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Music > Blues
Drummer, vocalist, and bandleader Roy Milton was born of Chickasaw
Native and African-American parents on a reservation near
Wynnewood, OK, in 1907. He grew up in Tulsa, got involved in the
music scene there, migrated to California, and put together his
first working band, the Solid Senders, in 1938. This first volume
in the Classics Roy Milton chronology presents all of his earliest
recordings, which predate his debut on Specialty Records in 1947.
Right from the first few notes of pianist Camille Howard's
introduction to "I'll Always Be in Love with You," it is clear why
Lionel Hampton hastened to give Milton his first break by letting
him cut four sides for the Hamp-Tone record label in September of
1945. This little band, with a gutsy front line of trumpeters Jimmy
Nottingham and Hosea Sapp alongside growling tenor saxophonist
Lorenzo "Buddy" Floyd, was firmly supported by Dave Robinson's
walking string bass. The producers of this compilation were able to
splice together the two parts of "Burma Road Blues," originally
bifurcated for issue on both sides of a 78-rpm platter. The
resulting seamless six-minute performance is a sobering testimonial
describing a soldier's plight in the Pacific during World War II.
Singing lyrics apparently written by Lionel Hampton, Milton
describes leaving San Francisco when "everything was in bloom,"
landing in Australia, preparing for armed conflict in the
Philippines, and ending up in Burma where the sky appeared to be on
fire. Camille Howard proves herself a formidable boogie-woogie
pianist capable of turning in the occasional tidy vocal. When
Milton's band reassembled to wax four sides for the Juke Box label
in December 1945, he had added alto saxophonist Earl Simms and cut
down to one trumpeter, Hosea Sapp, an accomplished expressive
manipulator of the mute. "Rhythm Cocktail" sounds like it came
right out of the John Kirby Sextet band book. Both "Milton's
Boogie" and "R.M. Blues" made it onto the Billboard R&B chart
during the year 1946, Milton's first year as a record company owner
and producer. Heard here in numerical sequence, 17 tracks document
the very beginnings of Milton's record label, with ex-Basie alto
saxophonist Caughey Roberts replacing Earl Simms. This allows
listeners to enjoy a fairly unprecedented quantity of meaty alto
sax solos from Roberts, who only made it onto eight studio
recordings with Basie before being replaced by Earle Warren in
early 1937. There are a few remakes of earlier recordings and a
whole lot of pleasant surprises in this mixed bag of danceable
blues, ballads, and swing. The closing track, a swell version of
"My Blue Heaven" (with the mischievously altered lyric "...and the
baby makes eight") issued on Special Records in 1946, appears to
have been recorded live with additional doo wop backing by an
unidentified squad of cool vocalists. ~ arwulf arwulf
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Bluesmaster
(CD)
Z.Z. Hill; Recorded by Z.Z. Hill
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R347
Discovery Miles 3 470
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Out of stock
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Bad Influence CD (1990)
(CD)
Robert Cray; Contributions by Bill Dashiell; Produced by Dennis Walker, Phillip Walker, Bruce Bromberg
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R275
Discovery Miles 2 750
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Out of stock
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