Rating:
Genre:
Blues
Release Date: 03/31/2009
It makes sense to pair
Charley Patton and
Blind Lemon Jefferson sides together like this, since between them
Patton and
Jefferson provided the foundation for recorded
country blues.
Patton's vicious slide guitar attack and guttural vocals are the very template of Mississippi
Delta blues, while
Lemon's ragged and explosive Texas-styled single string guitar runs are equally as defining, and his strong record sales (he cut some 100 sides for
Paramount and
OKeh in a little less than four years between 1925 and 1929) paved the way for other
country blues artists to record by proving this stuff had a large audience. Key tracks here include
Patton's
"Mississippi Boweavil Blues" and
"A Spoonful Blues," both recorded in 1929, and
Lemon's
"Jack O'Diamond Blues" from 1926 and the masterful
"See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" from 1927. Both of these musicians recorded a lot, so what's here is just the barest of outlines, but it does sketch out the territory and themes that the
blues has lived in ever since.
~Steve Leggett, All Music Guide
;)
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