Label: Catfish Records.
Release Date: October 17, 2000.
Recording Time: 70 minutes.
Release Info: Studio Recording.
Styles: Acoustic Blues, Country Blues, Piedmont Blues, Pre-War Country Blues, Regional Blues.
[Catfish, KATCD162]
A company whose history goes back almost to the dawn of recorded sound, and whose name still exists today, Columbia had an important part to play in the discovery and promulgation of quality recordings by a wide range of talented blues artists in the 1920s and '30s. The label had its beginnings in 1886, when the Columbia Phonograph Company was formed. It was soon issuing wax cylinders of Sousa marches, Strauss waltzes and Stephen Foster melodies, and an 1891 catalogue even listed a section of 'Negro music'. In 1913 it changed its name to the Columbia Gramophone Company, recording its first jazz, by the white outfit The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, in 1917, as well as releasing a scattering of black artists performing 'coon songs', spirituals and vaudeville comedy on the discs which had begun to replace cylinders in 1902.
Credits: Billy Anderson - composer, performer, primary artist; Pink Anderson - composer, performer, primary artist; Barbecue Bob - composer, performer, primary artist; Ed Bell - composer, performer, primary artist; Lewis Black - composer; Lewis Black - composer, performer, primary artist; Lonnie Coleman - composer, performer, primary artist; Martha Coleman - composer; Martha Copeland - composer, performer, primary artist; Georgia Cotton Pickers - composer, performer, primary artist; Peg Leg Howell - composer, performer, primary artist; Alec Johnson - composer, performer, primary artist; Blind Willie Johnson - arranger, composer, primary artist; Coley Jones - composer, performer, primary artist; Charley Lincoln - composer, performer, primary artist; Kansas Joe McCoy - composer, performer, primary artist; Blind Willie McTell - composer, performer, primary artist; Dave Moore - liner notes; Whistlin' Alex Moore - composer, performer, primary artist; George Washington Phillips - composer, primary artist; Willie Reed - composer, primary artist; Bessie Smith - composer, performer, primary artist; Oak Cliff T-Bone - composer, performer, primary artist; Henry Townsend - composer, performer, primary artist; Traditional - composer; Curley Weaver - composer, performer, primary artist; Henry "Rubberlegs" Williams - composer.
Tracks: 1) Every Day in the Week Blues - Pink Anderson; 2) She Looks So Good - Georgia Cotton Pickers; 3) Goin' up the Country - Barbecue Bob; 4) Denomination Blues, Pt. 1 - George Washington Phillips; 5) Denomination Blues, Pt. 2 - George Washington Phillips; 6) New Prison Blues - Peg Leg Howell; 7) I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole - Blind Willie Johnson; 8) Razor Ball - Blind Willie McTell; 9) Country Breakdown - Charley Lincoln; 10) Sweet Petunia - Curley Weaver; 11) Trinity River Blues - Oak Cliff T-Bone; 12) Henry's Worry Blues - Henry Townsend; 13) Dreaming Blues - Willie Reed; 14) Backwater Blues - Bessie Smith; 15) Lonely Billy Blues - Billy Anderson; 16) Barefoot Bill's Hard Luck Blues - Ed Bell; 17) Spanish Blues - Lewis Black; 18) Old Rock Island Blues - Lonnie Coleman; 19) Black Snake Blues - Martha Copeland; 20) Sundown Blues - Alec Johnson; 21) Traveling Man - Coley Jones; 22) I Want That - Kansas Joe McCoy; 23) Ice Pick Blues - Whistlin' Alex Moore.