Blues Come To Texas / Lil’ Son Jackson

Arhoolie Records recorded 1960

Lil’ Son Jackson vocals+ acoustic guitar, electric on Rock Me

Album page including samples onm label’s site

1. Blues Come To Texas
2. Cairo Blues
3. Ticket Agent
4. Louise Blues
5. Sugar Mama
6. Girl I Love, The
7. Santa Fe Blues
8. Turn Your Lamp Down Low
9. Groundhog Blues
10. Gambler Blues
11. Charley Cherry – (take 1)
12. Charley Cherry – (take 2)
13. West Dallas Blues
14. Rollin’ Mill Went Down
15. Red River Blues
16. Johnnie Mae
17. Buck Dance – (previously unreleased)
18. I Walked From Dallas -(previously unreleased)
19. Rock Me – (previously unreleased)
20. Roberta Blues

Jackson’s takes on Blues Comes to Texas is based on Blind Lemon Jefferson 78″ that includes “Got The Blues” and “Long Lonesome Blues” a mix of the lyrics and the tunes of both songs, his bass line is mostly steady and even repetitive, he might add licks to it sometimes, those licks similar to Robert Johnson’s on “Stop Breaking Down” and good chords he uses gives it more power but generally it is steady and not the “walking” style, however, his melodic line is a very sophisticated one, and is swinging very well with his singing.

Live At the 1444 Gallery + Complete 77 Recordings – Scrapper Blackwell

Live At the 1444 Gallery + Complete 77 Recordings – Scrapper Blackwell
The music on this cd has the live performance at the 1444 galery recorded 1959 and the studio recording for the 77 label recorded in 1960.

1444 Gallery
Scrapper Blackwell-guitar+piano+vocals,Brooks Berry-vocals,Bud White-whistling

01.Introduction by Duncan Schiedt
02.E Blues
03.A Blues
04.Cold Blooded Murder
05.How Long Blues
06.Untitled Blues 1
07.Little Boy Blues
08.My Heart Struck Sorrow
09.Untitled Blues 2
10.Nobody Knows You When Youre Down and Out
11.Untitled Blues 3
12.Shady Lane Blues

E Blues is played in high Blues tension that resolves each time on the turnarounds. The song’s tension finally is resolved beautifully only starting 2:32 into the song.In the meantime, Blackwell shows his capability of improvising and building his creation of the E Blues for scratches product. A blues is similar in it’s spirit. Blackwell is building the improvisation for each 12 bars differently and the unpredictability of his improvisations is felt strongly, although, his focus is more on the dynamics rather than the structure that he did on E Blues, as A Blues is never resolved from the tension. It means that Blackwell uses on E Blues the benefits of a good and well planned composition, it makes a better deployment of a similar (in terms of quality) texture. Cold Blooded Murder tune was originally recorded by Blackwell himself and his partner Leroy Carr as Mean Mistreated Mama in 1934, however, with the fine feminine vocals of Brooks Berry the inspiration is quickly into the lines of Hard Working Woman that was recorded in 1937 by Mississippi Matilda.

Pig n’ Whistle Red – Blind Willie Mctell

This album contains the recordings of Blind Willie McTell in 1950.
Blind Willie McTell: vocals + guitar, Curley Weaver vocals + guitar

1.Don’t Forget It
2.Good Little Thing
3.You Can’t Get Stuff No More
4.Love Changin’ Blues
5.Savannah Mama
6.Talkin’ To You Mama
7.East St. Louis
8.A To Z Blues
9.Wee Midnight Hours
10.Brown Skin Woman
11.I Keep On Drinking
12.Pal Of Mine
13.Pal Of Mine
14.Honey It Must Be Love
15.Sending Up My Timber
16.Sending Up My Timber
17.Lord Have Mercy On Me
18.Climbing High Mountains
19.It’s My Desire
20.Hide Me In The Bosom

Don’t Forget It contains a nice idea that lifts it above the mediocre songs Good Little Thing and You Can’t Get Stuff No More. BWM seems to have a liking to doing songs just to pass the time, along with powerfully inspired songs in one set together. The 4th song, Love Changin’ Blues, as an example, is a highly inspired performance built on ideas he recorded in his 1928 session like Three Woman Blues, and was rerecorded in his 1929 session with the same title as on this album. BWM is not as intensive as back then,but is still a powerful guitarist, and with the addition of Weaver, they compensate for the loss in intense of the 1928/9 stuff by improvising and the power of the guitar duo in acoustic Blues is present. This song serves well to realize the continuum in BWM’s career, something that is not always so obvious as on this song.

Brother John Sellers sings Blues and Folk Songs

This album contains 2 different sessions from 1954. The 1st.

Brother John Sellers: vocals, Sir Charles Thompson: piano, Ruby Braff: trumpet, Freddie Greene: guitar, Walter Page: bass, Jo Jones: drums

1. John Henry
2. Farewell Work Life
3. Doretha Boogie
4. Boll Weevil
5. Two Little Fishes
6. Down By The Riverside

The first song, John Henry is a ballad Sellers sings very much in the style of Josh White, and he does well. Then comes Farewell Work Life, starting with pianist Thompson inspiring in the style of Joe Pullum’s Black Girl stuff, but the limitation of a too sophisticated Jazz band leads soon as the intro ends and the band swings the early bars of the song, into a Big Joe Turner’s style. It leaves an open thought that keeping in Pullum’s lines could be much more interesting, while the song as was played just seems another one of a big bunch of Jump Blues shouts that was played so many times at the time by so many artists.