Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

From 1949 through 1971, Prestige Records, owned and run by Bob Weinstock, was among the most famous and successful of the independent jazz labels. Perhaps only Blue Note, which had its reign during roughly the same period, provided Prestige with significant competition. By the late 50’s the company was looking to branch out and new categories were created within the Prestige catalog. There was the Folklore series, there was Moodsville, Swingsville and then there was Bluesville. The birth of Bluesville came at a time when when a young white audience turned their attention away from folk music to acoustic blues.

An important factor was the release in 1959 of Samuel Charter’s ground breaking book The Country Blues. In 1961 Charter’s hooked up with the label and played a important role getting talent for the label and did much of the producing. In addition to Charters there were a number of others whose dedication helped the label grow including Mack McCormick of Houston who provided a slew of Lightnin’ Hopkins records,Chris Strachwitz who would form Arhoolie Records, Art Rosenbaum who recorded Indianapolis artists Scrapper Blackwell, Shirley Griffith and J.T. Adams and Chris Albertson who was instrumental in getting Lonnie Johnson back in the studio.

Bluesville’s roster grew quickly including artists such as Reverend Gary Davis, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Roosevelt Sykes, Big Joe Williams, Jimmy Witherspoon and Memphis Slim among numerous others. A number of older artists such as Tampa Red and particularly Lonnie Johnson found a new home at Bluesville in which to revitalize their careers. In addition the label also caught some important artists on record for the first time or who recorded very little including Pink Anderson (except for two sides cut in the 20’s), Baby Tate, Wade Walton and Doug Quattlebaum to name a few. The Bluesville label tended to take a mainly folkloric approach to blues recording primarily acoustic artists. In line with this the label also cut records by folk singers such as Tracy Nelson, Dave Van Ronk, Geoff Muldaur and Tom Rush among others. There were some notable exceptions including LP’s by urban artists such as Otis Spann, Billy Boy Arnold and Homesick James.

The Bluesville series produced many releases in a short amount of time. Lightnin’ Hopkins was the label’s best selling artists but many of the lesser known artists sold only a couple of hundred copies. Because of this many of these original records are extremely rare and go for high fees on the collectibles market. Luckily Fantasy records now owns the Prestige catalog and has been reissuing many treasures from the vaults.

Samuel Charters was quoted as saying that the “Prestige/Bluesville catalog was one of the last great sweeps of the blues as social document and as the years pass this becomes increasingly meaningful as a measure of Bluesville’s achievement.” Listening to The Bluesville Years (an ongoing reissue series now at 12 volumes) make these words resonate all the more strongly. The recordings on the Bluesville label provide a vivid and entertaining snapshot of the 1960’s blues scene.