BLUES JUNCTION Productions
7343 El Camino Real
Suite 327
Atascadero, CA 93422-4697
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Here is a baker’s dozen worth of CD reissues from the one and only Charlie Lange. As Charlie might say this is just a bunch of brand-new, old noise that is long past its expiration date. I say, great music is timeless and fun. Charlie just had a milestone birthday and is on vacation. Buy some CDs and give him something to do when he gets back.
This CD is a re-release of two Black Magic CDs from the 1990's. Smokey Wilson & The William Clarke Band and Hard Times - An LA Blues Anthology. These recordings pre-date Bill's recordings for Alligator and feature the cream of the scene - Rick Holmstrom, Hollywood Fats, Fred Kaplan, Tyler Pedersen, Zach Zunis, George Smith and Johnny Dyer as well as the great rhythm machine of Willie Brimlee and Eddie "Lips" Clark. These are some of the best of the west in the 1990's. If you don't have them, don't miss this release.
Willie Egans recorded in Southern California during the height of rock & roll popularity and his recordings reflect the wild spirit of the times. His boogie piano style was influenced by earlier masters such as Amos Milburn, Little Willie Littlefield and Camille Howard. Featuring a hopped-up band, he recorded for the tiny Spry, Vita and Mambo labels out of Pasadena. He also made some uncredited appearances on a budget label, Dig This Record, which covered popular tunes of the day. (credited here to Bernie Bridges, Willie Snow, Two Crows & The Diggers). His guitarist on these sides was Lloyd Rowe whose aggressive and bright solos are a high point of the recordings.
Homesick James, cousin of Elmore James, was an important element in the Chicago blues club scene throughout the 1950s and 60s and Cousin Leroy was a mainstay of the New York blues club scene with an uncanny ability to emulate the early electric Chicago blues sound. Many of these recordings have rarely been available for the past 40 years and it's great to have them collected here.
Todd Rhodes band was largely an instrumental outfit of seasoned jazz and blues players. This 30-track CD is compiled to spotlight the great singers who recorded with the band, from the well-known Lavern Baker, Wynonie Harris, Dave Bartholomew and Lonnie Johnson to the more obscure Louie Saunders, Pinocchio James, Emmitt Slay and Connie Allen; the latter infamous for the risqué Rocket 69, while Wynonie suggests Keep On Churnin' ('Til The Butter Comes) and his final hit, Lovin' Machine. Great good time sounds from a band that would become associated on sessions with the early Tamla/Motown label.
After Otis Blackwell and Jesse Stone, Leroy Kirkland is perhaps the most prestigious Black R&B composer. He served with Erskine Hawkins, Cootie Williams and Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey in their orchestras. Coming into his own in 1954, he became a key figure along with Sam 'The Man' Taylor in the Alan Freed Orchestra. He later wrote for The Clovers, Etta James and Maxine Brown for whom he composed best sellers like Good Lovin', Stop The Wedding and All In My Mind. This first-time release of some of Kirkland's most significant work includes many of his best-known successes.
This compilation comprises his two rare LPs, Good Times (1960) and Mouth Harp Blues (1961), both recorded for Prestige/Bluesville, plus an earlier, one-off 45rpm for Artistic (1958), a subsidiary label of Cobra Records. On his Artistic 45rpm he was backed by the Willie Dixon Band, whose personnel included guitarists Magic Sam (who was Shakey Jake's nephew) and Freddie King. His Prestige/Bluesville LPs feature sidemen like guitarists Bill Jennings and Jimmy Lee Robinson, organist Brother Jack McDuff, pianist Robert Banks, bassist Leonard Gaskin and drummer Junior Blackman.
A powerful, pounding piano player and singer, Big Al Downing recorded one the greatest unsung Rock & Roll tracks of all time, Down On The Farm, in 1958. He went on to enjoy a remarkable career, in which he tasted fame and success across several different musical genres. This 30-track compilation focuses on his Rock & Roll years, between 1958-62, during which he operated predominantly as an impersonator of Little Richard and Fats Domino. In addition to his own recordings during this period, Downing also appears as a sideman, playing piano on five of Wanda Jackson's most rocking sides.
The flamboyant Bobby Marchan (born Oscar James Gibson) was an R&B/Soul singer, songwriter, bandleader, MC and female impersonator, who enjoyed successes both solo and as the occasional singer with Huey 'Piano' Smith & The Clowns. This compilation is drawn from Marchan's solo recordings for Johnny Vincent's Ace and Bobby Robinson's Fire labels between 1954-62, and feature some of the earliest examples of soul music on record as well as some hard rockin' New Orleans R&B.
The collection contains recordings he made for the New Orleans Minit label between 1959 and 1962 including those on his first, and only, LP during that time along with two bonus tracks from 1955 and 1959 respectively that he made for the Specialty and Ember labels. The accompanying booklet includes the story of Ernie K-Doe's career before, during and after his time on the charts and includes label scans and other memorabilia.
Here are 29 examples of hard blues recorded in New York, a city certainly not normally associated with blues. The “In Session” series sees the spotlight turned on several players as opposed to just one. Great names like Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, Bob Gaddy & Larry Dale got the majority of available studio work and across this compilation you can follow in a chronological order and see just how prolific they were. Amazing guitar, jumping bands and super songs make this set a treat.
This two CD set includes a couple different JSP releases: Brewer Phillips' 1982 release Whole Lotta Blues and Hound Dog Taylor’s Live At Florences from 1981. Also included are 1962-63 Hound Dog recordings for the Colyt and Firma labels with Lafayette Leake, including a couple unissued sides from that period. There are also four tracks featuring Lefty Dizz with The Houserockers live from Florences in 1969-70. This is a mixed bag of high energy ignorance.
Gospel singer Linda Hayes' short secular career got off to a great start with a pair of major R&B hits, Yes! I Know (What You're Putting Down) (the answer-disc to Willie Mabon's I Don't Know), which reached #2 and Take Me Back, which made the Top 10, both in 1953. She was famously the older sister of Tony Williams, the mellifluous lead singer of The Platters, of which Linda was also briefly an early member. This landmark compilation features just about everything that she is believed to have recorded during the 1950s, notably four sides from her impossibly rare 1954 10' acetate LP Disc Jockey Special, dubbed from the only known source, which have never been reissued before in any format.
Scat Man Crothers was a multi-talented entertainer of the old school. In addition to acting, he sang, danced, did comedy and played a number of musical instruments, including drums, ukulele and guitar. Born Benjamin Sherman Crothers on May 23, 1910, at fifteen he got a job playing drums in a local speakeasy. Four years later he was touring the Midwest and wound up in Dayton, Ohio, where he found a job on radio station WFMK, where his style of singing earned him the name Scat Man. His career gained momentum in 1943 with a booking at Chicago’s Capitol Lounge, and from there, he was off to Hollywood and Billy Berg’s famous Swing Club. Things slowed down after the war, until he recorded Dead Man’s Blues for Capitol in 1948, the same year he became the first black performer to host a TV Program in Los Angeles. Playing as a single at the Oasis club, his big break came in 1952 when producer Albert J. Cohen offered him a part in his upcoming movie, Meet Me at the Fair, which started Crother’s extensive film career, including such classics as The Shining and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. But TV was where Crothers really found fame, beginning with Disney’s The Aristocats. Until his death in 1986, he participated on countless shows, a work which earned him a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Billy Vera contributes a well-documented 20-page booklet.
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BLUES JUNCTION Productions
7343 El Camino Real
Suite 327
Atascadero, CA 93422-4697
info