Release Date: 1990.
Recording Date: 1928 - 1930.
Release Info: Compilation (PYCD 03).
Styles: Piano Blues, Acoustic Chicago Blues, Boogie-Woogie, Chicago Blues, Regional Blues.
This excellent collection is subtitled "Vocalion 1928-30," and that this label was able to record more than a dozen different and good blues and boogie-woogie pianists in the Chicago area over that time period means the Windy City's fabled long-winded music scene kept the company busy. The Vocalion archive has of course provided the raw material for many a blues compilation and reissue, so consumers may also find a later collection that shares the enticing command to Shake Your Wicked Knees, while featuring some of this material along with other selections by these artists and other members of the Vocalion stable. There are wonderful pianists here who will make amateurs feel as if their arms and hands were made out of pressboard. The titles themselves promise a good time, and deliver as well: "Fat Fanny Stomp" by Jim Clarke, "Head Rag Hop" by Romeo Nelson, and "Texas Shout" by Cow Cow Davenport are among the titles that are not nearly as exuberant as the music they identify. Other songs start with pronouncements of earthshaking importance -- "I'm So Glad I'm Twenty-One Years Old Today," says Joe Dean From Bowling Green -- and then takes the listener through the usual morbid blues thought process while the players manipulate the keys as if sorting through a basket of nuts. Most of the material is performed with solo piano, although there are a couple of tracks in which Tampa Red plays accompaniment or takes the lead with the fine piano work of Bill O'Bryant backing him up. The liner notes are unusually enjoyable. While texts such as this are normally the domain of gushing praise, with negative comments normally left for reviews, this particular album really smashes that mold. Listeners are informed that the final track, "Whoop and Holler Stomp" by Montana Taylor & the Jazoo Boys, has been sequenced in this way so that the listener can simply turn the record off and not suffer what writer Francis Smith indicates is a track that was only included for the quality of Taylor's playing. As for the Jazoo Boys, Smith describes the group as "abominable" and "wretched clowns," whose music is "inept and tuneless chanting." Bad music fanatics, the line forms to the rear. ~ Eugene Chadbourne
Credits: Jim Clarke - Composer, Performer, Primary Artist; Cow Cow Davenport - Composer, Performer, Piano, Primary Artist, Vocals; Joe Dean - Composer, Performer, Piano, Primary Artist, Vocals; Ron Geesin - Mastering; Leo Green - Composer, Piano, Vocals; Leothus Lee Green - Performer, Primary Artist; Bob Hall - Liner Notes; Lil Johnson - Composer, Performer, Primary Artist, Vocals; Bert M. Mays - Composer, Piano, Primary Artist, Vocals; Romeo Nelson - Composer, Performer, Piano, Primary Artist, Vocals; Richard Noblett - Liner Notes; Bill O'Bryant - Piano; Francis Wilford Smith - Producer, Editor; Pinetop Smith - Composer, Piano, Primary Artist, Vocals; Dan Stewart - Composer, Piano, Primary Artist, Vocals; Tampa Red - Composer, Guitar, Performer, Primary Artist, Vocals; Montana Taylor - Composer, Performer, Piano, Primary Artist, Vocals; Hudson Whittaker - Composer.
Tracklist:
01. Back In The Alley - Cow Cow Davenport
02. Michigan River Blues - Bert M. Mays
03. I'm So Glad I'm Twenty-One Years Old Today - Joe Dean
04. Memphis Fives - Lee Green
05. Fat Fanny Stomp - Jim Clarke
06. Cow Cow Blues - Cow Cow Davenport
07. Gettin' Dirty Just Shakin' That Thing - Romeo Nelson
08. New Orleans Blues - Dan Stewart
09. Pine Top's Boogie Woogie - Pine Top Smith
10. You Can't Come In - Bert M. Mays
11. Indiana Avenue Stomp - Montana Taylor
12. Slum Gullion Stomp - Cow Cow Davenport
13. Pine Top Blues - Pine Top Smith
14. Detroit Rocks - Montana Taylor
15. Black Hearted Blues - Tampa Red
16. Jump Steady Blues - Pine Top Smith
17. Mexico Bound Blues - Joe Dean
18. Head Rag Hop - Romeo Nelson
19. Texas Shout - Cow Cow Davenport
20. Whoop And Holler Stomp - Montana Taylor & The Jazoo Boys
Personnel: Cow Cow Davenport - Piano (1, 6, 12, 19); Bert M. Mays - Piano, Vocals (2, 10); Joe Dean - Piano, Vocals (3, 17); Lee Green - Piano, Vocals (4); Jim Clarke - Piano, Voice [Speech] (5); Romeo Nelson - Piano (7, 18), Vocals (7), Voice [Speech] (18); Dan Stewart - Vocals (8); Unknown Artist - Piano (8); Pine Top Smith - Piano, Vocals (9, 13); Montana Taylor - Piano (11, 14, 20); Tampa Red - Guitar, Vocals (15); Bill O'Bryant - Piano (15); Clarence "Pinetop" Smith - Piano, Voice (16); The Jazoo Boys - Vocals (20).
Notes:
All tracks mastered direct from original 78's in the Francis Wilford Smith collection.