Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

We have a wide ranging mix on today’s program spanning the years 1925 to 1978. We feature many artists from the 1920’s and 30’s including several artists like Lonnie Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Eugene Powell, Victoria Spivey and Robert Wilkins who bridge both the pre-war and post-war eras. We spotlight three from Lonnie Johnson. Unlike many blues artists who recorded in the 1920’s and were later rediscovered, Lonnie was only out of the music business for a relatively short spell; he was not musically active and made no recordings between 1954 and 1959. He came back strong in the 1960’s through the assistance of Chris Albertson who got Lonnie signed to Bluesville, resulting in a number of strong recordings and an active touring schedule. Featured today are “I’m Not Rough” one of six sides Lonnie recorded with Louis Armstrong in 1927 and 1929. From the 1961 Bluesville album, Another Night To Cry, we spin “Fine Booze and Heavy Dues” and from 1963 “Lonnie’s Traveling Light” from the LP Spivey Blues Parade. The latter record is a grab bag of previously unreleased numbers recorded for the Spivey label and put together as a blues revue. Other artists include Sippie Wallace, Sonny Boy Williamson and Walter Horton among others.

Among the other artists who recorded in both the pre-war and post-war eras we spin tracks by  Son House and Mississippi John Hurt. We hear Son on the magnificent “Pearline” which like “Empire State Express” and “Louise McGhee” are newer songs. Hurt’s wonderful “Richland Woman Blues” is from a 1965 Oberlin College concert which has been issued in various configurations and sequences by several labels under different titles and with different cover art over.

Victoria Spivey, Otis Spann and Samuel Lawhorn

Victoria Spivey made her last pre-war blues in 1937 and reemerged in the early 1960’s. Shortly before she formed her own Spivey label in 1961, Spivey made a fine duo album, Woman Blues!, with  Lonnie Johnson whom she had last recorded with back in 1929. Today’s two tracks come from her Spivey LP’s; “Diving Mama” finds her teamed up with Otis Spann and comes from the album The Muddy Waters Blues Band: They Done It Again! Vol. 2 while “Inter-Mission State” finds her partnered with Walter Horton and comes from the album Spivey’s Blues Parade.

Less well known than the above artists is Eugene Powell who also recorded in the pre-war and post-war eras. In 1936, Eugene Powell, along with Mississippi Matilda, Willie Harris and some of the Chatmon family traveled to New Orleans to record for the Bluebird label. Setting up at the St. Charles Hotel, Powell cut six sides during these sessions under the moniker Sonny Boy Nelson. From that session we spin “Pony Blues.” In the 1970’s Powell began playing festivals and recording again. He died in 1998.

Among the other fine early blues performances are some excellent piano blues. Charlie McFadden was an expressive  St. Louis singer who made some superb sides between 1929 and 1937 backed by St. Louis pianists like Roosevelt Sykes (heard on our selection, “Gambler’s Blues”), Eddie Miller and “Pine Top” Sparks.
The exciting barrelhouse pianist Louise Johnson cut four songs for Paramount at the legendary 1930 session that also included sides by Charlie Patton, Willie Brown and Son House. You can hear Patton, Son House and Willie Brown shouting encouragement in the background. Turner Parrish cut eight sides between 1929 and 1933 including the the rollicking instrumental “The Fives”, a song also recorded by Hersal Thomas, Cripple Clarence Lofton and Jimmy Yancey.

Also worth mentioning is the mysterious Kid Cole of whom we play his “Niagra Fall Blues” which coincidentally makes no reference at all to the famous landmark. Kid Cole was a Cincinnati blues artist who cut four sides for Vocalion in 1928. According to Steven C. Tracy’s Going To Cincinnati, Cole most likely also recorded as Bob Coleman, cutting three sides under that name in 1929 and two sides with the Cincinnati Jug Band the same year. It’s also been suggested that he recorded under the moniker Sweet Papa Tadpole for a six song 1930 session with Tampa Red and the same year as Walter Cole for Gennett.

Also on tap are some fine Chicago blues including sides by Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Eddie Boyd and Sunnyland Slim. Muddy’s “Forty Days And Forty Nights”comes from the new release, Authorized Bootleg: Live at the Fillmore Auditorium – San Francisco Nov 04-06 1966. This excelelnt set features the great George “Harmonica” Smith who played with Muddy for only a short stint. From the out-of-print LP Blues Southside Chicago we spin Eddie Boyd’s “Where You Belong” a session supervised by Willie Dixon. Mike Leadbitter discusses the aim of the record in his liner notes: “This album was recorded In Chicago’s Southside by Willie Dixon with one aim in mind-to provide the English enthusiast with blues played as they are played in the clubs, without gimmicks and without interfering A & R men. This album is not intended to be commercial in any way and by using top artists and top session men an LP has been produced that doesn’t sound as cold as studio recordings usually do.”

Show Notes:

Today’s show is the second installment of an ongoing series of programs built around a particular year. The bulk of the information for today’s show notes comes from the books Recording The Blues (reprinted along with two other titles in Yonder Come The Blues) by Robert M.W. Dixon and John Godrich and Blues & Gospel Records, 1890-1943 by Robert M.W. Dixon, John Godrich and Howard Rye.

The first year we spotlighted was 1927 which was the beginning of a blues boom that would last until 1930; there were just 500 blues and gospel records issued in 1927 and increase of fifty percent from 1926 a trend that would continue until the depression. The average blues or gospel record had sales in the region of 10,000. In 1928 the figure was 1,000 or so lower which was still a thriving market. Paramount, the market leader at the time, brought talent up to their northern studios. To feed the demand other record companies conducted exhaustive searches for new talent, which included making trips down south with field recording units. Between 1927-1930 Atlanta was visited seventeen times, Memphis eleven times, Dallas eight times, New Orleans seven times and so on. The record companies advertised their record in black newspapers, mainly in the Chicago Defender, which was the nation’s most influential black weekly newspaper.

During the peak years there were five major companies issuing records for the race market: Okeh, Columbia, Paramount, Brunswick-Balke-Collender (encompassing Brunswick and Vocalion (a division of Gennett). Victor was the only label  to systematically exploit the the blues talent around Memphis. Their second visit there, in January and February 1928, yielded three times as much material as their initial 1927 visit. Among those recorded were Blind Willie McTell, Jim Jackson, Memphis Jug Band, Frank Stokes, Tommy Johnson, Ishman Bracey, Furry Lewis, Cannon’s Jug Stompers among many others. In August alone the label cut some 180 sides, mostly by black artists.

Jim Jackson’s “Kansas City Blues” was the massive hit of 1927 and in 1928 that honor went to “How Long How Long Blues” by Leroy Carr and “It’ Tight like That” by Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, both records issued by Vocalion. The highly suggestive “It’ Tight like That” was cut in September of 1928 which was just a few months after Vocalion dropped their tag “Better and Cleaner Race Records.” Vocalion also cut several sides by Leroy Carr’s guitarist, Scrapper Blackwell in 1928. In 1928 Brunswick recorded Bo Carter, Fannie Mae Goosby and Hattie Burleson among others.

In 1926 Columbia and OKeh merged but the labels were run by separate management for three years after the merger and did not compete for the same artists. Since 1927 OKeh had been issuing a new record every six weeks by Lonnie Johnson and issued some two-dozen sides by him in 1927 and about half that number in 1928. After the takeover by Columbia, OKeh made no field recordings until 1928 when they visited Memphis where they recorded blues singers such as Tom Dickson and the now legendary recordings by Mississippi John Hurt. They also recorded Sloppy Henry and Uncle Bud Walker in Atlanta a few months afterwards. Lonnie Johnson went with the unit, himself recording in both Memphis and san Antonio. In San Antonio he backed Texas Alexander who OKeh had initially recorded in New York the previous August. Columbia also made field recordings in Atlanta and Dallas where they recorded blues singers such as Barbecue Bob and his brother Charley Lincoln, Pink Anderson with Simmie Dooley, Peg Leg Howell, Curley Weaver, Lillian Glinn among many others.

The only race company that made no field trips was Paramount. Despite this Paramount remained the market leader in records released and singers recorded. Paramount issued records by the many of the blues biggest stars.

Show Notes:

Original Spivey LP 1968	P-Vine Reissue 2009

We cut a wide swath on today’s program with selections spanning from 1926 through 1970 with several twin spins along the way. Among those double shots are a pair of terrific sides by the incomparable Otis Spann. These lesser know numbers, “Wonder Why” and “She’s My Baby”, come from the 1967/68 LP Muddy Waters Blues Band: They Done It Again! Vol. 2 on the Spivey label. The Spivey label is a fascinating label that was apparently the  brainchild of  Len Kunstadt. In the mid 1950’s, Len Kunstadt and Victoria Spivey became companions and together they created Spivey Records in 1961. After Spivey’s death in 1976, Kunstadt carried on the label, mixing newly discovered artists with classic bluesmen until his death in 1996. Due to Spivey’s fame and musical connections she attracted some great musicians to the label including old associates like Lonnie Johnson, Lucille Hegemin, Hannah Sylvester plus a wide spectrum of artists such as Sunnyland Slim, Willie Dixon, Big Joe Williams, Koko Taylor, Roosevelt Sykes and numerous others. The label was very much a homemade affair with record sleeves that have a charming slapped together look and recording quality that varies widely. All in all there were some marvelous recordings and unfortunately the catalog has until recently never made it to the digital era. several years ago a website went up promising the remastered releases of the catalog on CD but nothing has been released yet. However, I just found out through Stefan Wirz’s meticulous Spivey discography that the Japanese P-Vine label has issued both volumes of the Muddy Waters Blues Band records on CD with bonus tracks. As soon as I figure out where to buy these you can bet I will! I do have both of these on LP, both are good with the nod going to the first volume. Spann is in excellent form on the latter LP as he does a fine duet with his wife Lucille on “Wonder Why”, goes it alone on on the rippling “She’s My Baby” bolstered by some stinging guitar from Sammy Lawhorn and does a pair of charming duets with Spivey on “Mother And Son” and “Diving Mama.” Spann also cut an entire album for Spivey in 1969, The Everlasting Blues vs. Otis Spann, which suffers from poor fidelity. Stay tuned soon for a show devoted to the Spivey label!

Other twin spins include cuts by Otis Rush, Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers, Robert Wilkins and Sonny Boy Nelson AKA Eugene Powell. Otis Rush made his reputation with his incredible recordings for the small Cobra label between 1956 and 1958. After Cobra closed up shop, Rush’s recording fortunes mostly floundered. He followed Willie Dixon over to Chess before moving on to Duke where he cut the lone single, “Homework”, and then cut records for Vanguard, and Cotillion. For Vangaurd he was involved in the three record set, Chicago The Blues Today! produced by blues historian Samuel Charters in 1966. “It’s A Mean Old World” comes from that latter session as we contrast it with the very different sounding “Homework.”

In the mid 1930’s the Moore brothers, Johnny and Oscar, relocated to Los Angeles, where Oscar joined the King Cole Trio and Johnny hooked up with Eddie Williams and Charles Brown to form The Three Blazers. Eventually Oscar would join the Blazers. The group made their debut in 1945 for Atlas before jumping to Exclusive plus cutting some sides for Modern and Aladdin. The group charted regularly through 1949 with the biggest hit being “Drifting Blues” a #2 Billboard R&B hit in 1946. All these songs were sung and often written by Charles Brown who inevitably left the group in 1948. Today’s sides were cut after Brown left.

Of the blues artists who were rediscovered and recorded anew in the 1960’s, Robert Wilkins was probably the least prolific. Born in Mississippi, Wilkins moved to Memphis as a teenager. He cut 17 sides for the Victor, Brunswick, and Vocalion labels between 1928 and 1935 that rank among the greatest blues of the era.In 1964 Wilkins was contacted and was soon in the studio recordings the album Memphis Gospel Singer for Peidmont, a wonderful record yet to be issued on CD. Here’s a little background on how the Piedmont recording came about supplied to Blues Unlimited by Richard Spottswood and published in Blues Unlimited 13, July 1964 (p.5): “The process of locating Rev. Wilkins was so simple that one might wonder why it hadn’t been done before. Early in 1964 Bill Givens of the Origin Jazz Library mentioned that it was rumored that Wilkins was living in Memphis and corresponding with a British collector. Since Dick Spottswood was too ill to travel at the time, his wife Louisa stopped at the telephone company to check the Memphis listings. She found an address, a letter was sent, and it was quickly answered. Arrangements were made for Rev. Wilkins to come to Washington to make recordings for Piedmont Records; this was done on the 13th and 16th of February 1964. Wilkins told Spottswood that actually he had never corresponded with any collector, though he was aware that a number of the old Memphis bluesmen had been recorded again. How strange that one of the best of them had been overlooked! And were it not for Bill Givens’ “false” tip he would not have been found at all. For this valuable bit of misinformation folk music collectors will be eternally in Mr. Givens’ debt.”

In 1936, Eugene Powell, along with Mississippi Matilda, Willie Harris and  some of the Chatmon family traveled to New Orleans to record for the Bluebird label.  Setting up at the St. Charles Hotel, Powell cut six sides during these sessions under the moniker Sonny Boy Nelson. From that session we spin “Pony Blues” and Matilda’s “Hard Working Woman” with guitar from Powell. In the 1970’s Powell began playing festivals and recording again. He died in 1998.

Also on tap today are some other fine country blues both past and present. Jesse Thomas moved to Dallas in 1929, when Blind Lemon Jefferson was still active but it’s unclear if he actually met Lemon. He made his debut for Victor in 1929 with a four-song session but wouldn’t record again until 1948. He waxed his greatest sides between 1948 and 1958, cutting over two-dozen sides for nine different West Coast labels. On the song “Double Due Love You” Thomas references Blind Lemon’s “Long Lonesome Blues”, which we played previously, in the song’s title and lyrics. Moving up to the 1980’s we play  performances by Lonnie Pitchford and John Jackson who were part of the The National Downhome Blues Festival, a one- time event held in 1984 in Atlanta, GA. Stretching over five days, the festival featured traditional blues artists in a small venue setting, and the shows were recorded, eventually released on four LPs in 1984. Southland has reissued this material on CD. The festival was produced by George Mitchell, famous for the blues field recordings he made he made in the 1960’s and 70’s. Mitchell also recorded the set’s opening track by Alabama bluesman Jimmy Lee Harris.

Show Notes:

John Cephas, Photo by Tom Pich for National Endowment of the Arts

A somber note hangs over today’s show as we pay tribute to the recently departed John Cephas and Snooks Eaglin. John Cephas, best known as the guitarist and singer with the duo Cephas & Wiggins died March 4th. He was 78. Both Cephas and Wiggins were born in Washington, D.C., although Wiggins was a quarter century younger than his partner; they met at a jam session in 1977, and both performed as regular members of Big Chief Ellis’ band prior to Ellis’ death. The duo had been recording since the early 80’s, cutting records for Flying Fish, Rounder and most recently Alligator. The tracks featured today were the first by Cephas, cut in the mid-70’s by Pete Lowry but never released at the time. Lowry has given me permission to play these cuts which are not available anywhere else. Lowry recorded Cephas & Wiggins extensively in 1980 and recorded Cephas in-depth in 1976.

Snooks Eaglin passed away on February 18th. In true New Orleans fashion he was given a full jazz funeral send off. I first encountered Snooks via his terrific Black Top Records of the late 1980’s and 90’s. After the label’s demise Snooks only recorded one more album, The Way It Is, in 2001 which happens to be one of my favorites. Fans of Snooks’ later electric records may be surprised that his earliest records (1958-1959) which are all acoustic. From that period we spin the charming “Country Boy Down In New Orleans” from the wonderful album of the same name on Arhoolie. We also play the soulful “By The Water” cut for Imperial in 1960 and “I Get The Blues When It Rains” from 1971’s The Sonet Blues Story.

We do a bit of compare and contrast today by playing two versions of the classic “How Blue Can You Get?”, one by Louis Jordan and the other by B.B. King.  Johnny Moore’s Three Blazer’s cut the original version in 1949 which we played on the program a couple of weeks back. It was covered in 1951 by Louis Jordan which is where B.B. King first heard the song. King began using it in his live act at recorded it on his classic Live At The Regal album from 1963.

There’s plenty vintage blues from the 1920’s and 30’s including a trio of sides from Atlanta artists Peg Leg Howell, Sloppy Henry and Barbecue Bob.  Like Memphis, Atlanta was a staging post for musicians on their way to all points. It’s not surprising then that the first country blues musician, Ed Andrews, was recorded there in 1924. The company that recorded him, Okeh, was one of many to send their engineers to Southern cities to record local talent. Companies like Victor, Columbia, Vocalion and Brunswick made at least yearly visits until the depression. Between 1927-1930 Atlanta was visited seventeen times by the record companies. Among the bluesmen to record in Atalanta in the 1920’s, the first to arrive in the city was Joshua Barnes Powell, known as Peg Leg because of a shooting accident in 1916. We also hear Peg Leg in the company of singer Sloppy Henry. Henry cut sixteen between 1924 and 1929 for the Okeh label. Within a year or so of Howell’s arrival in Atlanta, Robert Hicks came to the city. He learned guitar, as did his older brother Charlie, and their friend Curley Weaver from the latter’s mother Savannah Weaver. Hicks earned his nickname from his day job as the chef of a barbecue restaurant and Columbia photographed him for their publicity material in his work apron.  As Barbecue Bob he became the most heavily recorded Atlanta bluesman of the 1920’s with his records selling steadily for Columbia until his untimely death in 1931.

We also feature some fine blues ladies including Susie Hawthorne, one half of the popular Butterbeans & Susie, Lucille Bogan and Bessie Smith. Butterbeans and Susie were a comedy duo that began touring with the Theatre Owners Booking Association (TOBA) and later moved to vaudeville before signing with Okeh Records. They cut close to 70 sides for the label between 1924 and 1930. Our track, “He Likes It Slow”, from 1926 features Louis Armstrong on cornet. From the same year we play Bessie Smith’s “Them ‘Has Been’ Blues.” This cut comes form the the eight volume series on the Frog label that collects all of Bessie’s recordings.  Sound quality on this series is outstanding, noticeably better then Columbia’s series, which is interesting since Columbia had the actual masters to work with. The Frog series is a testament to the skills of engineer John R.T. Davies and label owner David French, who commissioned collectors for the best available originals. Sadly Davies and French both passed before the completion of the series. From Lucille Bogan we spin her classic “Shave ‘Em Dry.” This of course is the  clean version. The unreleased version is extremely explicit and if aired would surely be the end of my broadcasting career!

Butterbeans & Susie

We close out our show with a stunning version of “Prodigal Son” by Robert Wilkins recorded live at Newport in 1964.  During the 1920’s and 1930’s, Tim Wilkins was one of the most popular blues artists associated with Beale Street. He left the blues world to become an ordained minister. When the Rolling Stones recorded Wilkins’ “Prodigal Son” in the early ’60s (originally titled “That’s No Way To Get Along”), blues researchers found Wilkins at home in Memphis, ministering to the congregation at the Lane Avenue Church of God in Christ and performing gospel songs at street corner revivals. He returned to recording with the album Memphis Gospel Singer in 1964, a classic record that yet to make it to CD. He performed at several festivals including Newport in 1964 and the Memphis Country Blues Festival in 1968. He passed in 1987.

Show Notes:

We open the show on a somber note with two by Pete Mayes. Mayes, a staple of the Houston scene for the past 50 years, died December 16th at the age of 70. Mayes played guitar with greats like Junior Parker and Bill Doggett and has fronted his own band, the Houserockers, for 40 years.  Mayes owned and maintained the historic Double Bayou Dancehall, which once served as a regular venue for Amos Milburn, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Big Joe Turner, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and scores of others.  It was there that Mayes, then just 16 years old, first heard T-Bone Walker who became a major influence. According to his own story, by the age of 14 he had already worked with Lester Williams, although he did not meet T-Bone Walker until 1954. During the next 20 years, he often worked with Walker and made the acquaintance of many other bluesmen who would later come to fame, most prominently Joe Hughes. Mayes’ discography is slim with just three full length albums;  Pete’s Sake (Antone’s, 1998), I’m Ready (Double Trouble, 1986) and Live! At Double Bayou Dance Hall (GoldRhyme Music, 2005). According to The Blues Discography 1943-1970 he cut the following singles: “The Things I Used To Do” (Home Cooking, 1965), “Crazy Woman” (Ovide, 1969) and “Movin’ Out” (Ovide, 1969). Our opening tracks, “Crazy Woman” and “Lowdown Feeling” come from the Krazy Kat LP  Houston Shuffle.

Lots of vinyl on today’s show as I’ve been trying to organize my LP’s and stumbled across some gems I haven’t played in a while. On tap today are several fine 1960’s and 70’s recordings by Guitar Gabriel, Babe Stovall, Willie Guy Rainey, Guitar Slim Green and Sam Chatmon. Guitar Gabriel is familiar to some collectors Nyles Jones, the name under which he recorded the superb LP, My South, My Blues, for the Gemini label in 1970.Mike Leadbitter, writing in Blues Unlimited in 1970, called the single, “Welfare Blues”, the most important 45 released that year. He dropped out of sight for about 20 years and his belated return to performing was due largely to folklorist and musician Timothy Duffy, who located Gabriel in 1991. With Duffy accompanying him as second guitarist on acoustic sets and as a member of his band, Brothers in the Kitchen, Gabriel performed frequently at clubs and festivals, and appeared overseas. He recorded several albums for Duffy’s Music Maker label before passing in 1996.

West Coast guitarist Slim Green cut “Alla Blues” in 1948, the precursor to Jimmy Wilson’s “Tin Pan Alley.”  He cut singles in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s for labels such as J & M Fullbright, Murray, Dig,Canton and Geenote. He 1970 he cut his only full length LP, Stone Down Blues, for Kent backed by Johnny Otis and his son Shuggie. From that album we play the fine protest blues “This War Ain’t Right.”

Sam Chatmon began playing music as a child, occasionally with his family’s string band, as well as the Mississippi Sheiks. Sam launched his own solo career in the early ’30s. While he performed and recorded as a solo act, he would still record with the Mississippi Sheiks and with his brother Lonnie. Throughout the ’30s, Sam traveled throughout the south, playing with a variety of minstrel and medicine shows. He stopped traveling in the early ’40s, making himself a home in Hollandale, Mississippi, where he worked on plantations. For the next two decades, Sam Chatmon was essentially retired from music and only worked on the plantations. When the blues revival arrived in the late ’50s, he managed to capitalize on the genre’s resurgent popularity and throughout the ’60s and ’70s, he recorded for a variety of labels, as well as playing clubs and blues and folk festivals across America. Chatmon was an active performer and recording artist until his death in 1983.

Born in 1907 in Tylertown, MS, Babe Stovall was the youngest of 11 children, most of them musicians. Stovall learned guitar when he was around eight years old, and was soon playing breakdowns, frolics, and parties in the area, even meeting and learning “Big Road Blues” from Tommy Johnson. In 1964 he moved to New Orleans, where he was “discovered” working as a street singer in the French Quarter. He recorded an LP for Verve in 1964, which is were today’s selection comes off, simply titled Babe Stovall, and did further sessions in 1966 and with Bob West in 1968 and became active on the folk and blues college circuit. He died in 1974.

Willie Guy Rainey was a blues musician from Georgia who became a popular performing artist in the Atlanta area in the 1970’s. Through the promotion of musician Ross Kapstein and the recording of a self-titled album in 1978 for Southland, Rainey (at 77 years old) went on tour, which eventually led to overseas tours. He died in 1983.

We also spotlight several fine vocalists including Helen Humes, Esther Phillips, Bobby Bland, Junior Parker and Jimmy Witherspoon. Helen Humes is in fine form on 1951’s “I Ain’t In The Mood” an answer song to John Lee Hooker’s recent chart-topper titled “I Ain’t in the Mood.” Esther Phillips has long been a favorite and she sizzles on a reading of “I’m Gettin’ ‘Long Alright” recorded live at Freddie Jett’s Pied Piper club from the terrific album Burnin’. In 1999 Collectables released Burnin ‘paired with Confessin’ the Blues, two of her finest records on one CD. From Jimmy Witherspoon we spin “Parcel Post Blues” from the Bluesway album Hunh! featuring an all-star lineup of Charles Brown (piano), Red Holloway (sax) and Earl Hooker and Mel Brown on guitars. Junior Parker is another favorite of mine and a great song interpreter as he proves on his cover of the chestnut “I’d Rather Drink Muddy Water.” This comes from the excellent album I Tell Stories Sad And True from 1972 which unfortunately is out of print.

Other interesting tracks today include numbers by Will Ezell, Victoria Spivey, and some fine field recordings made by George Mitchell. 1929’s “Playing The Dozen” is by great barrelhouse pianist Will Ezell who cut fourteen sides for Paramount between 1927 and 1929. He also backed artists such as Lucille Bogan, Blind Roosevelt Grave, Ethel Waters and others. Speaking of great pianists that’s Little Brother Montgomery backing Victoria Spivey along with Lonnie Johnson on “Every Dog Has Its Day” from 1964. George Mitchell recorded some incredible music in his over twenty years of field recording and considered Cecil Barfield among his greatest discoveries. Barfield’s repertoire was mostly covers but he truly sounded like no one else as he proves on his version of “Bottle Up And Go.” By the way, Mitchell also wrote the notes to the above mentioned Willie Guy Rainey LP.

We wrap up with a trio of 1960’s sides by great soul and blues artist Robert Ward who passed away on Christmas day after a long struggle with health issues. Like many, I first heard Robert Ward when his magnificent Fear No Evil debuted on Black Top in 1990 and was unaware of his earlier recordings. His subsequent Black Top follow-ups, Rhythm Of The People (1993) and Black Bottom (1995), were less inspired with the latter definitely the better of the two. After a five year absence he returned to form with his marvelous Delmark debut New Role Soul (2001). It wasn’t until the Black Top records that I became aware of Ward’s 1960’s recordings which were thankfully collected on the album Hot Stuff (1995) on Relic. These sides spotlighted the recordings Ward cut as leader of the Ohio Untouchables (who later morphed into the Ohio Players long after Ward’s departure) for tiny labels like LuPine, Thelma, and Groove City. These are fiery and soulful sides featuring Ward’s trademark watery guitar playing and passionate vocals on numbers like “I’m Tired”, “Your Love Is Real”, “Something For Nothing” and “Fear No Evil.” Also included are four classic cuts by the Falcons from 1962 sporting lead vocals by Wilson Pickett with the Untouchables in support on the soaring smash hit “I Found A Love” and “Let’s Kiss and Make Up” with some sizzling guitar from Ward.