Release Date: October 14, 2008.
Recording Time: 302 minutes.
Release Info: JSP-CD-77109, Studio Recording.
Styles: Regional Blues; Acoustic Blues; Country Blues; Early American Blues; Piano Blues; Piedmont Blues; Pre-War Blues; Pre-War Country Blues; Delta Blues.
Given the fact that life is just plain hard sometimes, maybe even most of the time, it would seem that any era one picks could lay claim to being the worst, the hardest, the most difficult, and yet, somehow, people get through things, undoubtedly to run into hard times again somewhere soon down the road. That's life, as they say, and the blues has always been perfectly suited to convey just how hard life can be. This collection of 100 vintage blues songs -- stretching in chronological order from the mid-'20s through the mid-'50s and spread over four CDs -- confirms that hard times are always with us. The tracks compiled here by Neil Slaven aren't of the woke-up-this-morning-and-my-baby-was-gone variety but drift into the wider social and political world of economic woes and desperate measures, and while the blues is, at least on the surface, about being down and out, what emerges here is a kind of dogged determination to break through into a brighter future, even if that future never seems to quite arrive. There's resilience here in song after song, and this set is filled with classics like Charlie McCoy and Bo Carter's wonderfully loose "Northern Starvers Are Returning Home," Charley Jordan's crisp "Starvation Blues," the Mississippi Sheiks' wry "Sales Tax," Big Joe Williams' "Providence Help the Poor People," Roosevelt Sykes' wise "Living in a Different World," and J.B. Lenoir's poignant "Eisenhower Blues," among many more, and while things are desperate, almost hopeless and unbelievably tense in song after song, again that determination to rise above hard times is always tangibly present, making this fine set, in the end, more about surviving than drowning. Yep. Times are hard today. Times will probably be hard tomorrow, and probably the day after that. But the blues, for all its moaning about such things, has really always been about getting through them. That fact makes this collection oddly and even powerfully uplifting. ~ Steve Leggett
Credits: Barbecue Bob - primary artist; Black Ivory King - primary artist; Scrapper Blackwell - primary artist; Blind Blake - primary artist; Lucille Bogan - primary artist; Son Bonds - primary artist; John Brim - primary artist; Big Bill Broonzy - primary artist; Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - primary artist; Bumble Bee Slim - primary artist; Bob Campbell - primary artist; Gene Campbell - primary artist; Leroy Carr - primary artist; Bo Carter - primary artist; Andy Chatman - primary artist; Cousin Joe - primary artist; George Curry - primary artist; Blind Teddy Darby - primary artist; Walter Davis - primary artist; Tom Dickson - primary artist; Champion Jack Dupree - primary artist; Carrie Edwards - primary artist; Sleepy John Estes - primary artist; Alfred Fields - primary artist; Calvin Frazier - primary artist; Gene Gilmore - primary artist; Gene Gilmore - primary artist; Jimmie Gordon - primary artist; Guitar Slim - primary artist; Lane Hardin - primary artist; King Solomon Hill - primary artist; Smokey Hogg - primary artist; Tony Hollins - primary artist; John Lee Hooker - primary artist; Ivory Joe Hunter - primary artist; J.B. Hutto - primary artist; Frank "Springback" James - primary artist; Jelly Belly - primary artist; Jelly Belly - primary artist; Alec Johnson - primary artist; Lonnie Johnson - primary artist; Floyd Jones - primary artist; Charley Jordan - primary artist; Jack Kelly - primary artist; J.B. Lenoir - primary artist; Carl Martin - primary artist; Charlie McCoy - primary artist; Charlie McCoy - primary artist; Robert Lee McCoy - primary artist; Jimmy McCracklin - primary artist; Brownie McGhee - primary artist; Fred McMullen - primary artist; Jack McVea - primary artist; Memphis Minnie - primary artist; Mississippi Sheiks - primary artist; Buddy Moss - primary artist; Red Nelson - primary artist; Hambone Willie Newbern - primary artist; Sampson Pittman - primary artist; Joe Pullum - primary artist; Yank Rachell - primary artist; Walter Roland - primary artist; Sonny Scott - primary artist; Ollie Shepard - primary artist; Willie "Long Time" Smith - primary artist; Charlie Spand - primary artist; Speckled Red - primary artist; Joe Stone - primary artist; Roosevelt Sykes - primary artist; Tampa Red - primary artist; Clark Terry - primary artist; Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee - primary artist; Big Mama Thornton - primary artist; Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson - primary artist; Washboard Sam - primary artist; Casey Bill Weldon - primary artist; Peetie Wheatstraw - primary artist; Joshua White - primary artist; Big Joe Williams - primary artist; L.C. Williams - primary artist; Jim Wynn - primary artist.
Tracks - Disc 1: 1) Labor Blues - Tom Dickson; 2) No Dough Blues - Blind Blake; 3) Down And Out Blues - Scrapper Blackwell; 4) Starvation Blues - Big Bill Broonzy; 5) Bad Time Blues - Barbecue Bob; 6) Miss Meal Cramp Blues - Alec Johnson; 7) Shelby County Workhouse Blues - Hambone Willie Newbern; 8) We Sure Got Hard Times - Barbecue Bob; 9) Levee Camp Man Blues - Gene Campbell; 10) Hard Times On Me Blues - Andy Chatman; 11) Tough Times Blues - Charley Jordan; 12) Northern Starvers Are Returning Home - Bo Carter / Charlie McCoy; 13) Hard Times Done Drove Me To Drink - Leroy Carr; 14) Starvation Blues - Charley Jordan; 15) Hard Time Blues - Charlie Spand; 16) Chain Gang Bound - Bumble Bee Slim; 17) Days Of The Weeks Blues - Charley Jordan; 18) Times Has Done Got So Hard - King Solomon Hill; 19) Hard Time Blues - Carrie Edwards; 20) The Depression Blues - Leroy Carr; 21) Turpentine Blues - Tampa Red; 22) Hard Time Blues - Scrapper Blackwell; 23) DeKalb Chain Gang - Fred McMullen; 24) Hard Time Blues - Buddy Moss; 25) Red Cross Blues - Walter Roland.
Tracks - Disc 2: 1) Red Cross Man - Lucille Bogan; 2) Coal Mountain Blues - Sonny Scott; 3) Red Cross Blues No.2 - Walter Roland; 4) It's Hard Time - Joe Stone; 5) R.F.C. Blues - Jack Kelly; 6) Red Cross Blues - Walter Davis; 7) Sales Tax - Mississippi Sheiks; 8) Welfare Blues - Joshua White; 9) C.W.A. Blues - Walter Roland; 10) Starvation Farm Blues - Bob Campbell; 11) Charity Blues - Charlie McCoy; 12) Sylvester And His Mule Blues - Memphis Minnie; 13) Providence Help The Poor People - Big Joe Williams; 14) Meat And Bread Blues - Blind Teddy Darby; 15) Hard Time Blues - Lane Hardin; 16) Let's Have A Good Deal - Carl Martin / Joe Pullum; 17) Bonus Blues - Joe Pullum; 18) W.P.A. Blues - Casey Bill Weldon; 19) When I Get My Bonus - Peetie Wheatstraw; 20) When I Get My Money - Bumble Bee Slim; 21) I'm Gonna Have My Fun - Carl Martin / Bumble Bee Slim; 22) Jungle Man Blues - Peetie Wheatstraw; 23) When The Soldiers Get Their Bonus - Red Nelson / Bumble Bee Slim; 24) W.P.A. Blues - Big Bill Broonzy; 25) Don't Take Away My P.W.A. - Jimmie Gordon.
Tracks - Disc 3: 1) Hobo Jungle Blues - Bumble Bee Slim; 2) New Red Cross Blues - Frank "Springback" James; 3) Working For The P.W.A. - Black Ivory King; 4) Government Money - Sleepy John Estes; 5) Working On The Project - Peetie Wheatstraw; 6) Hobo Jungle Blues - Sleepy John Estes; 7) Hard Times Ain't Gone No Where - Lonnie Johnson; 8) I Have Spent My Bonus - Robert Lee McCoy; 9) Relief Blues - Red Nelson; 10) Unemployment Stomp - Big Bill Broonzy; 11) 304 Blues - Peetie Wheatstraw; 12) Old Bachelor Blues - Son Bonds; 13) Welfare Blues - Calvin Frazier; 14) Back In My Cell Again - George Curry; 15) Welfare Blues - Speckled Red; 16) C.C.C. Blues - Washboard Sam; 17) Welfare Blues - Sampson Pittman; 18) '29 Blues - Alfred Fields; 19) Charity Blues - Gene Gilmore; 20) Four-O-Three Blues - Lonnie Johnson; 21) Warehouse Man Blues - Champion Jack Dupree; 22) Nothing In Rambling - Memphis Minnie; 23) Hobo Blues - Yank Rachell; 24) Stamp Blues - Tony Hollins; 25) Hard Times Is On Me - Ollie Shepard.
Tracks - Disc 4: 1) Keep Straight Blues - Jelly Belly / Guitar Slim; 2) Red Cross Store Blues - Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee; 3) Working Man Blues - Jelly Belly / Guitar Slim; 4) Post-War Future Blues - Cousin Joe; 5) Shipyard Woman - Jim Wynn; 6) Living In A Different World - Roosevelt Sykes; 7) Reconversion Blues - Ivory Joe Hunter; 8) Sunny Road - Roosevelt Sykes; 9) Bonus Pay - Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson; 10) Luxury Tax Blues - Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson; 11) Unemployment Blues - Smokey Hogg; 12) Hard Times - Smokey Hogg; 13) Stockyard Blues - Floyd Jones; 14) High Cost Low Pay Blues - Ivory Joe Hunter; 15) Homeless Blues - Willie "Long Time" Smith; 16) Inflation Blues - Jack McVea; 17) Strike Blues - L.C. Williams; 18) Strike Blues - John Lee Hooker; 19) Cotton Picking Blues - Big Mama Thornton; 20) Ain't Times Hard - Floyd Jones; 21) Tough Times - John Brim; 22) Depression Blues - Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown; 23) The Panic's On - Jimmy McCracklin; 24) Things Are So Slow - J.B. Hutto; 25) Eisenhower Blues - J.B. Lenoir.