Rare 1970 album produced by Johnny Otis featuring the stinging guitar of his son Shuggie – with two previously unissued bonus tracks Bluesman Slim Green made very few records in a career that started in 1948 and ended with this LP in 1970. Born Norman G. Green in Bryant, Texas in 1920, he grew up in Oklahoma and played guitar in Las Vegas before settling in Los Angeles in the late 1940s. He made his first records in 1948 for local labels. Listening to them suggests a player full of country influences, updating them for a modern urban audience. He reappeared a decade later in a group called the Cats From Fresno, who made two singles for Johnny Otis’ Dig label, a contact he renewed in the late 60s. Johnny Otis, a pioneer of post-war R&B, had scored hits as a producer and recording artist as well as being a renowned talent-spotter. Having dropped out of sight for much of the 1960s, he returned to the studio in the latter part of the decade and released a series of records for the Kent label, distinguished by the guitar playing of his teenage son Shuggie.
A deluxe three-disc set summing up Otis' pre-Hand Jive days as an R&B bandleader of some renown who employed various singers on a number of singles for the Savoy label. The recording debuts of the Robins, Little Esther Phillips, Mel Walker, guitarist Pete Lewis, and Linda Hopkins are all here, and you hear how Otis kept his ear to the ground, changing and moving to keep pace with a big-band scene that was slowly dying out, while making some marvelous DIY records along the way. Incredible notes from Billy Vera make this a box set well worth having in the collection.
Die ultimative Blues Kollektion vom Mississippi bis in die Metropolen. In dieser Box befinden sich die Aufnahmen von 100 legendaren Bines Grossen. Die Stile, die Ausstrahlung, die Geschichten und naturlich die geniale Ausubung ihrer Kunst machten sie einzigartig und beeinflussten Generationen nachfolgender Kunstler. Die altesten Mitglieder wurden Ende des 19ten Jahrhunderts geboren, die jungsten unter ihnen spielen noch heute live in ausverkauften Hausern. Die Musik in dieser Box wird Sie befliueln oder erden, zum Tanzen oder Weinen bewegen. Egal oh Zweisamkeit oder in einsamen Stunden: eines ist sicher: Der Blues lebt weiter!
Pianist Otis Spann played in Muddy Waters' band from 1953 to 1970, and was instrumental in creating the electric Chicago blues sound. These 11 tracks were recorded in the mid-'60s by Down Beat magazine editor Pete Welding, and were previously released as Otis Spann's Chicago Blues on Testament Records. This reissue omits the solo Spann material from the original disc and highlights the group recordings featuring S.P. Leary, Johnny Young, James Cotton, Willie Dixon, and Muddy Waters. While not as revolutionary as the records Spann played on with Muddy in the late '50s, you can't deny this lineup of seminal Chicago bluesmen doing what they did best.
If compiler Neil Slaven was an axe hero, he says he would favour a Danelectro Guitarlin, with its longhorn body, its lipstick pickups and coke-bottle machine head. Perhaps he d settle for the red Gretsch Duo-Jet Bo Diddley sported on his first album cover. That puts him out of step with most of the guitarists gathered on Deep Feeling. Albert King favoured the Flying V, Buddy Guy liked the metallic clatter of a Strat and Muddy Waters slashed his slide down a Telecaster neck. Semi-acoustics were the name of the game for the average blues guitarist. B.B. King and Little Milton took an early shine to the Gibson ES-335 (our cover star incidentally, in rare original watermelon cherry finish), although B s Lucille was actually a slimline 355…
The ideal gift for a music lover is for sure a nice compilation. Rock & Folk released this year a compilation of the best rock songs of the 50s and 60s. A person who is a fan of rock, it is very easily. A person who still listens to CDs in his car is easy to find too. A person who prefers to have a beautiful object rather than an iTunes prepaid card, there is a shovel.
Here is a gift that can please a person who mixes these three aspects. Indeed, Rock & Folk releases its traditional compilation of end of year and looks this year on the origins of rock.