Glad we Met

Stingingly sweet slide guitar and barrelhouse piano come to life on this spontaneously authentic and passionate recording from these seasoned blues veterans. "This recording contains thirteen of those songs just as they sounded that Sunday when they were recorded live at Mojo Boneyard Studios. This is how the band sounds at any number of clubs in and around the Pittsburgh area. These are all first takes and a fair representation of the energy and spontaneous creativity that the band exhibits when we’re swinging out in the clubs. I had a good time making music with these fine musicians and I'm glad we captured some of it on this recording. It’s been a long time comin" ~ Jimmy Adler

Dubbed "The First Lady of Song," Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums.
Her voice was flexible, wide-ranging, accurate and ageless. She could sing sultry ballads, sweet jazz and imitate every instrument in an orchestra. She worked with all the jazz greats, from Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Nat King Cole, to Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Goodman. (Or rather, some might say all the jazz greats had the pleasure of working with Ella).

More impressive than Shorty's British venture thanks to superior production values and a better handle on his past (there's a stellar remake of "Hard Life"), Topsy Turvy made it clear that Guitar Shorty was back to stay stateside. Black Top assembled a fine New Orleans combo for the majority of the album, as Shorty proved that his act translates beautifully to record minus the crowd-pleasing acrobatic antics. When he's not turning somersaults, doing backward flips, and standing on his head – all while playing, of course – Guitar Shorty is prone to cutting loose with savagely slashing licks on his instrument. Live, he's simply amazing – and after some lean years, his latter-day albums for Black Top, Evidence, and Alligator have proven that all that energy translates vividly onto tape.

Fats Domino - I've Been Around: The Complete Imperial and ABC-Paramount Recordings (2019) {12CD Set, Bear Family BCD17579}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 4.11 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 1.67 Gb
Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 26 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1948-65, 2015 Bear Family Records | BCD 17579
Early Rhythm & Blues / Rock & Roll / New Orleans R&B / Swamp-Pop / Piano Blues

We could have taken the easy way out. The original 1993 box set was out of stock. We could simply have printed more copies and filled orders. Of course, we didn’t. This is Bear Family Records and we don’t take shortcuts. We’ve invested more than 1000 hours in re-writing, recompiling and re-mastering this box. The brilliant engineering by Christian Zwarg will leave you shaking your head in admiration. You won’t quite recognize some of your favorite Fats Domino tracks because they’ve never sounded this good.