The Golden Gate Quartet - The Essential - Historical Recordings From The Forties And The Fifties

Pioneer Virginia gospel/pop quartet of the '30s and '40s. Calling their innovative approach to sacred hymns "jubilee" singing, the Golden Gate Quartet, propelled by Willie Johnson and William Langford, enjoyed massive acceptance far outside the church.

Their smooth Mills Brothers-influenced harmonies made the Gates naturals for pop crossover success, and they began recording for Victor in 1937. National radio broadcasts and an appearance on John Hammond's 1938 "Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall made them coast-to-coast favorites.

By 1941 the Gates were recording for Columbia minus Langford, and movie appearances were frequent: Star Spangled Rhythm, Hollywood Canteen, and Hit Parade of 1943, to name a few. Some experiments with R&B material didn't pan out during the late '40s, and Johnson defected to the Jubilaires in 1948.

The group emigrated to France in 1959; led by veteran bass singer Orlando Wilson, the Golden Gate Quartet's vocal blend is as powerful as ever. 

The Golden Gate Quartet - The Essential - Historical Recordings From The Forties And The Fifties
(256 kbps, front cover included)

   

Mills Blue Rhythm Band - 1933 - 1936

This fine big band was originally formed by drummer Willie Lynch as the Blue Rhythm Band in 1930 and as the Coconut Grove Orchestra, provided backup to Louis Armstrong on some records. In 1931, Irving Mills became their manager and the group was renamed the Mills Blue Rhythm Band.

Lynch's departure later that year resulted in Baron Lee fronting the band until Lucky Millinder took over in 1934. The big band recorded frequently during 1931-1937 (all of the recordings have been reissued on five Classics CDs) and, although the orchestra never really caught on or developed its own personality, its recordings did document many fine performances.

Among the sidemen were pianist Edgar Hayes, altoist Charlie Holmes, Joe Garland on tenor, drummer O'Neil Spencer, and by 1934, trumpeter Red Allen, trombonist J.C. Higginbotham, and clarinetist Benny Bailey. Later editions included altoist Tab Smith, pianist Billy Kyle, and trumpeters Charlie Shavers and Harry "Sweets" Edison. When the group broke up in 1938, Lucky Millinder formed his own big band.    

Many of the Mills Blue Rhythm Band's recordings are now considered jazz classics by collectors. Original records regularly appear on auction lists (which indicates that they did sell records over their lifespan), and recent reissue and remastering projects have made their recordings more widely available.

Mills Blue Rhythm Band - 1933 - 1936 pt. 1
Mills Blue Rhythm Band - 1933 - 1936 pt. 2
(256 kbps, front cover included)
       

Country Joe McDonald - Thinking Of Woody Guthrie (1969)

During the reigning years of San Francisco headband Country Joe and the Fish, singer and songwriter Joe McDonald took some time out to head to Nashville and record a pair of solo albums with the city’s top session men.

Released on the iconic Vanguard Records, these two albums saw McDonald take a broad left turn, away from psychedelia and deep into the traditional folk and country music that had helped inform his earlier years as a radical-political folksinger.

Indeed, the first of these two albums, Thinking of Woody Guthrie, was a heartfelt, play-it-straight tribute to the daddy of them all (the radical-political folksingers, that is). It is an album that does justice to the man who wrote all of the songs on it. Joe McDonald conveys all of the ranges of Woody's line of sight, from the migrant's resigned take on life ("Pastures Of Plenty"), to the dust-storm-beset people of Gray, Oklahoma ("So Long, It's Been Good To Know Yuh")to a guarded endorsement of the (then) major strides in technology for the greater good ("Roll On Columbia"). McDonald sings all of them with conviction and is backed by Nashville pros with talent to burn. Even "This Land Is Your Land" gets a vitality to it that's totally unexpected but great to hear.

 

Country Joe McDonald - Thinking Of Woody Guthrie (1969)

(256 kbps, front cover included)

Woody Guthrie - Dust Bowl Ballads (1940)

Sixty years after the recordings were first released, Woody Guthrie's odes to the Dust Bowl are presented in their third different configuration.

RCA Victor Records, the only major label for which Guthrie ever recorded, issued two three-disc 78 rpm albums, "Dust Bowl Ballads, Vol. 1" and "Dust Bowl Ballads, Vol. 2", in July 1940, containing a total of 11 songs. ("Tom Joad" was spread across two sides of a 78 due to its length.).
Twenty-four years later, with the folk revival at its height, RCA reissued the material on a single 12" LP in a new sequence and with two previously unreleased tracks, "Pretty Boy Floyd" and "Dust Bowl Blues," added.
Thirty-six years on, the Buddha reissue division of BMG, which owns RCA, shuffles the running order again and adds another track, this one an alternate take of "Talking Dust Bowl Blues."

But whether available on 78s, LP, or CD, "Dust Bowl Ballads" constitutes a consistent concept album that roughly follows the outlines of John Steinbeck's 1939 novel "The Grapes of Wrath". (Indeed, "Tom Joad" is nothing less than the plot of the book set to music.) The story begins, as "The Great Dust Storm (Dust Storm Disaster)" has it, "On the fourteenth day of April of 1935," when a giant dust storm hits the Great Plains, transforming the landscape. Shortly after, the farmers pack up their families and head west, where they have been promised there is work aplenty picking fruit in the lush valleys of California. The trip is eventful, as "Talking Dust Bowl Blues" humorously shows, but the arrival is disappointing, as the Okies discover California is less than welcoming to those who don't bring along some "do[ough] re mi."
Guthrie´s songs go back and forth across this tale of woe, sometimes focusing on the horrors of the dust storm, sometimes on human villains, with deputy sheriffs and vigilantes providing particular trouble. In "Pretty Boy Floyd," he treats an ancillary subject, as the famous outlaw is valorized as a misunderstood Robin Hood. Guthrie treats his subject alternately with dry wit and defiance, and listeners in 1940 would have been conscious of the deliberate contrast with Jimmie Rodgers, whose music is evoked even as he is being mocked in "Dust Pneumonia Blues."

Sixty years later, listeners may hear these songs through the music Guthrie influenced, particularly the folk tunes of Bob Dylan. Either way, this is powerful music, rendered simply and directly. It was devastatingly effective when first released, and it helped define all the folk music that followed it.

Woody Guthrie was born on July 14th, 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma, so this year we can celebrate his 100th birthday!

Woody Guthrie - Dust Bowl Ballads (1940)
(192 kbps, front cover included)

Brownie McGhee - Brownie´s Blues (1962)

 
Brownie McGhee's death in 1996 was an enormous loss in the blues field. Although he had been semi-retired and suffering from stomach cancer, the guitarist was still the leading Piedmont-style bluesman on the planet, venerated worldwide for his prolific activities both on his own and with his longtime partner, blind harpist Sonny Terry. Together, McGhee and Terry worked for decades in an acoustic folk-blues bag, singing ancient ditties like "John Henry" and "Pick a Bale of Cotton" for appreciative audiences worldwide. But McGhee was capable of a great deal more. Throughout the immediate postwar era, he cut electric blues and R&B on the New York scene, even enjoying a huge R&B hit in 1948 with "My Fault" for Savoy (Hal "Cornbread" Singer handled tenor sax duties on the 78).               

"Brownie's Blues" was originally released by Bluesville Records in 1962. Supported by his longtime accompanist Sonny Terry, as well as second guitarist Benny Foster, Brownie turns in a nicely understated record that's distinguished by surprisingly harmonically complex and jazzy guitar work. Among the highlights are versions of "Killin' Floor," "Trouble in Mind" and "Every Day I Have the Blues," as well as the boogieing "Jump, Little Children" and "I Don't Know the Reason."     

Tracklist:

A1	Jump, Little Children
A2	Lonesome Day
A3	One Thing For Sure
A4	The Killin' Floor
A5	Little Black Engine
B1	I Don't Know The Reason
B2	Trouble In Mind
B3	Everyday I Have The Blues
B4	Door To Success

Brownie McGhee - Brownie´s Blues (1962)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Witthüser & Westrupp - Der Jesuspilz (1972 German Prog Acid Folk)

After their ultimate acid folk classic "Trips & Träume", the duo is back with an other surprising effort whose concept is to convince (within a satirical dimension) that the bible is all about drugs. However it doesn't matter for those who don't speak German, let's be focused on the music which is one more time brilliant and gorgeously pastoral, delicate and trippy. The introduction part (Liturgie) is a humorous little composition written in a very folkish vibe. "Schöpfung" is among my favourite Witthuser & Westrupp pieces: it starts with acoustic, dreamy like, quasi magical guitar parts. It also features narratives in German and a very poetical, mystical sense of harmony. "Erleuchtung" is a luminous, druggy psych folk tune wich includes a variety of acoustic instruments (voluptuous flute lines, folk guitars, percussions), an effective, dancing chant in German and children choirs...a really intimate, beautiful song. "Besuch aus dem Kosmos" is a ravishing spaced out folkish excursion for deep organic chords and acoustic guitars...it also include vocals in German. A lovely, living, dying soundscape with a magnificant classical (almost flamenco) introspective guitar melody. Among my favourite kraut-folk compositions. The instrumental sections are more achieved than on the previous recordings (notably the guitars). Really german folk music with an evident taste for old, odd music, popular counts, mysteries and dark medieval age...at the top of 70's psychedelic folk music.

Line-up / Musicians
- Bernd Witthuser / vocals, guitar, banjo, kazoo, triangle, tambourine
- Walter Westrupp / vocals, organ, harmonica, flute, ukelele, congas, tambourine, triangle
- Dieter Dierks / Mellotron, bass, vocals
- Gille Lettman / vocals, Mexican & Indian recorder

Songs / Tracks Listing
1. Liturgie (2:00)
2. Schöpfung (8:25)
3. Erleuchtung und Berufung (4:50)
4. Versammlung / Bekenntnis / Die Aussendung (10:21)
5. Nehmet hin und esset (3:33)
6. Besuch aus dem Kosmos (9:45)

Total Time: 38:54

Witthüser & Westrupp - Der Jesuspilz
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Woody Guthrie - The Early Years (feat. Cisco Houston & Sonny Terry)

Woody Guthrie was the most important American folk music artist of the first half of the 20th century, in part because he turned out to be such a major influence on the popular music of the second half of the 20th century, a period when he himself was largely inactive. His greatest significance lies in his songwriting, beginning with the standard "This Land Is Your Land" and including such much-covered works as "Deportee," "Do Re Mi," "Grand Coulee Dam," "Hard, Ain't It Hard," "Hard Travelin'," "I Ain't Got No Home," "1913 Massacre," "Oklahoma Hills," "Pastures of Plenty," "Philadelphia Lawyer," "Pretty Boy Floyd," "Ramblin' Round," "So Long It's Been Good to Know Yuh," "Talking Dust Bowl," and "Vigilante Man." These and other songs have been performed and recorded by a wide range of artists, including a who's who of folksingers.

The tracks found on this collection (which also features Cisco Houston and Sonny Terry) were recorded in the mid-'40s for Folkways Records and have been available in countless configurations over the years under varying titles, including editions for the Tradition, Legacy, Prism, and Collectables record labels. The best way to get this material is through the four-volume "Asch Recordings" from Smithsonian Folkways, which has the most thorough annotation. But anyway, this is a nice introduction into the inspiring music of Woody Guthrie.

Tracklist:

1		Hey Lolly Lolly	2:45
2		Buffalo Skinners	3:24
3		John Henry	2:42
4		Gypsy Davy	2:51
5		Worried Man Blues	3:03
6		More Pretty Girls Than One	2:18
7		Ain't Gonna Be Treated That Way	3:29
8		Rangers Command	2:55
9		Poor Boy	2:51
10		Lonesome Day	2:53
11		Pretty Boy Floyd	3:05
12		Hard, Ain't It Hard	2:43
13		Stackolee	2:43
14		Cumberland Gap	2:18
15		Old Time Religion	2:32
16		Sourwood Mountain	2:57
17		Long John	2:35
18		Lost John	4:06
19		Columbus Stockade	2:25
20		Bury Me Beneath The Willow	2:45

Woody Guthrie - The Early Years (feat. Cisco Houston & Sonny Terry)
(192 kbps, cover art included)

The Clancy Brothers - The Rising Of The Moon - Irish Songs Of Rebellion (Tradition, 1956)

"The Rising of the Moon" was the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem's first appearance on wax as a group. Recorded in 1959, in the kitchen of Kenneth S. Goldstein (co-creator of the Tradition label with Paddy Clancy), the album is a largely austere collection of fight songs and ballads that trace the fighting history of Ireland.

It features the singing of Paddy, Liam, and Tom Clancy; Makem sings as well, adds his tin whistle, and even plays rousing, military-style percussion on tracks like "Men of the West." While Makem and the Clancys' vocals are rich and melodic throughout the set, "Rising of the Moon" might be most striking for its instrumentation. Besides the input of Makem, the album features expressive guitar and harp, courtesy of Jack Keenan and Jack Malady, respectively. Both musicians help to lend "Rising of the Moon" its intimate, fireside feel; it's a sound that the Clancys and Makem would move away from on later, more crowd-pleasing releases, but here it helps imbue these songs with a respectful air.

 "Eamonn an Chniuic" is supported by the plucked harp like raindrops on a stubbornly wavering flower petal, while the instrument adds color to the guitar's urgent rhythm during "Foggy Dew." "Whack fol the Diddle" introduces one of the group's most famous singing techniques, while Makem's whistle livens up the title track's melody. But it's "Wind That Shakes the Barley" that could best combine aesthetic instrumentation with heartfelt emotion.             

Tracklist:

Side One:

O'Donnell Aboo
The Croppy Boy
The Rising of the Moon
The Foggy Dew
The Minstrel Boy
The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Tipperary Far Away

Side Two

Kelly the Boy from Killanne
Kevin Barry
Whack Fol the Diddle
The Men of the West
Eamonn An Chnuic
Nell Flaherty's Drake
Boulavogue

The Clancy Brothers - The Rising Of The Moon (1956)
(256 kbps, front cover included)

Sleeve notes in the comment section...

John B. Sebastian - Same (1970)

"John B. Sebastian" is the debut album by American singer/songwriter John Sebastian, previously best known as the co-founder and primary singer/songwriter of the 1960s folk-rock band the Lovin' Spoonful. The album, released in January 1970, includes several songs that would become staples of Sebastian's live performances during the early and mid-1970s. Most notably, the album included "She's a Lady", Sebastian's first solo single (released in December 1968), and an alternate version of "I Had a Dream" which was used to open the soundtrack album of the 1970 documentary film "Woodstock". "John B. Sebastian" also featured support performances by David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash several months before that trio agreed to work together as a performing unit.

When he led the Lovin' Spoonful from 1965 to 1967, John Sebastian experimented with a variety of styles, expanding from the folk, jug band, and rock & roll that were the band's basic mixture to include everything from country ("Nashville Cats") to orchestrated movie scoring ("Darling, Be Home Soon").

Freed from the confines of a four-piece band, he stretched further on his debut solo album, including the samba-flavored "Magical Connection" and the R&B-styled "Baby, Don't Ya Get Crazy" (complete with the Ikettes on backup vocals) in addition to traditional country on "Rainbows All Over Your Blues," which spotlighted Buddy Emmons on pedal steel guitar. But there were also delicate ballads like the string-filled "She's a Lady," a stripped-down remake of "You're a Big Boy Now," and "The Room Nobody Lives In," the last performed with only a harmonium and bass guitar. And there were pop/rock songs like "Red-Eye Express," "What She Thinks About," and the utopian "I Had a Dream" that you could imagine having fitted easily into the Spoonful's repertoire.

The songs continued Sebastian's trend toward a more personal writing style, many of them containing images of travel that corresponded to his peripatetic lifestyle. Like Paul McCartney's McCartney, which followed it into the marketplace by a few months, the album was an eclectic but low-key introduction to the solo career of a former group member whose band was known for more elaborate productions, and all the more effective for that.
"John B. Sebastian" was the subject of a legal dispute between MGM records and Reprise records, with Reprise winning out, although MGM briefly issued its own version of the LP, apparently taken from a second-generation master. The MGM version is sonically inferior to the Reprise one and has different artwork, but the contents of the two LPs are identical.     

John B. Sebastian - John B. Sebastian (1970)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

The Chad Mitchell Trio - Collection

The Chad Mitchell Trio – also known as the Mitchell Trio – were a North American vocal group who became known during the 1960s. They performed folk songs, some of which were traditionally passed down and some of their own compositions. Unlike many fellow folk music groups, none of the trio played instruments. They became popular in some quarters, and were particularly notable for performing satirical songs that criticized current events during the time of the cold war, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War, in a less subtle way than the typical folk music and singer-songwriter musicians of their time.

This 17-song compilation includes selections from the albums "Blowin' in the Wind", "At the Bitter End", and "Mighty Day on Campus" (strangely enough, arranged in reverse order of recording), among them "Leave Me if You Want To," "Blowin' in the Wind," "The Ballad of the Greenland Whalers," "The John Birch Society," "Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream," and "You Can Tell The World." The sound is quite good, and the selection of tracks is very satisfying.      

 Every one of the seventeen tracks is a jewel, reflecting a different facet of the trio. The signature irreverence of the trio is reflected in "The John Birch Society," and more idealistic times reflected in "Last Night I had The Strangest Dream." Those of us of a certain age remember Hootenanies and Happenings where we did our best to emulate the trio singing "The Gypsy Rover" and "The Golden Vanity." All the magic of the Chad Mitchell Trio is here.

Tracklist:

1 Leave Me If You Want To (2:41)
2 Blowing in the Wind (2:36)
3 The Ballad of the Greenland Whalers (2:41)
4 The John Birch Society (3:47)
5 Hello Susan Brown (3:10)
6 Blues Around My Head (3:17)
7 Alberta (2:44)
8 Golden Vanity (2:52)
9 Come Along Home (Tom's Song) (2:35)
10 You Can Tell the World (2:54)
11 Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream (2:27)
12 Mighty Day (2:14)
13 The Whistling Gypsy (3:08)
14 Dona, Dona, Dona (3:22)
15 Whup! Jamboree( 1:49)
16 Johnnie (5:08)
17 Puttin' on the Style (2:21)

The Chad Mitchell Trio - Collection
(256 kbps, front cover included)

VA - American Banjo: Three-Finger And Scruggs Style

This recording was the first bluegrass LP ever released. The reissue now contains 16 additional tracks, a total of 43 tunes played by the immortal Snuffy Jenkins and others, including Smiley Hobbs. A banjo classic that runs 60 minutes in length. "...[A]s unspoiled as the day they were recorded..." — Rolling Stone

Scruggs style is the most common style of playing the banjo in bluegrass music. It is a fingerpicking method, also known as three-finger style. It is named after Earl Scruggs, whose innovative approach and technical mastery of the instrument has influenced generations of bluegrass banjoists ever since he was first recorded in 1946. It contrasts with earlier styles such as minstrel, classic or parlor style (a late 19th-century finger-style played without picks), clawhammer/frailing/two-finger style (played with thumb and nail of the first or middle finger), jazz styles played with a plectrum, and more modern styles such as Keith/melodic/chromatic/arpa style, and single-string/Reno style. The influence of Scruggs is so pervasive that even bluegrass players such as Bill Keith and Don Reno, who are credited with developing these latter styles, typically work out of the Scruggs style much of the time.

VA - American Banjo: Three-Finger And Scruggs Style

(256 kbps, cover and booklet included)

The Jazz Butcher - In Bath Of Bacon (1982)

Here´s another favourite from the 80s...: The Jazz Butcher´s 1982 debut "In Bath Of Bacon".

A true style chameleon, the Jazz Butcher is a hard act to categorize — and nowhere more so than on this album, which is primarily a one-man effort with help from assorted sidemen. The songs here are embryonic forays into styles he would explore more confidently on subsequent albums.

The title track is a punky blues number complete with squealing Elvis Costello-style organ. "Poisoned by Food" and "Sex Engine Thing" are thin, raw, folk-pop influenced numbers with an irresistibly nervous beat; the former paraphrases Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild," while the latter snitches Jonathan Richman's "Bye-bye" line from "Roadrunner." The musical feel of that Modern Lovers song is also evoked in a jazzy way on "Jazz Butcher Theme."

"Partytime" is best described as cocktail folk. "La Mer" is a faux French folk song with surreal lyrics about elephants. Clever, unusual accompaniments are put forth in "Chinatown" (flutes, glockenspiel, click track) and "Grey Flanellette" [sic] (glockenspiels, bass, organ, sandpaper blocks, click track). The songs have unusual, improvisatory nonsense lyrics that veer from the obscure to the semi-clever. The sound and playing have a homemade quality that sometimes crosses the line into sloppiness. This is still a strange yet intriguing record.

From the liner notes:

"Here it is at last! The hep young sound of todays beat élite, direct from the soul kitchen and served, still blazing, to your table! The release of this, the Jazz Butchers first long play recording, comes after months of rumour and report of a hot new act with a cool new sound that leaves the others way way behind. Now you too can hear for yourself the new groove that has set the bohemian set alight - in your own home! Words alone cannot do justice to the cordon-bleu treats of the Butcher Beat - so roll back the carpet and swoop and dive with the fab Butcher Man!"

The Jazz Butcher - In Bath Of Bacon (1982)
(192 kbps, front cover included)