Record Boy Ink:

 BLUES ROUND UP ’99 (Part II)

On Blues Routes (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings) listeners are treated to an almanac of live blues performances. Slave songs, work songs, country blues, electric blues, Mardi Gras, zydeco, jazz and even a little rap! This collection of performances recorded between 1990 and 1996 features seventeen different artists including the Gandy Dancers, Cephas & Wiggins, Boozoo Chavis, Booker T. Laury, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Guitar Junior & Pinetop Perkins and Joe Louis Walker to name a few. Amazing performances abound from the likes of Claude Williams smooth “That Certain Someone” featuring his supple jazz violin work, to Sammy Price’s Ellingtonesque “Harlem Parlor Blues” and Booker T. Laury’s incredible driving piano and intense vocal styling on “Early in the Morning”.  There’s 100 plus years of blues history to be found in the performances of the Gandy Dancers “Rooster Call”, Cephas and Wiggins “John Henry”, Abner Jay’s “Bluetail Fly” and the Georgia Sea Island Singer’s “Hambone, Where you been?” Joe Louis Walker ably represents the excitement of modern electric blues on “Bluesifyin’” plus, if you really need to have some fun, included in this collection is the rollicking “Sew, Sew, Sew” by the White Cloud Hunters Mardi Gras Indians. This is a great collection of songs and performances that Record Boy suggests that you make the first CD you purchase online (just go to wanna buy some music? below and buy it!)

The best of the late Johnny Copeland’s output for Rounder records has been collected on Honky Tonkin’  (Bullseye). Johnny was one of the great gruff voiced blues singers hailing from Texas. He had great tone on his guitar (check out “Everybody wants a Piece of Me”) and was a passionate soloist (check out “Honky Tonkin’”) as well as a prolific writer. Man, he sounded great fronting a band with horns (check out “Devil’s Hand”) but he could rock in smaller band settings as well like on “Texas Party,” “Blues Ain’t Nothin’” and “Don’t Stop by the creek, son” (which features Stevie Ray Vaughan). Included on this album is the spirited tune “Kasavubu” which Copeland recorded in Africa with Congolese musicians and is purported to be the first recording of an American blues musician with African musicians. Johnny Clyde Copeland was one hell of a bluesman and this collection supplies ample evidence of that. Honky Tonkin’ is a great tribute to another one who left us too soon.