"Spider" John Koerner - Spider Blues (1965)

Spider Blues is the debut solo album by blues artist "Spider" John Koerner, released in 1965. He was member of the loose-knit blues trio Koerner, Ray & Glover at the time of its release.

As a member of the blues trio Koerner, Ray & Glover, Koerner was recording on the Elektra label. While recording the trio's albums Lots More Blues, Rags and Hollers and The Return of Koerner, Ray & Glover he recorded a number of solo tracks. These tracks were assembled into Koerner's debut solo album. He also appeared at the Newport Folk Festival that same year, accompanied by trio member Tony Glover.
His style would change with his subsequent releases from the blues to more traditional folk music. In a 2000 interview, Koerner said, "I finally decided I was not a blues guy. How could I be? I was too young and too white, all that shit. So I took a year off and when I started playing again, I treated the subject in general as folk music. It's a new culture; it's not music being made on a back porch anymore."

In his 1965 Jazz Monthly review, music critic Albert McCarthy excoriated the album and wrote, "This is, without any doubt, one of the worst records I have had to review for many a long day. In a sleeve note notable for the inane quotes from Koerner himself, Paul Nelson of The Little Sandy Review, which I understand is one of the better folk publications, makes the remarkable claim that 'Koerner's art is like Chaplin's, as great and lasting as it is entertaining'. I nominate this as the most absurd remark of the year in the sleeve note field. In fact, Koerner is a passably competent guitarist, a poor harmonica player and a quite dreadful singer. "
On the other hand, in the mid-late 1960s radio station WBCN in Boston used to regularly play "Rent Party Rag" on the first of every month.

"We were talking about the liner notes on Spider Blues, his first solo album for Elektra...his first solo album for anybody...this record. I had thought to write something about his early work on 'Blues, Rags and Hollers' and 'Lots More Blues, Rags and Hollers'; of how his music had somehow deepened and yet retained its same dazzling snap; of how some of his songs had grown a bit more introspective..." "Naw, I don't want to say much about that." he said...." - Paul Nelson from the sleeve notes.           

Tracklist:
Side 1:

1. "Good Luck Child" – 2:07
2. "I Want to be Your Partner" – 3:07
3. "Nice Legs" – 2:27
4. "Spider Blues" – 2:17
5. "Corrina" – 3:15
6. "Shortnin' Bread" – 2:08
7. "Ramblin' and Tumblin'" – 3:12
8. "Delia Holmes" – 2:54

Side 2:

1. "Need a Woman" – 2:05
2. "I Want to do Something" – 3:35
3. "Baby, Don't Come Back" – 2:39
4. "Hal C. Blake" – 1:42
5. "Things Ain't Right" – 3:30
6. "Rent Party Rag" – 9:29

"Spider" John Koerner - Spider Blues (1965)
(ca. 280 kbps, cover art included)