West Coast Blues

Pianist Joe Liggins presented a fairly sophisticated brand of swinging jump blues to jitterbuggers during the early '50s, when his irresistible "Pink Champagne" scaled the R&B charts. Twenty-five of his very best 1950-1954 Specialty sides grace this collection, including a...

By the time San Francisco Bay Blues was released in 1963, the title track had long been established as a classic and Jesse Fuller's career had been revived. Nevertheless, the album may be his finest, containing wonderful versions of "San Francisco Bay Blues," "Jesse's...

Few artists in the history of recorded music have made alcoholism seem quite as appealing as Amos Milburn did on his run of hits for Aladdin Records in the '40s and '50s. Milburn was one of the biggest rhythm & blues stars of the pre- ock era, and his celebrations of wild,...

Although its programming has been juggled a bit, and the CD has been given liner notes, this Delmark release is a straight reissue of the original LP. Clocking in at around 38 minutes, the relatively brief set is the only recording that exists of Vinson, pianist Jay McShann, and guitarist T-Bone...

Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton was part of the American Folk Blues Festival revue which toured Europe in 1965, so when it was time to record this session on October 20 at Wessex Studio in London, she had a crack impromptu lues band at her disposal, including a young Buddy Guy on...

Let's face it, Big Mama Thornton will always be chiefly recalled for her growling 1952 reading of the Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller classic "Hound Dog." But the other 17 sides on this collection of her 1952-1957 output for Don Robey's Peacock Records aren't exactly...

This British import compilation of Peacock sides is a bit more comprehensive than the domestic Hound Dog anthology, including a few more tracks (22 in all, some previously unreleased). The MCA collection, more readily available for most North American consumers, should suffice for most...

There was a time when swing-oriented jazz, R&B and blues overlapped to form an accessible yet intelligent style of music. In the late '40s Louis Jordan, Charles Brown and Amos Milburn were popular figures and Floyd Dixon (although a bit in their shadow) was not far behind. When rock...

Even with his box, you won't own all of Brown's seminal work. In 1946, he and the Blazers landed at Exclusive Records, which is the era that this collection examines via 19 fine sides, including the jivey "Juke Box Lil" and "C.O.D.," a mournful "Sunny...

A powerful vocalist and a wickedly expressive alto saxophonist, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson is celebrated with this JSP reissue compilation containing 15 choice cuts recorded in London, England, in May 1980 and March 1982. The earlier of the two dates yielded an album with the title Fun...

As an overview of Crayton's work for Modern from 1948-51, this might not be ideal, as only about half of it appeared on singles during that time; the rest was mostly unissued until the 1980s and 1990s, some making their first appearance on this CD. It also means that some of his Modern...

This wonderful three-disc set brings together everything Willie Mae Thornton recorded for the folk music label in the mid-'70s. It's comprised of her two released albums from 1975, Jail and Sassy Mama, and a complete unreleased album, Big Mama Swings. Thornton was still in good voice...

Dependable all-purpose lues and oogie-woogie piano ace Lloyd Glenn was born in San Antonio, TX, in 1909. He developed his musical abilities by gigging throughout the Southwest during the 1920s and early '30s. During his extensive early jazz training he gigged with Thomas Lee's Royal...

Serious lues fans will no doubt delight in these sides by the all but unsung George Harmonica Smith from Japan's P-Vine label. Taken from both the RPM and Modern labels after he left the Muddy Waters Band, Smith is showcased in all kinds of settings, including those with the young Otis...

Soon after Roy Brown scored measurable success with "Bar Room Blues" (1950) and "Big Town" (1951), his record sales dipped rather suddenly, whereupon the singer appears to have suffered an attack of professionally induced paranoia. What happened next was quite possibly a...

A plethora of "lost" recording dates have popped up since the dawn of the compact disc, especially in the jazz world. Unfortunately, most of them haven't been worth the wait and, indeed, as underwhelming as some of them have been, it might -- at least aesthetically speaking --...

Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson plays and sings his usual material in this meeting with Ted Easton's five-piece Dutch jazz band. The group is enthusiastic and Vinson, even though he had performed such material as "Kidney Stew," "Just a Dream" and "Somebody Sure...

Littlefield's stint with Federal was brief (1952-1954), and not nearly as commercially successful as his time with Modern prior to that. Nonetheless he did a good amount of recording in that period, from which 19 tracks emerged to form this CD retrospective of his Federal years. It,...

This contains straight-up reissues of two of T-Bone's Imperial albums, themselves merely collections of the original 78s. Everything on these 24 sides was recorded between 1950 and 1954 -- not as trailblazing a period as the one from 1946 to 1947 on Black and White, but still prime T-Bone...