Aside from the Louvins and the Delmores, few other postwar vocal duos had the power and consistently high quality of the brother-in-law team of Johnny Wright and Jack Anglin. They started working together on various Southern radio stations before World War II. The war split them but they reunited afterward with Johnnie's wife Muriel (future legend Kitty Wells) singing in the band. In 1947 they joined the Opry and made their first records for the R & B-oriented Apollo label. This superb collection starts with the beautiful What About You from their first session for RCA in January 1949 and ends with their last Decca recording You'll Never Get A Better Chance Than This from March 1962 , a year before Anglin's tragic 1963 death in a car crash the same day he was to attend Patsy Cline's funeral.
These 20 CDs comprise over 25 hours of music captured on-stage in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s at KWKH’s legendary Louisiana Hayride radio show. Staged live in Shreveport, the Hayride featured national country music stars, soon-to-be legends, regional break-outs, and talented newcomers. Most of this music has not been heard since the day it was broadcasted.
Here's a new Jasmine 2CD compilation that will stir a memory or two in the minds of all long-term lovers of what used to be called 'Country And Western'.
Volume #7 and 8 in this amazing series of slow grinding R&B/Soul/Exotica tunes as they are being played in a club in Melbourne/Australia. Around midnight on the last Saturday of every month, an assemblage of juiceheads, grifters, kittens, dandies and derelicts gather in a dimly-lit, smoke-filled room and dance together real slow. These are some of the records we dance to… Thanks to all the flute players and backing singers of yore for flavouring these old records up just like we like them. –Stag-O-Lee Records
Once upon a time it was virtually unheard of for musical performers to write their own songs. That was the province of a separate breed, the professional songwriters who worked for music publishers in New York's Brill Building, or else touted their wares down the Tin Pan Alleys of the world. Essential to the whole process were the vocalists, because someone had to sing the songs.These were often under contract with a specific dance band. In the parlance of the day, these singers were often referred to as 'crooners'. The hundred tracks on this 4-CD set are mostly drawn from the 1950s and early 1960s - largely a mixture of standards from the pens of classic songwriters like Cole Porter and George Gershwin, as well as showtunes taken from musicals like My Fair Lady and Showboat.
This 52-disc (no, that is not a typo) comp, ABC of the Blues: The Ultimate Collection from the Delta to the Big Cities, may just indeed live up to its name. There are 98 artists represented , performing 1,040 tracks. The music begins at the beginning (though the set is not sequenced chronologically) with Charlie Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson, and moves all the way through the vintage Chicago years of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, with stops along the way in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, New York, and all points in between. Certainly, some of these artists are considered more rhythm & blues than purely blues artists: the inclusion of music by Johnny Otis, Wynonie Harris, Bo Diddley, and others makes that clear…