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

LITTLE BROTHER MONTGOMERY – Complete Recorded Works 1930-1936 In Chronological Order | DOCD-5109 (1992) RM | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

This single CD from the European Document label has all of Montgomery's 26 prewar recordings as a leader. Two solo numbers are from 1930, including "Vicksburg Blues"; there are a couple songs from 1931 and four duets with guitarist Walter Vincson from 1935. The remainder of this release features Montgomery during a marathon session on Oct. 16, 1936 that resulted in 18 solo selections. All the numbers except the final three on this CD have vocals by Montgomery, but the most rewarding selections are those three instrumentals. On "Farish Street Jive," "Crescent City Blues" and "Shreveport Farewell," Little Brother Montgomery shows just how talented a pianist he was, making one regret that he felt compelled to sing (in a likable but not particularly distinctive voice) on all of the other numbers. A very complete and historic set.  Scott Yanow

Abridged from this album’s original booklet notes. “Little Brother” — quite a name for a giant. He happened to be around much longer than expected (Eddie Boyd: “He always had a rendez-vous with death.”), and some of his later recordings seem superfluous. Yet, most of the notes he pressed were to the point. No more excuses for a man who was probably the greatest all-round piano player of his time in the Deep South. He was born Eurreal Wilford Montgomery in Kentwood, somewhere in the backwoods of Louisiana. His parents (like those of John Henry Davis, better known as Blind John, and Arthur “Montana” Taylor, for example) ran a barrelhouse. Of course, little Eurreal, soon to be called Little Brother Harper after his father, wasn’t allowed into the place, but the pianists working there frequented the Montgomery home as well. He even claimed a visit by Jelly Roll Morton, and there is little reason to doubt his memory. Most of the guys he heard — and learned from — were less fancy musicians, like the blues player he immortalized with his Varnado Anderson Blues, about the only tune Vanado Andrews (sic) from Kentwood could play. Little Brother Montgomery must have learned his lessons quick. He was accomplished enough to survive working on the Southern barrelhouse circuit when he left home at the age of eleven. Many musicians “lied” about when they did what, but research into other details of his early life (like an almost forgotten Mississippi high water in 1922) failed to prove him wrong. His letters were full of unusual data and wonderful phonetic spellings, again always to the point. How about “buddy P. T.” for Buddy Petit? Petit was the outstanding stylist on cornet around New Orleans in the post-ragtime period till the arrival of swing. By the mid-’20s Brother was sufficiently versatile to work in hot dance (i.e. jazz) bands with the likes of “buddy P. T.“, as he wrote it, for Buddy Petit and clarinetist George Lewis, the towering figure of the New Orleans revival. A few years later he progressed into the note-reading orchestra of Clarence Desdune, and in the ’30s Brother even led a swing band of his own in Mississippi. His unsurpassed mastery is documented by the mammoth Oct. 1936 session, when he cut 23 sides on one day — all his 17 solo recordings are assembled here while the five accompaniments are to be found on Document BDCD-6034. Little Brother Montgomery was not a one-strain player like most of the blues specialists. The magnificent Crescent City Blues is a case in point, with its ragtime-like structure. He learned it from one Lumis (or Loomis) Gibson, a pianist about whom nothing else seems to be known. His masterpiece, however, was Vicksburg Blues, his version of the wide-spread theme commonly known as “the 44s”. In those days pianists rarely mixed with “country” blues guitarists — if they brought along another player it was usually a drummer. Brother did recall working with Big Joe Williams but not with Skip James, who insisted that they had worked together. When Skip came here with the American Folk Blues Festival in 1967 he took a thrilled young blues (and jazz) enthusiast backstage to meet Son House, Bukka White and other greats — they all knew Brother “from way back”. Little Brother Montgomery‘s musical experience between the two World Wars spans an amazing scope of regions, milieus and thus styles, and much of this is reflected in this grand collection of vocal and piano blues. DOCD-5139
Tracklist :
1        No Special Rider Blues    2:53
2        Vicksburg Blues    2:56
3        Louisiana Blues    3:28
4        Frisco Hi-Ball Blues    2:33
5        The Woman I Love Blues    3:38
6        Pleading Blues    2:53
7        Vicksburg Blues No. 2    2:58
8        Mama You Don't Mean Me No Good    3:12
9        Misled Blues    2:43
10        The First Time I Met You    2:46
11        A&V Railroad Blues    2:34
12        Tantalizing Blues    2:48
13        Vicksburg Blues, Part 3    3:10
14        Louisiana Blues, Part 2    2:56
15        Santa Fe Blues    2:33
16        Something Keeps A-Worryin' Me    2:47
17        Out West Blues    2:46
18        Leaving Town Blues    3:00
19        West Texas Blues    2:50
20        Never Go Wrong Blues    3:07
21        Sorrowful Blues    2:57
22        Mistreatin' Woman Blues    3:08
23        Chinese Man Blues    2:45
24        Farish Street Jive    2:34
25        Crescent City Blues    2:36
26        Shreveport Farewell    2:36
Credits :
Guitar – Minnie Hicks (tracks: 3,4), Walter Vinson (tracks: 5 to 8)
Speech – Jesse "Monkey Joe" Coleman (tracks: 5 to 8)
Vocals, Piano – Little Brother Montgomery

BOOGIE WOOGIE & BARRELHOUSE ★ Piano Volume 1 • 1928-1932 — The Complete Recorded Works of PINE TOP SMITH, CHARLES AVERY, FREDDIE "REDD" NICHOLSON, "JABO" WILLIAMS | DOCD-5102 (1992) RM | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Boogie Woogie & Barrelhouse Piano, Vol. 1 (1928-1932) contains a selection of material from the classic early blues pianists Pine Top Smith, Charles Avery, Freddie Nicholson and Jabo Williams. For specialists and academics, there is some very interesting music here -- Pine Top Smith's tracks are pretty terrific -- but most casual listeners will find that the exacting chronological sequencing, poor fidelity (all cuts are transferred from original acetates and 78s) and similar-sounding performances make this collection of marginal interest. Thom Owens

Abridged from this album’s original booklet notes. More is known about Pine Top Smith than the rest of the pianists here put together, so it’s ironic there should have been so many conflicting accounts of his life and death. According to Sarah Horton, whom he married in 1924, it was in Pittsburgh he first started playing Pine Top’s Boogie Woogie. Cow Cow Davenport claimed to have originated the term, “boogie woogie”, when he met Pine Top in a joint in Pittsburgh’s Sachem Alley and told him, “You sure have got a mean boogie woogie”. Davenport, acting as talent scout, recommended Pine Top to J. Mayo Williams of Brunswick / Vocalion records and Smith moved to Chicago in the summer of 1928. Possibly Williams wasn’t sure how best to present his new artist – the first unissued sessions had him accompanied by jug and kazoo and teamed in a vocal duet but his first issued sides were two impeccable watershed performances. This was the first time “boogie woogie” appeared on record and seems to be a dance or step. Certainly the limpid grace of Pine Top’s rolling bass and the suspense of the breaks makes it eminently danceable. On his quick return to the studio another six sides mainly focused on his vaudeville repertoire – apart from the precise Jump Steady while I’m Sober Now combined both sides of his background in the serio-comic dialogue and musical mixture of Blues and “sentimental stuff”. One more recording, the unissued Driving Wheel Blues, and Pine Top was gone; a stray bullet in a dance-hall brawl ended his life just two days later, 15 March 1929. Pine Top’s seminal recordings ushered in a very brief but exciting Golden Age of Blues piano recordings of mostly new artists. Charles Avery is a total unknown with one solo, Dearborn Street Breakdown a driving, up-tempo boogie, from October 1929 to his name. He is known, if at all, for his backing Lucille Bogan on one session and his storming accompaniments to Lil Johnson and, perhaps, Willie Harris and, here, to Freddie “Redd” Nicholson another totally unknown singer. From the first Nicholson session Avery’s 63rd Street Stomp was unissued but the titles and his style place him firmly in the mainstream of Chicago piano blues and boogie. Jabo Williams is the odd man out. From his only session in 1932 one title, Pratt City, refers to his Birmingham, Alabama origins as do Fat Mama and House Lady two songs later recorded by Birmingham’s Walter Roland while Polock Town celebrates a section of East St Louis. Jab’s music is barrelhouse piano blues of a very high order – rolling basses and attacking treble, melodic themes and even one semi-ragtime piece in Pratt City. The double-sided Kokomo is interesting as the earliest (1932) mature version of the theme that would provide James Kokomo Arnold with a recording sobriquet and Robert Johnson with the basis for ‘Sweet Home Chicago’. DOCD-5102
Tracklist :
1    Pine Top Smith–    Pine Top's Blues (Take A)    2:52
2    Pine Top Smith–    Pine Top's Blues (Take B)    2:43
3    Pine Top Smith–    Pine Top's Boogie Woogie (Take A)    3:19
4    Pine Top Smith–    Pine Top's Boogie Woogie (Take B)    3:08
5    Pine Top Smith–    I Got More Sense Than That    2:47
6    Pine Top Smith–    I'm Sober Now    3:07
7    Pine Top Smith–    Big Boy They Can't Do That    3:32
8    Pine Top Smith–    Jump Steady Blues (Take A)    3:16
9    Pine Top Smith–    Jump Steady Blues (Take B)    3:15
10    Pine Top Smith–    Now I Ain't Got Nothing At All    2:45
11    Pine Top Smith–    Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out    2:43
12    Charles Avery–    Dearborn Street Breakdown    3:14
13    Freddie "Redd" Nicholson–    The Roller's Rub    3:15
14    Freddie "Redd" Nicholson–    Dirty No Gooder    2:56
15    Freddie "Redd" Nicholson–    You Gonna Miss Me Blues    2:58
16    Freddie "Redd" Nicholson–    I Ain't Sleepy    2:42
17    Freddie "Redd" Nicholson–    Freddie's Got The Blues    3:11
18    "Jabo" Williams–    Ko Ko Mo Blues - Part 1    3:14
19    "Jabo" Williams–    Ko Ko Mo Blues - Part 2    3:05
20    "Jabo" Williams–    House Lady Blues    3:29
21    "Jabo" Williams–    Jab Blues    3:15
22    "Jabo" Williams–    My Woman Blues    3:27
23    "Jabo" Williams–    Polock Blues    3:17
24    "Jabo" Williams–    Pratt City Blues    3:13
25    "Jabo" Williams–    Fat Mama Blues    3:13

BOOGIE WOOGIE & BARRELHOUSE ★ Piano Volume 2 • 1928-1930 — The Complete Recorded Works of BOB CALL, RAYMOND BARROW, BLIND LEROY GARNETT, JAMES "BOODLE-IT" WIGGINS, ROMEO NELSON, RUDY FOSTER, PIANO KID EDWARDS | DOCD-5103 (1992) RM | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Document's second volume of early blues, boogie-woogie, and barrelhouse piano dishes out 24 recordings made in Chicago, Richmond, IN, and Grafton, WI during the years 1928-1930 and originally issued on Paramount, Brunswick, and Vocalion, beginning with what is probably the best single recording that James "Boodle It" Wiggins ever made. "Keep A-Knockin' an' You Can't Get In" rolls and rocks, and is bolstered with charismatic kazoo passages of terrific warmth. The man playing piano behind Wiggins is believed to have been Bob Call, executor of a very solid "31 Blues" and future cohort of Big Bill Broonzy, Jazz Gillum, Robert Nighthawk, and Arbee Stidham. Recorded for Paramount in June 1929, "Walking Blues" is one of the few surviving examples of Raymond Barrow's performance technique; the only other readily locatable title by this artist, "State Street Jive," is not included on this collection. Tracks 5-12 appear to comprise the complete recorded works of Blind Leroy Garnett, a fine boogie man ("Chain 'Em Down," "Louisiana Glide"), a solid accompanist for Wiggins, who blows into a harmonica during the "Weary Heart Blues," and firm support for Marie Griffin, whose "Blue and Disgusted" b/w "What Do You Think This Is?" convey the kind of salty attitude that's regularly encountered in early blues while seldom surfacing in pop music of similar vintage. Wiggins returns with an unidentified pianist for a gritty take of "Corinne Corinna" and his own treatment of "Shave 'Em Dry," a song that had been popularized by Ma Rainey and was soon to be transformed into a sexually explicit underground classic by Lucille Bogan under the name Bessie Jackson. The one pianist on this collection who comes with biographical data is Romeo Nelson (1902-1974) a native of Springfield, TN who in 1915 studied with a pianist named Window in East St. Louis and recorded his relatively famous "Head Rag Hop" at a session he shared with guitarist Tampa Red in September 1929. This little item has been reissued on no less than 16 different blues and boogie-woogie collections; it appears here alongside the "11:29 Blues," subtitled "The Midnight Special"; a moody "Dyin' Rider Blues," and the feisty "Getting' Dirty Just Shakin' That Thing," which features spoken interjections by Tampa Red and female impersonator Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon. As for Rudy Foster and Piano Kid Edwards, we're damned lucky to have access to their few surviving recorded works, which constitute a high-carbohydrate conclusion to this very enjoyable anthology of historic blues and boogie from the Great Lakes region. arwulf arwulf
 
Abridged from this album’s original booklet notes. As a result of his friendship with Tampa Red, Romeo Nelson recorded at a Tampa Red session in 1929. He probably accompanied Tampa on DYING MERCY BLUES and then performed his exciting HEAD RAG HOP, with its rent-party atmosphere, complete with scintillating treble runs over an insistent boogie bass. GETTIN’ DIRTY was a marvelous close cousin to the DOZENS and another obvious rent-party piece.

DYIN’ RIDER, by contrast, was a macabre Blues and 11.29, a jaunty version, oddly, of THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL. Romeo supported himself by playing piano and gambling until the rent-parties died out; then he settled to a regular job as a janitor and elevator operator for a publisher and even featured in their house journal in 1959!. Rudy Foster is unknown – arguments abound whether he accompanied himself (which seems likely) or whether Charlie Spand played piano for him (most unlikely) or some unknown pianist (not unlikely).

Heavy and inventive, Foster’s are boogies typical of the Northern triangle – Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis – so could the invitation to “four-five oh-six” on CORN TRIMMER possibly refer to Chicago’s 45th & State or is it too fanciful? Probably. The extremely rare Piano Kid Edwards’s sides could hardly provide a bigger contrast; this explosion of ragtime and stride piano indicates a much earlier style but betrays not the slightest trace of his origins.

In much the same way Blind Leroy Garnett, James Wiggins accompanist on 12th October 1929 at least, belongs to that older school and whilst a brilliant ragtime pianist could hardly be considered a bluesman. Circumstantial evidence, a “Blind Leroy” remembered from Fort Worth or the title LOUISIANA GLIDE, suggests a Texas or Louisiana background. The heavy-voiced Wiggins (thought to be from Dallas) is of interest for the confusion surrounding his accompanists. In a pioneering article (BU 114, 1975) Hall & Noblett analysed his recordings and cast doubts on the accepted identifications. They accept Garnett’s presence on MY LOVIN’ and WEARY HEART but doubt he plays on FORTY-FOUR BLUES.
 
Similarly they agree Bob Call as pianist on EVIL WOMAN but not necessarily KEEP A-KNOCKIN’. For Wiggins’s last coupling CORINNE CORINNA and GOTTA SHAVE ‘EM DRY, Charlie Spand had been suggested but no firm conclusions were drawn. Bob Call, identified on two unissued Wiggins’s sessions, raises other questions; can the pianist of 31 BLUES be the same Bob Call who after a gap of eighteen years crops up as a band pianist on records by Arbee Stidham, Big Bill Broonzy, Jazz Gillum, Robert Nighthawk and who under his own name made a couple of jump blues? It would seem so.

Call was known to have gone to school to learn to read music, presumably to expand his musical potential and moreover, the age seems right; his photograph from 1958 shows a man well into his fifties. Bob Call was shrewd enough to realise a change in style was necessary – those that wouldn’t change retired or disappeared, and left as few traces as when they arrived. DOCD-5103
Tracklist :
1    "Boodle It" Wiggins–    Keep A-Knockin' An' You Can't Get In 3:09
2    "Boodle It" Wiggins–    Evil Woman Blues 3:10
3    Bob Call–    31 Blues 2:42
4    Raymond Barrow–    Walking Blues 3:08
5    James Wiggins–    My Lovin' Blues 2:47
6    James Wiggins–    Weary-Heart Blues 2:43
7    Blind Leroy Garnett–    Chain 'Em Down 3:05
8    Blind Leroy Garnett–    Louisiana Glide 3:11
9    James Wiggins–    Forty-Four Blues 3:09
10    James Wiggins–    Frisco Bound 3:20
11    Marie Griffin–    What Do You Think This Is? 2:37
12    Marie Griffin–    Blue And Disgusted 3:00
13    James Wiggins–    Corinne Corinna Blues 3:12
14    James Wiggins–    Gotta Shave 'Em Dry 3:05
15    Romeo Nelson–    Head Rag Hop 3:02
16    Romeo Nelson–    Gettin' Dirty Just Shakin' That Thing 2:57
17    Romeo Nelson–    Dyin' Rider Blues 3:09
18    Romeo Nelson–    1129 Blues (The Midnight Special) 2:53
19    Rudy Foster–    Black Gal Makes Thunder 2:51
20    Rudy Foster–    Corn Trimmer Blues 3:00
21    Piano Kid Edwards–    Gamblin' Man's Prayer Blues 2:52
22    Piano Kid Edwards–    Hard Luck Gamblin' Man 3:05
23    Piano Kid Edwards–    Piano Kid Special 2:45
24    Piano Kid Edwards–    Give Us Another Jug 2:45