On this excellent release from the World Music Network’s ever-reliable Rough Guide series, a host of unknown early blues artists get their due. While Robert Johnson, Son House, and a handful of other greats from the 1920s and ’30s have become widely recognized icons of the pre-war blues era, so many lesser-known, though no less talented, players have slipped through the cracks.
Opening with Henry Thomas’ spirited “Fishing Blues” (complete with a pan flute solo), The Rough Guide to Unsung Heroes of Country Blues winds its way through a series of wonderful and obscure country-blues gems. The eerie “My Buddy Blind Papa Lemon” by King Solomon Hill and the soulful “Roll and Tumble Blues” by Hambone Willie Newbern are both examples of innovative slide…
320 kbps | 170 MB UL | HF | MC ** FLAC
…techniques by unique voices who have remained largely unrecognized by history. With ragtime, jazz, folk, and African styles slowly compounding into what would become the blues tradition, these were the everyday artists writing the new songs and developing the patterns that would become the hallmarks of some of America’s greatest music.
1. Henry Thomas – Fishing Blues (2:42)
2. Willie Harris – Never Drive a Stranger from Your Door (3:37)
3. Clifford Gibson – Don’t Put That Thing on Me (3:04)
4. Henry Spaulding – Cairo Blues (2:42)
5. Charley Jordan – Keep It Clean (2:45)
6. Gus Cannon – Poor Boy, Long Ways From Home (3:09)
7. Lane Hardin – California Desert Blues (3:17)
8. Otto Virgial – Little Girl in Rome (2:34)
9. Blind Willie Reynolds – Married Man Blues (3:14)
10. Mississippi Joe Callicott – Fare Thee Well Blues (3:09)
11. Sam Collins – Lonesome Road Blues (3:02)
12. Geechie Wiley & Elvie Thomas – Pick Poor Robin Clean (3:10)
13. King Solomon Hill – My Buddy Blind Papa Lemon (3:04)
14. Kokomo Arnold – Old Original Kokomo Blues (2:50)
15. Tom Dickson – Labor Blues (2:58)
16. Alger “Texas” Alexander – Section Gang Blues (2:54)
17. Freddie Spruell – Let’s Go Riding (2:57)
18. Hambone Willie Newbern – Roll and Tumble Blues (2:59)
19. Peg Leg Howell – Please Ma’am (2:59)
20. Garfield Akers – Cottonfield Blues, Part 2 (3:16)
21. Frank Stokes – Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do, Part 2 (take 1) (3:11)
22. Lottie Kimbrough – Rolling Log Blues (3:18)
23. Sam Butler (Bo Weavil Jackson) – You Can’t Keep No Brown (2:44)
24. Mississippi Bracey – Cherry Ball (3:13)