The Iconic Blues Historic Blues from 1930s to 1970s
SOME FULL REVIEWS OF SET 6
MATCHBOX BLUESMASTER SERIES –
SOME FULL REVIEWS OF SET 6 Blues From The Avon Delta - The Matchbox Blues Story Mark Jones The Record Press In 1967 the Bristol based Saydisc label released its first country blues record, a 7" EP by the local trio, Anderson Jones Jackson. By 1968 it was helping three other blues labels, Sunflower, Kokomo and Highway 51 get to market. Today the company, having released well over a hundred blues LPs in its first twenty years, has been re-releasing some great country blues recordings and has now become epicentre of the U.K.'s DIY blues record label industry. The book covers this wonderfully creative period of blues in Britain with some familiar names like Jo Ann Kelly, Dave Peabody, Mike Cooper, Ian Anderson and Dave Kelly who, alongside some lesser known ones, brought the blues to the U.K. in those early years - a small record label making ends meet on a limited budget, including visits to a local photo booth to take passport photos for its record sleeves. A Research Fellow at University College Dublin, Mark Jones's book chronicles the history of the Saydisc label and its series of 1920s and 1930s blues music CDs, itemising who did what and when, through the manufacturing process, the artists, the tracks and the sleeves. This is a hugely informative book that's been made possible with the help and input of the people who were there. Pete Clack
Blues & Rhythm set 6, Mar 22 This penultimate set of 42 albums that were originally released in the 1980s, has some interesting and some fine music and I am pleased to report that the sound quality is an improvement on the fifth set, which I reviewed in B&R 366. As always it is a pleasure to read Paul Oliver's comprehensive and detailed notes and using some recent information, Tony Russell has updated a couple of Oliver's comments. It is a long time since I listened to Papa Charlie Jackson , and I realise now what I have been missing. Jackson was the first commercially popular, male blues artist to record , making over sixty titles , most of which were issued on the Paramount label. He played an unusual, six string guitar/banjo as well as a four-string banjo although he appears never to have used the traditional five-string instrument as favoured by several white, old-time musicians. On the three tracks immediately before 'Forgotten Blues', Jackson plays guitar, and these three cuts are less satisfying than his banjo playing. He had an entertaining repertoire of vaudeville and early blues songs, and Paul Oliver reckons that Jackson was also a familiar figure on several travelling medicine shows. Jackson had an attractive voice that combined with his musical dexterity, yielded some memorable and rewarding numbers such as the popular tune ' Mama Don't Allow It (And She Ain't Gonna Have It Here)', and on the comic song 'Look Out Papa Don't Tear Your Pants' , which throws in snatches of Hawaiian music, rag time syncopation and Spanish chords with some falsetto singing. Jackson wrote a couple of songs about gambling - playing the policy - and 'Four Eleven Forty Four', is enjoyable and lyrically informative. Another highlight for me is 'The Judge Cliff Davis Blues' , which is an elaborate court room saga featuring Police Commissioner Clifford Davis's crackdown on Memphis crime. All Good stuff. One of the longest running Afro-American groups was the Memphis Jug Band that played a range of blues, ragtime, comic and country and dance songs for black and white audiences. Founded by Will Shade, singer, guitarist and harmonica player, the Jug Band had about twenty musicians who at one time or another participated in the eighty-odd recordings that the Band made. Just to add to the complexity, the Memphis Jug Band used other names such as the Memphis Sheiks as in their popular rendition of 'He's In The Jailhouse Now' . The eighteen tracks selected here offer an acceptable range of the Jug Band's music with some outstanding numbers, including 'I Packed My Suitcase, Started To The Train', with Will Shade's wife, Jennie Clayton singing, 'Evergreen Money Blues', and 'Peaches In The Springtime', both with interesting lyrics and 'Tear It Down , Bed Slats And All'. As with most of the Memphis Jug Band's music, those recordings that eschew the kazoo will probably find favour with most listeners. Another leading pre-war blues guitarist was Robert Hicks - Barbecue Bob - who played a twelve-string acoustic guitar, and he was one of the Columbia label's most popular male blues artists. The first two numbers are gospel songs that were issued under Barbecue Bob's proper name as was the case with Blind Lemon Jefferson and other blues singers who played religious songs. Bob was a consummate guitar player as demonstrated on 'Easy Rider Don't You Deny My Name', and 'Ease It To Me'. With his elder brother, Charlie Hicks (who recorded as Laughing Charley and Charlie Lincoln), they recorded the entertaining, two-part hokum song 'It Won't Be Long Now' , and there are elements of the medicine show in their dialogue in 'Darktown Gamblin' - Part 1 (The Crap Game)'. (It's a pity that Part 2 was not included in this current set). The interplay between Barbecue Bob's singing, lyrics and guitar playing are heard in the enjoyable 'She's Gone Blues', Goin' Up The Country', and 'Yo Yo Blues No. 2', that was based on an Atlanta song, 'No No Blues', recorded by Willie Baker and Curley Weaver. The fourth disc features two interesting musicians that are rarely heard on any pre-war compilation of Afro-American music. Leecan & Cooksey usually played as a duo although they were sometimes joined by guitarist Alfred Martin and they were part of a five-piece band, the Dixie Jazzers Washboard Band as heard on the last four tracks of this disc. Harmonica player Robert Cooksey had an attractive style of playing, blowing rather than drawing and using high register notes that Paul Oliver aptly describes as 'warbling'. Bobbie (or Bobby, depending on the vagaries of record label publishing) played some rhythmic and single string guitar. I found the first twelve tracks heavy going as eight are instrumentals with four having a kazoo player. The standout tracks for me are the lyrically interesting 'Macon Georgia Cut Out', and the notable 'Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out', that is very different from Bessie Smith's version, recorded two years later. Paul Oliver rightly summarises the music here as occupying the hinterland between jazz, blues and vaudeville and Tony Russell elsewhere has written that the Washboard Band's efforts are 'in effect jug less jugband music', that will probably appeal to those who like the Memphis Jug Band. That said, whereas I do like Will Shade's music, I found disc four to be less enjoyable than the previous disc. One of the most popular pianists amongst his fellow musicians, the genial Roosevelt Sykes recorded prolifically for several record companies often using different pseudonyms. On disc five there are five solo tracks listed under his own name and those of Willie Kelly and Easy Papa Johnson. In Sykes' 1930 recording of 'Cotton Seed Blues', there are some lyrics that James Cotton used several years later in his version of 'Cotton Crop Blues'. Sykes provides some nice piano accompaniment to his sister, Isabel Sykes, for her two only recordings: lyrically her shrill 'In Here With Your Heavy Stuff' , with its reference to Santa Claus could be deemed to be a Christmas blues. The four cuts by Charlie McFadden are acceptable enough, but nothing to write home about. Clarence Harris is a lugubrious singer cutting only four sides with two unissued and there appears to be little known about him. The Carl Rafferty number is good and is notable for its concluding, prescient verse 'I believe I'll dust my broom'. The female vocalist Johnnie Straus was a strident singer, and she is accompanied by Sykes and an unknown violinist on 'St. Louis Johnnie Blues' , although Paul Oliver was doubtful that Sykes was the pianist and 'Blues And Gospel Records 1890-1943', fourth edition, lists the piano player as unknown. Overall, this disc is not bad in featuring some of Sykes' lesser-known titles and his tasteful accompaniment to five different singers The final disc is a sample of some of the Mississippi Sheiks' extensive recordings. The first two tracks are instrumentals that Paul Oliver thought were based on late 19th century/early 20th century waltzes, and I would be in no hurry to listen to them again. Things improve with 'Please Don't Wake It Up', that is typical of the Sheiks' entertaining songs and 'She's A Bad Girl', has some appealing lyrics concerning playing the dozens as has another gambling song 'Hitting The Numbers', that is essentially the Sheiks' greatest hit 'Sitting' On Top Of The World', retitled with different verses. Lonnie Chatman's violin playing is very good on 'Tell Me What The Cats Fight About', and 'She's Crazy About Her Lovin", and Walter Vinson (or Vincson as it was sometime spelt) puts in some simple but effective guitar work throughout. I thought that 'Bed Spring Poker', would be a salacious blues using typical imagery, but the lyrics are subtler, and the mention of ruination could allude to the risk of acquiring syphilis. As further evidence of my perverted (surely not PM. - Review Editor) thinking, I imagined that 'It's Done Got Wet', would also have a sexual theme but instead it is a celebration of the long-awaited repeal of prohibition. Paul Mooney
BLUES IN BRITAIN MARCH 2022-02-25 Matchbox Bluesmaster Series Volume 6 MSESET6 (6 CD box set) Matchbox When I began reviewing these amazing box sets last year I said they were a rare insight into the world of black music and, as each set comes along, that view has grown stronger. Some names are more familiar such as pianist and singer Roosevelt Sykes with some lesser known recordings from 1929 through to '31. The Memphis Jug Band has had many releases over the years, but here are some you will not have heard, unless you bought the vinyl release in the 1980s. Barbecue Bob gained some recognition when Eric Clapton recorded his ‘Motherless Child' on his From The Cradle album; here we have more Barbecue Bob recordings to enjoy. As far as the lesser known artists are concerned, CD I features eighteen tracks by Papa Charlie Jackson, a man in a class all by himself - he was a mighty fine and exciting guitar player with a voice that the ladies loved. 'Salt Lake City Blues', 'Mama Don't Allow It', 'I'm Tired Of Fooling Round With You', 'Look Out Papa Don't Tear Your Pants' and 'I'm Looking For A Woman Who Knows How To Treat Me Right' are amongst a set of consistently fine blues. Bobbie Leecan (guitar) and Robert Cooksey (harmonica) recorded their sixteen songs in the New York area mainly in 1927, though various other musicians appear on some tracks. Whether on their own, with the Dixie Jazzers Washboard Band or Blind Bobbie Baker, this set has some hugely enjoyable songs. The Mississippi Sheiks will need little introduction to those who know their blues and here we get another glorious set of tracks from them. With various line-ups that include the great Walter Jacobs (then known as Walter Vinson), they serve up eighteen glorious songs. Roosevelt Sykes offers another eighteen tracks of great piano blues: mainly solo, but with the odd help from Clarence Harris and Johnnie Strauss on vocals. Jug bands were very popular at the time but the leaders by far were the Memphis jug Band, who did the original version of the Rooftop Singers' 'Walk Right In' and here are tracks from sessions in Atlanta, Memphis and Chicago. Joined on a couple of tracks by The Memphis Sheiks, they deliver a first class set of some of their finest recordings. These are nuggets of pure blues gold. This series is proving beyond doubt to be something to treasure. Pete Clack
LIVING BLUES, USA Mar/Apr 2022 Matchbox Bluesmaster Series: Set 6 MSESET6 The penultimate entry in the Matchbox Bluesmaster Series is a particularly enjoyable one, both in terms of musical variety and sound quality. The featured artists not only represent very different approaches to blues in its first recorded generation, they incorporate disparate musical tributaries that made that era’s “blues” idiom far less formulaic than it arguably became later. This six CD set reproduces six LPs issued in the UK between August 1986 and February 1988. Opening is Papa Charlie Jackson 1924-29 Mostly New to LP. New Orleansborn, Chicago-based Jackson (1887-1938) is referred to in Paul Oliver's liner notes as a songster “whose great importance in the history of Black song lay in the breadth of his repertoire." That breadth encompassed a Kentucky folk song Long Gone, Lost John, usually associated with "hillbilly" artists (Henry Whitster recorded a version in 1925), songs that suggest Tin Pan Alley affinities (Salt Lake City Blues slyly satirizes Mormon polygamy), and, of course, ragtime blues (Tain't What You Do But How You Do It). Jackson's approach was more vaudevillian than street busker, though he reportedly played both roles. His instrument of choice, the banjo guitar, was rare on record but supremely suited to his material, and he played it well. (On Take Me Back Blues No. 2 he briefly picks what may be one of the earliest boogie guitar lines on record.) Jackson wasn't a powerhouse singer but his deadpan delivery fit his songs, and the 18 here are miraculously devoid of the surface noise common to Paramount label 78 r.p.m.'s crackle and hiss that renders many records by the likes of Blind Lemon Jefferson sounding like a distant baleful bray from inside a Quonset hut battered by a hailstorm. Fortunately, the artists on the other five CDs here recorded for major labels and audio quality is rarely an issue. The 18 tracks on Memphis Jug Band 1927-34 The Remaining Titles span the MJB's first year of recordings for Victor to its final session seven years later for OKeh. Jim Jackson may be credited with popularizing Kansas City Blues, but the funkier MJB version, with three of the band's members trading verses and Will Shade and Ben Ramey wailing harmonica/kazoo counterpoint, was recorded just nine days after Jackson's initial waxing of the song and in a different city, proving the ragtime blues classic was widely floating through the "public domain" of the day. The MJB covered all bases: Jug Band Waltz is a variant on the sentimental favorite Over the Waves: He's in the Jailhouse Now is a variant of a song generally associated with "the father of country music" Jimmie Rodgers, though Blind Blake also cut a version (the MJB's is surely the most fun). The band tended towards borderline sloppiness in its good-natured looseness but could tighten up when needed on something like the sprightly jug band classic You Got Me Rollin'. The best of the MJB still sounds fresh 90 years on, and this collection offers a good selection of the varied recorded incarnations of a group whose motto could have been the title of one of the songs here: Tear It Down, Bed Slats and All. Barbecue Bob (Robert Hicks) 1927-30 The Remaining Titles offers 16 performances by one of the most appealing and accessible of the early blues singer-guitarists. Atlanta-based Hicks (1902-1931) played percussive 12-string slide guitar accompanying a voice, relaxed yet powerful, that delivered clearly enunciated lyrics with conversational directness. The routines of the medicine shows are reflected in comic banter with his brother Charlie ("Laughing Charley") on It Won't Be Long Now-Parts l &2, while Easy Rider Don't You Deny My Name is one of the best pre-war renditions of a familiar theme. Hicks is at his lyrical best on Cold Wave Blues (“Ol' Jack Frost is now ready to put that thing on you ... "), and throughout his propulsive guitar work drives songs that are often compelling and never less than interesting, thanks in no small measure to Hicks' affable personality. Affability abounds on the 16 selections offered on Bobbie Leecan and Robert Cooksey 1926-27 The Remaining Titles. This duo may be the least specifically “bluesy" artists on this set, but that's no indictment. Paul Oliver wrote: "Recognition for these interesting Eastern [i.e .. East Coast] artists who worked in the hinterland between jazz, blues and vaudeville is long overdue." Leecan picked guitar in the bass-heavy down-stroke style pioneered on record by Nick Lucas. Robert Cooksey played harmonica “with a pronounced warble." Oliver wrote, "but with clear notes and a certain jazz phrasing ... " Both occasionally played kazoo on their recordings, the polished professionalism of which suggests a vaudeville act more than street corner buskers. Researcher Tony Russell, adding a postscript to Oliver's liner notes, quotes a 1926 New York newspaper in which Leecan and Cooksey are described as "wont to entertain Harlem poolroom and cabaret patrons." They were among the first to record Ain't She Sweet in the year it was a pop hit (1927), but also offered such titles as Dirty Guitar Blues and the first recording of Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out. This set opens and closes with two very different renditions of the first title the duo cut in 1926, Black Cat Bone Blues, reprised the following year as Black Cat Bones with cornet, piano, and washboard as part of the Dixie Jazzers Washboard Band. Variety, and the fact that Leecan & Cooksey don't really sound like anyone else, make them well worth a listen. Roosevelt Sykes 1929-1934 Mostly New to LP offers 18 tracks by the Honeydripper, 13 in the role of accompanist. Four songs by Johnnie Strauss, a growling, hard-edged female vocalist, are standouts here, though the piercing voice of Isabel Sykes, surmised to be Roosevelt's sister, also hits home. The three male vocalists Sykes accompanies may be less striking, though Sykes’ piano accompaniments never fail to deliver. His own five songs range from the agrarian (Cotton Seed Blues) to the fluvial (Black River Blues, a dread-of-drowning saga wherein Sykes "spied a tiny little shoe tossing up and down" on a river). Sykes is one of the few recording artists of that era who some current LB readers may have seen in performance (he was active till near his 1983 passing), and, whether center stage or sideman, was always worth hearing. Mississippi Sheiks Volume 2 1930-34 Mostly New to LP closes this set with 18 performances by the most popular Black string band on record: Oliver reckoned they made "some 80 titles" while he placed the tally by artists with some Sheiks affiliation, including Bo Carter and Charlie McCoy, at a staggering "270 titles issued." The core group was just Walter Vinson, vocals and guitar, and Lonnie Chatman, fiddle and vocals. All but seven of the tracks here are performed by that duo. Bo Chatman (Carter) and Sam Chatman appear on the outliers alongside Lonnie's distinctive fiddle. The opening track, Sheiks Special, is an instrumental waltz that might have passed for an "old timey" offering of that era. Lazy Lazy River finds Vinson aspiring to rewrite a then recent Hoagy Carmichael hit, while Hitting the Numbers is a paean to "playing policy" set to the tune of the Sheiks' Sittin’ on Top of the World. If all that sounds a mite derivative, fear not: blues both hard (Kitty Cat Blues) and hokum (It’s Done Got Wet celebrates the repeal of Prohibition) holds forth for the main, the Sheiks ably demonstrating why they get to close the show. Mark Humphrey
RnR Mar/Apr 2022 **** Matchbox Bluesmaster Series - Set6 In the 80s, Gloucestershire label Saydisc released forty-two albums of blues and related forms of music from the 20s and 30s. The albums, which were sourced from obscure 78s, are currently being reissued in six-CD volumes which retain blues historian Paul Oliver's original notes. The current, sixth, volume compiles the albums devoted to singer-banjoist Papa Charlie Jackson, The Memphis Jug Band, singer and twelve-string guitarist Barbecue Bob, guitarist-singer Bobby Leecan and harmonica player-singer Robert Cooksey, pianist-singer Roosevelt Sykes and string band The Mississippi Sheiks. Today blues-rock almost totally dominates the blues scene so the range of music these performers play is notable with Papa Charlie Jackson, for one, combining blues with hokum and vaudevillian numbers. Highlights include The Memphis Jug Band's 'Jug Band Quartette' on which Will Shade sings lovingly of the band's style of music, Barbecue Bob's stunning 'When The Saints Go Marching In', the lovely, intimate interplay between guitar and fiddle on several Mississippi Sheiks tracks and Roosevelt Sykes's elegant playing. Hi-fi buffs may wince at the surface noise on many tracks but blues buffs will relish the opportunity to own such rare and inimitable music. Trevor Hodgett
RNR 87 Mar/Apr 2022 BLUES BLAST MAGAZINE 14th April 2022 Matchbox Bluesmaster Series – Sets 5 and 6 Nimbus Records www.wyastone.co.uk www.saydisc.com www.matchboxbluesmaster.co.uk 6 discs in each set The Matchbox Bluesmaster series was released from November 1982 to June 1988 by Saydisc Records. Rare 78 rpm records were loaned to supplement the ones on hand to create what was called “Complete Recordings in Chronological Order” along with some add on tracks. These records were mastered on tape and released on vinyl. Austrian collector Johnny Parth edited the sets and got the recordings grouped and released by Saydisc in the UK. Hans Klement did the remastering work from Austrophon Studios in Vienna. The tracks selected were released in seven sets of six records and are here released on CD. The master tapes have long since vanished, so Norman White took the vinyl pressings and used high end transcription techniques to make the digital recordings. In addition to the 42 releases in these seven sets, even more music is expected for release as they have many pre-Bluesmaster cuts that can be released. This music is early blues, originally released from 1926 to 1934; two cuts are from 1950, but the rest are from the ‘20’s and ‘30’s. Blues, gospel and hokum music (humorous blues with lots of sexual innuendos) were the order of the day for black recordings; labels like OKEH searched far and wide for artists to record, finding people on street corners, juke joints, and other places. This music that rose from the plantations and made its’ way into the urban centers became the impetus for urban blues, R&B and rock and roll. Paul Oliver provides ample notes and data on each set of CDs. Oliver is a jazz and blues historian who has written 10 books on blues and gospel history and passed away in 2017 after a long career as a music historian and architect. He provides copious notes in a booklet for each set. The quality of the sound of the songs ranges from fairly good to sometimes just listenable. Most are decent and offer the listener an in depth look at early blues as it was in the beginning of the recording era. I was provided Sets 5 and 6 for review. Each set was shipped with a one disc sampler of the six CD sets which give the listener an insight into the music, but it is the complete sets that make for an in depth and comprehensive listen of early artists honing their craft. The Matchbox Bluesmaster Series is released here by UK publishing company Nimbus Records. The series was produced by Gef Lucena. Matchbox Bluesmaster Series – set 5 is comprised of six CDs with one artist per CD. They are Blind Lemon Jefferson (1926-1929), Frank Stokes (1927-1929), Blind Blake (1926-1929), Big Bill Broonzy (1927-1932), the Mississippi Sheiks Vol. 1 (1930) and Lonnie Johnson Vol. 1 (1926-1928). It is interesting to contrast the raw and emotive work of Jefferson to the more urban and polished performances of the likes of Broonzy and Johnson. The Memphis Sheiks reside in a soft spot in my heart and hearing them here and later on the next set gave me great joy. Broonzy went on to a lucrative and long performing and recording career and the Sheiks have recently had newly remasters stuff on high grade vinyl released, but the primal sounds here are something to appreciate. Another gem is Blind Blake’s CD. His superb vocals and guitar are something to truly savor. And if you want a chuckle or two, Stokes serves up some bawdy and humorous tunes to enjoy. Matchbox Blues Master Series – set 6 offers six CDs, again with one artist per CD. They are Papa Charlie Jackson (1924-1929 recordings), the Memphis Jug Band (1927-1934), Barbeque Bob (1927-1930), Leecan & Cooksey (1926-1927), Roosevelt Sykes (1929-1934) and the Mississippi Sheiks Vol. 2 (1930-1934). More Sheiks? Great stuff! Wild and cool jug band tunes from Memphis and Papa Charlie Jackson’s high energy banjo are something to really appreciate. Leecan & Cooksey and Barbecue Bob offer more in the joyful and boisterous times of the 1920’s. And if it is dark and dirty and deeper blues you are looking for, then look no further than Roosevelt Sykes. He and the artists on his CD offer up some truly inspired tunes. Each album on it’s own is a wonderful listen; each of the 6 CD sets is amazing and the 7 sets make up a huge collection of early blues that give the listeners much to appreciate. Whether you are new to this music or a seasoned blues fan, these recordings are an amazing combination of music that can be enjoyed over and over again. The nuances and glimpses into what created our music over the years and up to today are here in these recordings. These bluesmasters gave us the roots of all of America’s popular music and having this huge collection to savor gives the listener a superb view of blues as it began to be put down on records. I most highly recommend these sets to new and old blues lovers. There is something on each CD for the listener to appreciate and the sets become a huge compendium of great music for the collections of listeners. Reviewer Steve Jones is president of the Crossroads Blues Society and is a long standing blues lover.
JAZZ JOURNAL Feb 2022
Matchbox Bluesmaster Series – Set 6
If you have read my previous reviews of this series, you will know by now that I am a big fan. Set 6 contains recordings by Papa Charlie Jackson, Memphis Jug Band, Barbecue Bob, Leecan and Cooksey, Roosevelt Sykes and the Mississippi Sheiks.
This one has more of a good-time feel than previous sets and opens with some splendid banjo playing by Papa Charlie Jackson. Jackson was prolific, with some 60 titles issued. Godrich & Dixon (Blues & Gospel Records 1902-1942) also list him as a session player with numerous other artists including Blind Blake, Ma Rainey and Big Bill Broonzy. The banjo is not the first instrument of choice when playing the blues. By default it adds a bouncier and more optimistic feel to the music. Jackson has a fine voice and was more than capable on the guitar; but it is his banjo playing that really stands out and the tracks Mama Don’t Allow It, Look Out Papa Don’t Tear Your Pants and Lexington Kentucky Blues are fine examples.
The Memphis Jug Band add more hokum to the set. One jug was all that was needed to convert a string band to a jug band and these bands generally had a sound closer to the minstrel shows and jazz, rather than the blues. However, the Memphis Jug Band was far more of a folk group, albeit an urban one. Notable tracks are Kansas City Blues, I Packed My suitcase and Jug Band Waltz.
Unknown to many, Barbecue Bob was (for a time) Columbia’s bestselling folk/blues artist. With a warm baritone voice and some accomplished guitar playing he was destined to have a good career. However, he died of influenza at the age of 29 and never survived long enough to be rediscovered in the 1960s. Goin’ Up The Country and Ease It To Me Blues are worth a close listen.
As a fan of the harmonica, I was particularly pleased to discover the work by Robert Cooksey. These sessions were recorded with Bobby Leecan on guitar and are a treat. However, little is known about the pair. Cookey’s harmonica playing is characterised by a pronounced warble, and phrasing closer to jazz than the blues. Roosevelt Sykes is far better known and better documented. He recorded with many artists as well as under his own name. He also adopted several pseudonyms to allow him to record with multiple recording houses. He was reported to be a natty dresser and acquired the nickname “The Honeydripper”. Despite this he was perceived as an intelligent, sensitive and imaginative musician. Black River Blues and Don’t Rush Yourself showcase his style nicely.
Last, but not least, are the Mississippi Sheiks. They featured extensively on Set 5 and made quite a reputation for themselves as a string band. They had by necessity a wide repertoire, as they played to audiences on both sides of the track. It is likely that their records were bought predominantly by a black audience, but they played extensively (but not exclusively) for white audiences. This was more common than is often thought possible today; but it required a skilful balancing act to succeed. The combination of fiddle and guitar runs played in a 19th-century waltz style was sure to get the crowds (on either side of the track) dancing.
Once again Matchbox have excelled themselves. As I have said previously, this music has appeal beyond the blues enthusiast and historian. It is the birthplace of all modern music and needs to be better appreciated. Thankfully, Matchbox and Nimbus are working hard to ensure that we all have easy access to it. The good news is that Matchbox are planning to release a further five volumes (each of 6 CDs) of all the earlier vinyl blues releases that Saydisc/Matchbox made or planned in the 1970s.
Ian Lomax
LONDON JAZZ NEWS SET 6 REVIEW
The sixth six-CD set in the Matchbox Bluesmaster Series is slightly more slanted towards ‘hokum’ music than previous sets, featuring the work of popular entertainers as well as that of more ‘pure’ blues artists, but like its predecessors it is a veritable goldmine, containing numerous priceless nuggets of early recorded music, all scrupulously annotated by world authority Paul Oliver.
Papa Charlie Jackson is unusual in that his preferred instrument is the banjo rather than the guitar (though three tracks here feature his limber guitar playing), and this gives his music a slightly vaudevillian flavour, appropriate for his work as an entertainer on medicine shows, where he’d play for hoochy-coochy dancers etc., using contemporary events and issues as inspiration for a number of his original songs. His has a pleasingly informal approach, his singing frequently interspersed with spoken interludes; as Oliver comments, he ‘never seemed to succumb to complaints… but told of scuffling and hardship with a wry, sometimes ironic humour’.
The Memphis Jug Band needs no introduction – anyone interested in early American music will doubtless already be familiar with such timeless classics as ‘Stealin’, Stealin’’, ‘Whitewash Station Blues’ and ‘Got a Letter from My Darlin’’ – but this selection features other vocalists as well as Will Shade, Ben Ramey and Will Weldon, among them the sweetly strident Jennie Clayton and Charlie ‘Bozo’ Nickerson. Their material, delivered with all their customary panache (featuring musical saw, kazoo, washboard as well as the jug), is anchored in blues, but also contains dance material and road-show standards, well loved by audiences keen to distract themselves from the vicissitudes associated with the Great Depression.
The CD featuring Barbecue Bob (Robert Hicks) begins with ‘When the Saints Go Marching in’, a relatively uncommon selection at the time (though it has subsequently become the anthem of the New Orleans Revival), and continues with another religious number, ‘Jesus’ Blood Can Make Me Whole’, but the singer is clearly more at ease with secular titles such as ‘Easy Rider, Don’t You Deny My Name’ or the hokum of ‘It Won’t be Long Now’, a humorous song performed with his older brother Charley, who taught him to play guitar. Barbecue Bob has a warm baritone voice and an eclectic repertoire, so his premature death at 29 from pneumonia robbed the music of a potential great.
Leecan & Cooksey are Bobby Leecan (guitar) and Robert Cooksey (harmonica), and most of the cuts on their CD are duets (apart from a solo ‘Blind Bobbie Baker’ version of the classic ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out’), all addressed with considerable brio, if no great subtlety. They also collaborated with cornet player Tom Morris in the Dixie Jassers Washboard Band, who provide the last four items in this lively, intriguing selection.
Roosevelt Sykes is another familiar name, here caught at the beginning of a fifty-year career. Professional to his fingertips, he clearly hit his stride early (he is in his mid-twenties on these sessions), dispensing an easy-rolling piano which perfectly complements both his own engaging singing and that of others included here, such as Isabel Sykes, Charlie McFadden and Carl Rafferty. As Oliver points out, Sykes was ‘unusual among blues singers for he had an outgoing disposition and a… generally optimistic outlook’, and his inclusion in this set brings welcome emotional variety to the proceedings.
The Mississippi Sheiks are a family string band with rural origins featuring Bo Carter (Chatmon) and Walter Vinson among others, and their repertoire is fascinatingly broad-based, including songs about everything from Prohibition to automobiles and the numbers racket. The violin playing of Lonnie Chatmon is, admittedly, not particularly tuneful, but if the band are somewhat lacking in strict musicality they more than make up for it with the spirit and energy of their performances.
This is the penultimate issue in a seven-set series, but Saydisc are to continue their admirable reissuing policy with a further five volumes (each of six CDs) of Matchbox 1970s blues releases (including Library of Congress recordings), field recordings and some unissued material.
Chris Parker