consistent with contemporary black idiom. Black Bottom was the ghetto in Nashville, Tennessee, but these performances seem influenced by the styles of both Birmingham and St. Louis. Blues was only a part of it, though: they parodied Darby & Tarlton’s hillbilly hit, “Birmingham Jail”; turned a 1927 pop song, “Who Cares What Somebody Said” into Take A Look At That Baby, with guitar, mandolin and two kazoos (but no violin, the standard discography notwithstanding); revived a sentimental coon song in Georgia Rose; and made immaculate transfers to mandolin and guitar of the white fiddle pieces Old Hen Cackle and Sourwood Mountain. The effortless eclecticism of Joe Evans & Arthur McClain continues to challenge our notions of what “black music” was in those days. DOCD-5044
Tracklist :
1 Little Son Of A Gun (Look What You Done Done) 2:50
Guitar, Kazoo – Arthur McClain
Vocals, Kazoo, Guitar – Joe Evans
2 Two White Horses In A Line 2:51
Vocals, Guitar [Poss.], Mandolin [Poss.] – Arthur McClain, Joe Evans
3 John Henry Blues (Take 1) 3:21
Vocals, Guitar [Poss.], Mandolin [Poss.] – Arthur McClain, Joe Evans
4 John Henry Blues (Take 3) 2:44
Vocals, Guitar [Poss.], Mandolin [Poss.] – Arthur McClain, Joe Evans
5 New Huntsville Jail (Take 1) 3:13
Guitar [Poss.], Mandolin [Poss.] – Arthur McClain
Vocals, Guitar [Poss.], Mandolin [Poss.] – Joe Evans
6 New Huntsville Jail (Take 2) 2:54
Guitar [Poss.], Mandolin [Poss.] – Arthur McClain
Vocals, Guitar [Poss.], Mandolin [Poss.] – Joe Evans
7 Take A Look At That Baby 3:14
Vocals, Kazoo, Guitar [Poss.], Mandolin [Poss.] – Arthur McClain, Joe Evans
8 Mill Man Blues 2:37
Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Arthur McClain
Vocals, Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Joe Evans
9 Oh You Son Of A Gun 3:00
Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Arthur McClain
Vocals, Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Joe Evans
10 Georgia Rose 3:00
Piano [Poss.] – Arthur McClain
Vocals, Piano [Poss.] – Joe Evans
11 Early Some Morning Blues 2:38
Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Arthur McClain
Vocals, Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Joe Evans
12 Cream And Sugar Blues 2:37
Guitar [Poss.], Mandolin [Poss.] – Joe Evans
Vocals, Guitar [Poss.], Mandolin [Poss.] – Arthur McClain
13 Old Hen Cackle 2:42
Guitar [Poss.], Mandolin [Poss.] – Arthur McClain, Joe Evans
14 Sitting On Top Of The World 3:04
Guitar [Poss.], Violin [Poss.] – Arthur McClain
Vocals, Guitar [Poss.], Violin [Poss.] – Joe Evans
15 My Baby Got A Yo-Yo 3:01
Guitar – Unknown Artist
Vocals – Arthur McClain
16 So Sorry Dear 2:47
Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Arthur McClain
Vocals, Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Joe Evans
17 Sourwood Mountain 2:40
Guitar [Poss.], Mandolin [Poss.] – Arthur McClain, Joe Evans
18 Down In Black Bottom (Take 1) 2:40
Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Arthur McClain
Vocals, Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Joe Evans
19 Down In Black Bottom (Take 2) 2:43
Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Arthur McClain
Vocals, Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Joe Evans
20 Shook It This Morning Blues 3:01
Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Arthur McClain
Vocals, Piano [Poss.], Guitar [Poss.] – Joe Evans 
18.1.25
THE TWO POOR BOYS — Joe Evans & Arthur McClain (1927-1931) The Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order | DOCD-5044 (1991) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless
17.1.25
BO CARTER — The Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order ★ Volume 1 • 1928-1931 | DOCD-5078 (1991) RM | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless
Abridged from this album’s original booklet notes. Bo’s first appearance on record seems to be a Columbia session held in Atlanta, Georgia on November 2, 1928, where he, Charlie and Joe McCoy, and an unknown pianist, backed a singer named Alec Johnson. A Columbia session did take place on December 17, 1928 in New Orleans, with Bo Carter, Charlie McCoy and Walter Vincson, where two titles were cut as the Jackson Blue Boys. But before that session, the group ran into the Brunswick mobile unit and recorded as Charlie McCoy and Bo Chatman, as well as backing Mary Butler on four titles. After Good Old Turnip Greens the vocal chores were turned over to Mary Butler for four blues titles. Bungalow Blues was handled smoothly, although a bit stiffly, with its occasional II and VI chords lending it a vaudeville flavour. On Mary Blues the blues style in the vocal was harder and the guitarist (probably Vincson) begins the instrumental introduction with a few bluesy slurs. On Electric Chair Blues the mandolinist had the same difficulty as on Mary Blues, and Butler cut Mad Dog Blues to better effect with only Vincson on guitar (including some mandolin imitation on the breaks). Chatman and McCoy returned with Bo’s standard Corrine Corrina a lilting vocal duet, but closer to Hillbilly blues than to the tracks just laid down by Mary Butler. Finally, Bo appeared to give in and sang East Jackson Blues, although he didn’t seem quite comfortable with the style. At his first session using the name Bo Carter in Jackson, Mississippi on December 15, 1930, the guitarist had the benefit of two years of varying recording experiences. He neatly divided the songs into three categories. The two finger picked blues numbers were the standouts (I’m An Old Bumble Bee and Mean Feeling Blues); with the next two (I’ve Got The Whole World In My Hands – a version of the Sheiks’ “Sitting On Top Of The World” – and She’s Your Cook) sounding like the Hillbilly approximations of the blues so often favoured by Bo and his brothers. The last two tracks on this date were hokum blues in deference to the popularity of Tampa Red, Georgia Tom, Big Bill and numerous others who rode the wave of the hokum fad into lengthy careers. Clearly, Bo Carter was doing his homework. DOCD-5078
Tracklist :
1 Bo Chatman– Good Old Turnip Greens 3:06
2 Mary Butler– Bungalow Blues 2:48
3 Mary Butler– Mary Blues 2:40
4 Mary Butler– Electrocuted Blues 2:45
5 Bo Chatman– Corrine Corrina 3:17
6 Bo Chatman– East Jackson Blues 2:55
7 Bo Carter– I’m An Old Bumble Bee 2:53
8 Bo Carter– Mean Feeling Blues 3:10
9 Bo Carter– I’ve Got The Whole World In My Hand 2:46
10 Bo Carter– She’s Your Cook But She Burns My Bread Sometimes 2:58
11 Bo Carter– Same Thing The Cats Fight About 3:20
12 Bo Carter– Times Is Tight Like That 3:08
13 Bo Carter– My Pencil Won’t Write No More 2:55
14 Bo Carter– Banana In Your Fruit Basket 3:06
15 Bo Carter– Pin In Your Cushion 3:04
16 Bo Carter– Pussy Cat Blues 2:52
17 Bo Carter– Ram Rod Daddy 2:58
18 Bo Carter– Loveless Love 2:55
19 Bo Carter– I Love That Thing 2:44
20 Bo Carter– Backache Blues 2:59
21 Bo Carter– Sorry Feeling Blues 3:07
22 Bo Carter– Baby, When You Marry 2:55
23 Bo Carter– Boot It 3:04
24 Bo Carter– Twist It, Baby 3:17
BO CARTER — The Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order ★ Volume 2 • 1931-1934 | DOCD-5079 (1991) RM | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless
22 songs (with three still missing) cut by Carter, solo with guitar or with Lonnie Chatmon on fiddle, over a three-year period. Document has had unusual luck with the quality on this release, as there's relatively little surface noise on much of it. This helps bring out the richness, dexterity, and playfulness of Carter's playing, as well as the expressiveness of his voice in extraordinary detail. Perhaps the most surprising element of these sides are the two unissued Okeh tracks from 1931, "The Law Is Gonna Step On You" and "Pig Meat Is What I Crave," which are the equal of anything that the label did put out from those same sessions, and show Carter's playing to great advantage and in extraordinarily high-quality sound. His music was probably closest in spirit to the early work of Tampa Red and Georgia Tom Dorsey, with its mixture of double-entendre lyrics and hokum influences. The three-year gap in Carter's recordings, caused by the crunch that hit the blues business with the Great Depression, show him re-emerging at the end (for Bluebird) with a more sophisticated sound, less stripped-down than his early sides but just as playful in its risqué way ("Banana In Your Fruit Basket," etc.). Bruce Eder
Abridged from this album’s original booklet notes Bo Carter was still touring the South with the Mississippi Sheiks in the years 1930 through 1935. This activity took the band through Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, and as far north as Illinois and New York. During this period Bo’s eyesight got progressively worse and he eventually went blind sometime in the 1930s. This ensuing blindness and the disbanding of the Sheiks led Carter to concentrate on his solo recordings. On October 22, 1938 he had his longest session ever, recording eighteen titles in one day, all but one of them issued. This session produced some of his most advanced music from a structural and harmonic standpoint. Let’s Get Drunk Again and Some Day contained some ordinary blues and rag chord progressions structurally utilized in a manner suggesting pop music, and yet the finger picking approach was firmly in the blues mode with some stunning blues riffing in between verses. Both songs also had interesting harmonic bridges that further removed them from mainstream blues. There are also delightfully archaic pieces like Old Devil, taken at a manic pace, and Be My Salty Dog with its suggestion of John Hurt‘s “Candy Man Blues” and Willie Brown‘s “Future Blues” in the figure played in between verses on the bass strings of the guitar. Bo Carter was a veritable encyclopedia of Mississippi blues styles, and then some. At his last session cut in Atlanta on February 12, 1940 he recorded fourteen tracks with twelve being issued. There was less of a divergence from straight blues at this session, but Bo Carter still knew how to put an original stamp on any blues he recorded. Border Of New Mexico Blues is a version of “Kokomo Blues” first recorded by Madlyn Davis as “Kokola Blues” (a mistitling by Paramount) in 1927, and popularized by Kokomo Arnold as “Old Original Kokomo Blues”, and Robert Johnson as “Sweet Home Chicago”. He finished the date with Honey and What You Want Your Daddy To Do?, two eccentric tracks somewhat similar to Some Day (recorded at the previous session). DOCD-5079
Tracklist :
1 So Long, Baby, So Long (A) 3:09
2 The Law Gonna Step On You (A) 2:41
3 Pig Meat Is What I Crave (A) 2:48
4 Howling Tom Cat Blues (A) 2:47
5 Ants In My Pants (A) 2:53
6 Blue Runner Blues (A) 2:56
7 I've Got A Case Of Mashin' It (B) 3:03
8 You Don't Love Me No More (B) 3:10
9 What Kind Of Scent Is This? (B) 3:23
10 Pretty Baby (C) 3:02
11 I Want You To Know (C) 3:00
12 Last Go Round (C) 3:06
13 I Keep On Spending My Change (C) 3:10
14 Baby, How Can It Be? (C) 3:28
15 Bo Carter Special (D) 3:03
16 Beans (D) 2:51
17 Nobody's Business (D) 2:57
18 Queen Bee (D) 3:07
19 Tellin' You 'Bout It (D) 2:38
20 Please Don't Drive Me From Your Door (D) 3:01
21 Pin In Your Cushion (D) 2:54
22 Banana In The Fruit Basket (D) 2:52
BO CARTER — The Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order ★ Volume 3 • 1934-1936 | DOCD-5080 (1991) RM | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless
Tracklist :
1 Howlin’ Tom Cat Blues (A) 2:30
2 Don’t Cross Lay Your Daddy (A) 2:57
3 Who Broke The Latch? (B) 3:04
4 Don’t Do It No More (B) 2:21
5 Skin Ball Blues (B) 2:51
6 Old Shoe Blues (B) 2:56
7 Please Warm My Weiner (B) 2:58
8 She’s Gonna Crawl Back Home To You (B) 3:00
9 Let Me Roll Your Lemon (B) 2:55
10 Mashing That Thing (B) 2:38
11 Blue Runner Blues (B) 2:48
12 Fifty-Fifty With Me (B) 2:55
13 To Her Burying Ground (B) 3:02
14 When Your Left Eye Go To Jumping (B) 2:55
15 Ride My Mule (C) 2:50
16 T Baby Blues (C) 2:52
17 I Get The Blues (C) 2:54
18 Spotted Sow Blues (C) 2:55
19 Rolling Blues (C) 2:38
20 All Around Man (C) 2:57
21 Fat Mouth Blues (C) 2:56
22 You Better Know Your Business (C) 2:56
BO CARTER — The Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order ★ Volume 4 • 1936-1938 | DOCD-5081 (1991) RM | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless
Abridged from this album’s original booklet notes. It has taken quite some time for Bo Carter‘s rightful place in blues history to be established. His music was complicated and multifaceted. The question of whether his lyrics are “pornographic” or merely an uninhibited and even healthy view of sexuality is really a relative one. There is certainly enough “raw” data contained in Bo Carter – Vol. 4 for the listener to come to his own conclusion. All Around Man, It’s Too Wet, Cigarette Blues, Your Biscuits Are Big Enough For Me, and Don’t Mash My Digger So Deep are classics of their type and the gorgeous guitar work on Cigarette Blues alone should be enough to persuade even the casual listener that there is more here than suggestive wordplay. Beginning with the February 1936 session all of the remaining titles Bo Carter was to record were finger picked on his National resonator guitar. He sometimes returned to earlier material that he would previously have played with a plectrum, but now it was played with a steady thumb or alternating bass pattern. He remade “Ants In My Pants” (itself a version of “Sitting On Top Of The World”) as Flea On Me, and the standards “Trouble In Mind” (as Trouble In Blues) and “My Monday Woman” (as A Girl For Every Day Of The Week). The session in San Antonio in October 1938 produced more songs than he had ever recorded at one sitting, including some of his most interesting pieces. Without a doubt, Bo Carter was at his peak. DOCD-5081
Tracklist :
1 It’s Too Wet (A) 2:50
2 Dinner Blues (A) 2:44
3 Ain’t Nobody Got It(A) 2:45
4 Cigarette Blues(A) 3:14
5 Pussy Cat Blues (B) 2:48
6 The Ins And Outs Of My Girl (B) 2:56
7 All Around Man - Part 2 (B) 3:00
8 Bo Carter’s Advice (B) 3:11
9 Doubled Up In A Knot (B) 2:50
10 Worried G Blues (B) 2:58
11 Your Biscuits Are Big Enough For Me (B) 2:07
12 Don’t Mash My Digger So Deep (B) 2:56
13 Flea On Me (B) 2:36
14 Got To Work Somewhere (B) 2:25
15 Sue Cow (B) 3:06
16 Shake ‘Em On Down (C) 3:08
17 A Girl For Every Day Of The Week (C) 3:10
18 Trouble In Blues (C) 2:52
19 World In A Jug (C) 2:50
20 Who’s Been Here? (C) 2:35
21 Whiskey Blues (C) 3:22
22 Shoo That Chicken (C) 2:46
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JOSEPH GABRIEL RHEINBERGER : Organ Works • 5 (Wolfgang Rübsam) (2003) The Organ Encyclopedia Series | Two Version | WV (image+.tracks+.cue), lossless
Although Rheinberger was successful during his lifetime in a variety of genres, he is remembered today largely for his demanding organ works...
