Details
Track Listing
DISC 1:
1. Standin' in the Rain Blues
2. It Won't Be You
3. Spider Man Blues
4. Empty Bed Blues (Part 1)
5. Empty Bed Blues (Part 2)
6. Put It Right Here
7. Yes Indeed He Do!
8. Devil's Gonna Get You
9. You Ought to Be Ashamed
10. Washwoman's Blues
11. Slow and Easy Man
12. Poor Man's Blues
13. Please Help Me Get Him Out of My Mind
14. Me and My Gin
15. I'm Wild About That Thing
16. You've Got to Give Some
17. Kitchen Man
18. I've Got What It Takes (But It Breaks My Heart to Give It Away)
19. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
20. Take It Right Back ('Cause I Don't Want It Here)
DISC 2:
1. He's Got Me Goin'
2. It Makes My Love Come Down
3. Wasted Life Blues
4. Dirty No-Gooder's Blues
5. Blue Spirit Blues
6. Worn Out Papa Blues
7. You Don't Understand
8. Don't Cry Baby
9. Keep It to Yourself
10. New Orleans Hop Scop Blues
11. See If I'll Care
12. Baby Have Pity on Me
13. On Revival Day (A Rhythmic Spiritual)
14. Moan, You Moaners
15. Hustlin' Dan
16. Black Mountain Blues
17. In the House Blues
18. Long Old Road
19. Blue Blues
20. Shipwreck Blues
Album Notes
Personnel includes: Bessie Smith (vocals); Abraham Wheat (clarinet, soprano saxophone); Ernest Elliott (clarinet, alto & tenor saxophones); Bob Fuller (clarinet); Gavin Bushnell (alto saxophone); Demas Dean (cornet); Charlie Green (trombone); Cyrus St. Clair (tuba); Fred Longshaw, Porter Grainger, Clarence Williams, James P. Johnson (piano); The Bessemer Singers (background singers).
Recorded between 1928 and 1931.
This is part of Legacy's Roots N' Blues series.
By the late '20s, Bessie Smith's recordings had become much more well-rounded musical experiences than her first sides, which were essentially vocal recitals with minimal piano accompaniment. Smith recorded a slew of piano/vocal duets in the fall of 1929 with James P. Johnson, one of the leading pianists working in the stride style, and the results have a flexibility and airiness that's missing in some of her other recordings. On three particularly filthy tunes, "I'm Wild About That Thing," "You've Got To Give Me Some" and "Kitchen Man," the more pedestrian pianist Clarence Williams is joined by jazz guitar pioneer Eddie Lang, who provides witty and elegant single-line and chord fills behind Smith. This volume also includes "Empty Bed Blues" parts 1 and 2 and the much-recorded "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out." The accompanying booklet includes a detailed essay by Chris Albertson covering Smith's life and career through 1931, and is generously illustrated with promotional photos of Smith and her peers, including Lang, Johnson, Williams and pianist Porter Grainger. The booklet also contains reproductions of concert advertisements.
Industry Reviews
...testimony [that] 60-year-old-recordings not only sound clearer on CD but they can still speak truths despite the decades...
Q (09/01/1994)
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