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Music > Blues
With an elegant piano style and a smooth voice that made him sound
a little bit like a gruffer Nat King Cole, Charles Brown's
jazz-tinged blues is the perfect music for a late-night wind-down.
Unfortunately, as this disc of late sides cut for Aladdin Records
shows, much of his material worked from the same template, an
unhurried tempo that, although effective in small doses, just sort
of blends together over the long haul, so much so that when the
midtempo "Gee!" hits here at the middle of the set, it almost feels
like speed metal. Still, this is a worthwhile compilation, because
what Brown did well, he did very well, and underneath everything
was that wonderful, jazzy piano style, which was central to the
sound of West Coast blues. ~ Steve Leggett
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Baton Rouge
(CD)
Larry Garner; Recorded by Larry Garner
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R344
Discovery Miles 3 440
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Out of stock
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Back To Back
(CD)
Joe Bellamy, Detlev Hoegen, Jerry Hall, Richard Duran; Performed by Lynwood Slim And Junior Watson
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R332
Discovery Miles 3 320
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Out of stock
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There are a couple of names here, like Memphis Minnie and Lucille
Bogan, that will be familiar to fans of the early blues on this
interesting collection of female blues singers who recorded between
1923 and 1930, but most of these singers will be unknown to all but
the most serious blues scholars and collectors. Most of them
recorded sparingly, often cutting only the two sides of a single
78, before vanishing into the mists of history, remaining now only
as vocal ghosts in the digital glow of the 21st century. Those
voices, however, remain amazingly powerful, and the honest
coarseness and barely veiled sexual themes of these songs is oddly
refreshing and hopeful, and the directness of some of these sides
seems bold even by today's standards. The little-known Margaret
Johnson is a case in point. Her two-sided 78, which included the
to-the-point-and-suffer-no-fools "Dead Drunk Blues," a song that
could only be called a blues dirge, and the bright-sounding (but
not really) "Second-Handed Blues," explores the universal themes of
the wages and costs of love with all the subtlety of a hammer
thrown through a pane of glass. The directness is startling,
revealing, redemptive, and even a little frightening. In other
words, it's everything the blues should be. ~ Steve Leggett
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Morning Sun
(CD)
Diana Braithwaite, C. Whiteley
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R386
Discovery Miles 3 860
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Out of stock
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Lovejoy CD (1990)
(CD)
Albert King; Contributions by Peter Nichols; Produced by Don Nix
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R313
Discovery Miles 3 130
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Out of stock
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Gifted
(CD)
Willie Clayton
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R347
Discovery Miles 3 470
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Out of stock
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