VA - The Paramount Masters (4 CD, 2003)

 

Paramount Records didn't know it at the time, but they created one of the most valuable catalogs of early American blues and jazz music ever assembled. Formed by a furniture company called the Wisconsin Chair Company in the mid-teens to facilitate sales for their new phonograph cabinets, Paramount Records (along with its subsidiary labels Broadway, Famous, and Puritan) sent a young man named Art Satherley on the road in the South to explore and exploit the growing "race records" market beginning in 1917. Over the next 15 years, Satherley and the other Paramount Records' representatives recorded well over 100 sides featuring blues and jazz artists as well-known as Charley Patton, Ma Rainey, and Meade Lux Lewis, and an otherwise unknown as Side Wheel Sally Duffie, whose "Bunker Hill Blues" is a piano blues showcase for a high-register, vibrato-heavy vocal of uncertain pitch which sounds almost like a 1920s equivalent to Björk. These 100 sides are presented in chronological order, with as much information is as known about each recording. Sound quality varies widely, and of course is at times atrocious, but the historical import and entertainment value for students of early jazz and blues is immense.



CD A

1. Bobby Grant - Nappy Head Blues (2:45)
2. Lottie Beaman - Red River Blues (2:58)
3. Meade Lux Lewis - Honky Tonk Train Blues (3:15)
4. Bo Weevil Jackson - You Can't Keep No Brown (3:11)
5. Teddy Darby - Lawdy, Lawdy, Worried Blues (3:06)
6. Wesley Wallace - No.29 (3:14)
7. Blind Joe Reynolds - Outside Woman Blues (2:55)
8. William Moore - Old Country Rock (3:03)
9. James 'Boodle It' Wiggins - Keep A-Knockin' (3:09)
10. George 'Bullet' Williams - Touch Me Light, Mama (2:47)
11. Moanin' Bernice Edwards - Jack of All Trades (2:44)
12. Harum Scarums - Come on In (Ain't Nobody Here But Me) (2:45)
13. Sweet Papa Stovepipe - All Birds Look Like Chicken to Me (3:08)
14. Charlie 'Dad' Nelson - Cotton Field Blues (2:41)
15. Ma Rainey - Traveling Blues (2:55)
16. Charlie Spand - Soon This Morning Blues (2:59)
17. Papa Charlie Jackson - Gay Cattin' (2:54)
18. King Solomon Hill - Whoopee Blues (3:09)
19. Geechie Wiley - Eagles on a Half (3:00)
20. Washboard Walter - Wasn't It Sad About Lemon (3:01)
21. George Hannah - Freakish Man Blues (2:49)
22. Bumble Bee Slim - Rough, Rugged Road Blues (3:30)
23. Rube Lacy - Mississippi Jail House Groan (3:22)
24. Marshall Owens - Try Me, One More Time (3:11)
25. Mary Johnson - Barrel House Flat Blues (3:03)



CD B

1. Charley Patton - I Shall Not Be Moved (alt. take) (2:43)
2. Raymond Barrow - Walking Blues (3:07)
3. Blind Roosevelt Graves - Guitar Boogie (2:56)
4. Alice Moore - Black & Evil Blues (3:21)
5. Ben Curry - The New Dirty Dozen (3:08)
6. Freddie Spruell - Low-Down Mississippi Bottom Man (3:25)
7. Little Brother Montgomery - Vicksburg Blues (2:58)
8. Henry Townsend - Jack of Diamonds Georgia Rub (3:18)
9. John Byrd - Billy Goat Blues (3:28)
10. Side Wheel Sally Duffie - Bunker Hill Blues (2:38)
11. Buddy Boy Hawkins - Number Three Blues (2:39)
12. Ed Bell - Mamlish Blues (2:36)
13. Henry Brown - Eastern Chimes Blues (3:28)
14. Charlie Spand - Fetch Your Water (2:30)
15. J.D. Short - Lonesome Swamp Rattlesnake (2:49)
16. Alice Pearson - Water Bound Blues (2:55)
17. Lonnie Clark - Broke Down Engine (2:57)
18. Barrel House Welch - Dying Pickpocket Blues (2:50)
19. Edward Thompson - Seven Sister Blues (2:52)
20. John Byrd - Old Timbrook Blues (3:18)
21. Bob Robinson - The Preacher Must Get Some, Sometime (2:44)
22. Elvie Thomas - Motherless Child Blues (3:19)
23. Jack O'Diamonds - The Duck's Yas Yas (2:55)
24. Ben Curry - Boodle De Bum Bum (3:09)
25. James Wiggins - Gotta Shave 'em Dry (3:04)



CD C

1. Bo Weevil Jackson - Some Scream High Yellow (3:09)
2. Jabo Williams - Jab Blues (3:19)
3. Freddie Brown - Raised In the Alley Blues (3:18)
4. George 'Bullet' Williams - Frisco Leaving Birmingham (2:45)
5. Blind Joe Reynolds - Ninety-Nine Blues (2:39)
6. Roosevelt Sykes - Conjur Man Blues (3:08)
7. Sweet Papa Stovepipe - Mama's Angel Child (2:59)
8. Lottie Beaman - Honey Blues (2:52)
9. Bobby Grant - Lonesome Atlanta Blues (3:00)
10. Robert Peeples - Fat, Greasy Baby (3:12)
11. Little Brother Montgomery - No Special Rider Blues (2:54)
12. Blind Roosevelt Graves - New York Blues (3:17)
13. Henry Townsend - Doctor, Oh, Doctor (2:45)
14. Bogus Ben Covington - I Heard the Voice of a Pork Chop (3:12)
15. Ruby Paul - Red Letter Blues (2:42)
16. Piano Kid Edwards - Piano Kid Special (2:44)
17. Famous Hokum Boys - Where Did You Stay, Last Nighr (2:57)
18. King Solomon Hill - The Gone Dead Train (3:18)
19. Wesley Wallace - Fanny Lee Blues (3:15)
20. Washboard Walter - Narrow Face Blues (3:16)
21. Geechie Wiley - Pick Poor Robin Clean (3:14)
22. George Hannah - The Boy In the Boat (2:40)
23. Marshall Owens - Texas Blues (3:19)
24. James 'Boodle It' Wiggins - Evil Woman Blues (3:10)
25. Roosevelt Sykes - Three, Six & Nine (2:57)


CD D

1. Freddie Spruell - Tom Cat Blues (3:07)
2. Jack O'Diamonds - Smiling Blues (3:02)
3. Papa Charlie Jackson - Mama, Don't You Think I Know (2:36)
4. Charlie Spand - Back to the Woods Blues (3:23)
5. Alice Moore - Prison Blues (3:18)
6. Henry Brown - Deep Morgan Blues (3:23)
7. Teddy Darby - My Laona Blues (2:42)
8. Bo Weevil Jackson - Pistol Blues (3:01)
9. Jabo Williams - Pratt City Blues (3:15)
10. J.D. Short - Telephone Arguin' Blues (3:13)
11. Elvie Thomas - Over to My House (3:29)
12. Ed Bell - Hambone Blues (2:47)
13. Lonnie Clark - Down In Tennessee (2:37)
14. Rube Lacy - Ham Hound Crave (2:54)
15. Roosevelt Sykes - Fire Detective Blues (3:05)
16. Edward Thompson - Up on the Hill Blues (3:01)
17. Mary Johnson - Key to the Mountain Blues (2:56)
18. King Solomon Hill - Down on My Bended Knee (2:56)
19. Charlie 'Dad' Nelson - Red River Blues (2:49)
20. Piano Kid Edwards - Give Us Another Jug (2:47)
21. Blind Joe Reynolds - Nehi Blues (3:14)
22. Ruby Paul - Last Farewell Blues (2:58)
23. Barrel House Welch - Larceny Woman Blues (2:52)
24. Robert Peeples - Wicked Devil's Blues (3:12)
25. William Moore - Raggin' the Blues (2:59)