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Includes fully illustrated booklet. ‘You might think that when you’ve been around for a long time and love music as much as we all do at Blues Matters, that we might become a little blasé receiving CDs to review. You’d be wrong...This is a staggering project, a sheer delight...You can stick a pin in anywhere and come up with a gem of a recording. What these records will present to even the most avid R&B aficionado is a revelation... lifting the lid on a buried treasure chest of arcane recordings, all in a style decades ahead of their time... Every one of these tracks is utterly satisfying. If you’re a true R&B fan, you will not experience a finer collection this year or any other. Exhilarating, educational, historical, but above all, extremely musical, a complete evening’s unforgettable R&B entertainment...Think you know your blues history? Think again. As this has taught me, you’re never too old to learn.’ ROY BAINTON Blues Matters RANDB023 -
This 4 CD set has been really good to hear. We are treated to the original artists at the top of their game…What better way to spend nearly six hours…A fine release. Keith Scoffham Blues & Rhythm This box set is a companion piece to the 8CD set From Sacred To Secular: A Soul Awakening, which traced the history of soul music from its earliest antecedents in 1927 right up to the first true soul records released in 1962. Here we continue the story from 1962 up to the end of the decade, covering a large portion of soul music’s Golden Age with 100 tracks by soul’s greatest 60s superstars (from Aretha Franklin to Stevie Wonder) and a whole host of “lesser” names whose contribution to the musical genre shouldn’t be overlooked. The CDs cover all of soul’s many styles from early doo-wop and R&B influenced music to the funk grooves which were to prove so popular in the 70s. Other harbingers of the coming decade can be found here in the first sweet-soul Philly sounds from the Delfonics and Intruders, early funk rock (Sly & The Family Stone) and Chicago’s renaissance via Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions. But this Soul Chronology differs from almost every other soul selection in that all the tracks on it are taken from live performances rather than vinyl sources. These sounds are both more immediate and more personal than the records that may well be more familiar to listeners. The production values may be lower than original recordings due to the technological limitations of the period but in their place come the vibrancy of a live act, its intimacy and its raw impact, factors that don’t usually come through via vinyl or CD. And there is no place to hide in a live environment - the musicians and singers are able to show just how talented they were without any added tricks or enhancements that studio producers could offer. So if you want to know just how good the soul musicians and singers in the 60s really were, just check out these CDs. You may be amazed but you certainly won’t be disappointed! These compilation CDs are a true 'must have'…this indispensable music history document…belongs in the record collection of everyone who is fond of music. Rootstime This 4 CD set has been really good to hear. We are treated to the original artists at the top of their game…What better way to spend nearly six hours…A fine release. Keith Scoffham Blues & Rhythm -
An exemplary tribute to an unjustly neglected figure - Richard Williams A perfect potted history of the period - Dave Gelly, The Observer An overdue recognition of the genius of Harry South and the world class calibre of the musicians he worked with. An important landmark in British Jazz and indispensable to any collection. – Eddie Little Superb tribute to a stalwart jazz pianist,composer and arranger. Excellent booklet notes by saxophonist Simon Spillett. Highly recommended – Amazon Superbly annotated, this is a reissue of exemplary quality – Peter Vacher, Jazz Rag The Songbook is the definitive Harry South release…makes a strong case for South’s musical contributions to jazz…Lovers of modern big band jazz will find much to discover in this well-conceived set. Scott Yanow - The New York City Jazz Record RANDB040 -
Here’s a selection of cracking R&B instrumentals, and scarcely a chart hit amongst them. Guitar-led rockers from the West Coast, with fiery picking and heavy blues/rock riffs from Johnny Talbot, Travis Wammack and Roy Buchanan and some early fuzzbox action from Lou Josie of the Ho-Dads. There’s Louisiana sounds from Mac “Dr. John” Rebennack and Robert Parker with Mid-West guitar grooves by Tommy Tucker, Freddy King and Little Milton. Up in New York, you’ve got B.B. King, Wild Jimmy Spruill, and King Curtis blowing out on Soul Train. Dave Lewis and The Exotics were from Seattle and there’s even a Canadian group, future comedian Tommy Chong’s Little Daddy & The Bachelors. These are the records Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Dave Davies, Jeff Beck et al were listening to in 1964. An extra 2CD set is available as a free bonus only if bought direct from us. RANDB053 Sheer eye-opening delight…Its absolute playability is amazing. There’s little need to press the skip button, just sit back and enjoy. Alan Taylor Pipeline -
An excellent invitation to this ground-breaking music. Well worth tracking down. Gary Von Tersch Big City Rhythm & Blues R&B records is one of those dedicated labels which just keeps on giving. The first five volumes of this assiduously researched and compiled series have been an utter revelation, opening up corners of R&B history many of us never knew existed. Seeing as the term ‘R&B’ wasn’t invented in 1938, some of us could be forgiven for imagining that the genre we later became familiar with didn’t stretch back past the 1940s. How wrong we’d be. Throughout this amazing collection there’s more great names than you can shake a stick at. Spending an evening in with this quartet of discs and a few beers is a fine way to spend your time - and there are new names here offering new thrills. And all this, before I was born. Those were the days, indeed. Essential listening! Roy Bainton Blues Matters Now here we are really talking about going back to the roots with World War II lurking just around the corner…there is a sense of early rock'n'roll with The Golden Gate Jubilee and Bob Wills…Big Noise From Winnetka with Bauduc & Haggard is really Big Noise with is a stand-up bass that any rockabilly bassist in the world would be jealous of…The raw guitar sound on Blind Boy Fuller’s "You've Got To Move It On" I think will never be recreated... After listening through the collection you should understand how everything is interrelated. How Chuck Berry got his sound and how, among other things, Beatles and Rolling Stones became what they became. A collection of canons in my opinion and a booklet accompanies the records where there is very good info about the artists and the groups. Jonas Andersson American Music Magazine I have listened to almost nothing but this chronology in the past evenings, but I still feel that I have only just been knocking at the door of a rich treasure trove. Famous names and well-known songs are alternated with rare and unexpected tracks on the four CDs. What makes these sets so special is that they are not a dry and dusty exercise in musical archeology. What they present will be a revelation even for the most enthusiastic R & B enthusiast. Eric Schuurmans Rootsville RANDB047 -
With 8 page booklet ‘You might think that when you’ve been around for a long time and love music as much as we all do at Blues Matters, that we might become a little blasé receiving CDs to review. You’d be wrong...This is a staggering project, a sheer delight...You can stick a pin in anywhere and come up with a gem of a recording. What these records will present to even the most avid R&B aficionado is a revelation... lifting the lid on a buried treasure chest of arcane recordings, all in a style decades ahead of their time... Every one of these tracks is utterly satisfying. If you’re a true R&B fan, you will not experience a finer collection this year or any other. Exhilarating, educational, historical, but above all, extremely musical, a complete evening’s unforgettable R&B entertainment...Think you know your blues history? Think again. As this has taught me, you’re never too old to learn.’ ROY BAINTON Blues Matters RANDB031 DVD style casing Produced as CD-R (professionally manufactured recordable CD printed for short run) as opposed to CD-P (professionally manufactured pressed CDs made in quantities of 500+). All CDs whether CD-R or CD-P are 100% guaranteed error free. Discs will always be replaced if any problems are encountered. -
Includes fully illustrated 24 page booklet. Clarksdale, Mississippi: birthplace of Ike Turner, Sam Cooke, John Lee Hooker and Son House and home to five taverns visited by Library of Congress researcher Lewis Wade Jones in 1941. In each of these taverns, the Chicken Shack, the Dipsie Doodle, Lucky's, the Messenger's Cafe, and the New Africa, a jukebox. In each jukebox, a choice of records, painstakingly listed by Jones, who figured it was worth it. And now, sitting down in the comfort of your own home, you can pull yourself a beer and listen to the sounds that a 29 year-old Muddy Waters from nearby Stovall might have heard on a night out in Clarksdale on 9th September, 1941. Thanks, Lewis! After reading the impeccable illustrated booklet, all that’s left is to close th eyes, leaving for Clarksdale in 1941, push open the door to any tavern and slip a coin into the music box...magic! Le Pied It’s a brilliant idea, but of course, it stands or falls by the quality of the music on offer. But it stands...boy does it stand...this is blues as pure unadulterated joy...the history crackles from the speakers and blues fans – and indeed fans of good music generally – should beat a path to this album forthwith. Jeremy Searle R2 This is not only a great collection of music it's a significant historical document. A delightful and truly fascinating collection. Frank Scott Roots & Rhythm Overall across the four discs (77 +, 76 +, 74 +, 75 + minutes each) the sound is good/bordering on very good--especially for so many recordings from several labels--recorded from 1938-1941. While the sound has been cleaned up it still has that period warmth and feel which adds to the authenticity. There's occasional surface noise but nothing that gets in the way of enjoying the music. The 18 page booklet has details for each single--title, composer, artist, label, recording date--plus an essay reprinted from 1971 that includes pertinent information about the music/era, and a few photos of performers and other pertinent ephemera. This set is worth five "stars" not only because of the music/artists found that day, but also for the Rhythm and Blues label having the foresight and the chestnuts to release something as important as this. Blues fans looking for authentic music, the kind that patrons of those five clubs listened to using their hard earned nickels in juke boxes, as they drank with friends will find many surprises found on those juke boxes. This collection is from a two year field study of culture in the Mississippi Delta region during the summers of '41 and '42 in conjunction with the Archive of American Folk Song--Library of Congress & Fisk University. If you're a deep blues fan read "Lost Delta Found" and there you'll see one section that lists "Records on Machines in Clarksdale Amusement Places", that lists all the songs. Obviously this collection is the real-deal authentic music heard in that region (and no doubt other areas) in the 1940's. There's no guess work, no random inclusion of songs/performers that fit comfortably in the "juke joint" mould of what people may envision as from that era. Because of the authenticity of the cultural study and Jones' work, this is one of the most important (and eye-opening) collections of music in the blues genre. Plus it makes for darn good listening. Blues fans/blues scholars will have a field day with this fine set--it upsets what many of us thought "juke joint music" was. But the juke box changed all that. It's the music that working people heard after a day of hard work while drinking and relaxing with their friends. On all accounts this collection has to be one of the most authentic, important releases in the blues genre for 2016. Many tracks aren't what people may think of as juke joint music, but the juke box ushered in a new era of music in taverns and local joints all across the South. But more than that--it's just great music. Stuart Jefferson Amazon RANDB036 BONUS CD also available
