Music City Blues & Rhythm Various Artists (Music City)

£13.12

Genre:
Rhythm & Blues
Label:
Ace Records
Format:
CD
Catalogue Id:
CDTOP 1510

This product is also available in these versions:
Music City Blues & Rhythm (MP3), MP3 (£7.99)

Something for every shade of Blues fan, from the Juke Joint to the Lounge. Includes 22 tracks making their debut appearance.

When I took delivery of 1500 reels of tape from the Music City label of Berkeley, California a decade ago, it was with an acute sense of trepidation. For decades the subject of rumour, conjecture and outright fantasy, the contents of this jealously guarded, long-coveted vault promised to reveal untold riches. After the last reel was spooled many months later, it was clear that this was all remarkable documentary evidence of how the local black music scene had evolved over the course of a quarter-century. Not that Ray Dobard had ever intended his relatively long-lived enterprise to have any cultural connotation. He was strictly a speculator.

As Lee Hildebrand explains in the historical notes, Ray Dobard did not record or release much in the way of hard blues. And therefore, save for ‘On My Way’, Al Smith’s excellent 1954 single on the label, most blues collectors have not paid much attention to Music City. To Dobard, pure blues was a form that was already somewhat out of favour with the clientele he hoped to cultivate, the more urbane black community who preferred jazz and adult-orientated “cool” blues, along the line of Nat Cole or Charles Brown. He soon found a more remunerative genre in the vocal group idiom, something that appealed far more to the ever-increasing horde of teenage consumers that came into his record store at 1815 Alcatraz Avenue.

But there is a fair tranche of blues amongst the Music City masters, the best of which have been brought together for this collection, and which together reflect the many colours of the blues during the 1950s. There is a noticeable difference between the smoother sound of the earlier cuts by Al Harris and Alvin Smith, many of which were taped at the principal pro facility available in the Bay Area, Sound Recorders in San Francisco, and the rough-hewn, dissonant recordings Dobard undertook. True to his brash, self-confident persona, in 1954 the fledgling record impresario tired of paying for professional studio time and instead purchased a basic monaural Ampex machine, threw up some egg cartons on the wall of a room adjacent to his store, and started to engineer sessions himself.

In his engineering and A&R capacities, Dobard frequently suffered from a lack of quality control, and this sometimes stretched to his blues recordings. There remain in the vault some intriguing but ultimately un-releasable recordings by K.C. Douglas and others. But in general the Music City sessions are up to the standard for many small studios and West Coast indies of the time and, at this far-removed juncture, they sport the sort of documentary feel that gives the listener a real inkling of the “street”. This was how the blues must have sounded in the juke joints and nightclubs of the San Francisco Bay Area of the early 1950s. Whether it be the mellifluous croon of ‘Here Lies My Love’ or the stentorian exhortations of ‘I Don’t Stand No Quittin’’, the finger-popping groove of ‘Brand New Baby’ or the colourful chaos of ‘Wrong Doing Woman’, it was the soundtrack of the era for the local black population.

Alec Palao

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Track listing

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Side 1

  • 01 Preview Music City Jump (inst) - Alvin Smith

  • 02 Preview Brand New Baby - Alvin Smith

  • 03 Preview Go To Bed With A Worry - Chick Morris & His Band vocal: Golden Boy

  • 04 Preview Moving Out Baby - Chick Morris & His Band vocal: Al Harris

  • 05 Preview I Don't Stand No Quittin' (alt) - Gloria Jean Pitts

  • 06 Preview Blues Made Me Cry - Chick Morris & His Band vocal: Al Harris

  • 07 Preview Tin Pan Alley - Sidney Grande

  • 08 Preview Lazy Bones (inst) - Roland Mitchell

  • 09 Preview She Moves Me - Jimmy (Mr. "T-99") Nelson

  • 10 Preview Wrong Doing Woman (alt) - Jasper Evans

  • 11 Preview Walking Blues - Johnny George

  • 12 Preview You Gotta Be Mighty Careful - The Richmond Boys

  • 13 Preview On My Way - Alvin Smith

  • 14 Preview No More Any More - Jimmy (Mr. "T-99") Nelson

  • 15 Preview Baby Call - Jimmy Raney (unconfirmed)

  • 16 Preview Here Lies My Love (tk 1) - Roy Hawkins as Mr Undertaker

  • 17 Preview Long About Midnight - Little Willie Littlefield

  • 18 Preview Doctor's Blues - Unknown male vocalist

  • 19 Preview Your Money Ain't Long Enough - Que Martyn's Orchestra vocal: Del Graham

  • 20 Preview Traveling Time - Al Smith

  • 21 Preview To Be Alone - Pee Wee Parham

  • 22 Preview Low Down Dirty Ways - Alvin Smith

  • 23 Preview Don't Know Where I'm At - Al Harris

  • 24 Preview Looking Just Like You - Little Willie Littlefield

  • 25 Preview Ease My Mind - Pee Wee Parham

  • 26 Preview You're The One - Gene Lee & The Blues Rockers

  • 27 Preview Roland's Blues (inst) - Roland Mitchell

  • 28 Preview Who Did It - Unknown male vocalist

Delivery & Returns

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We offer free P&P to UK addresses. For all other territories packaging is free and postage is charged on a weight basis.

We use Royal Mail First Class for UK deliveries and standard Air Mail for all other territories, very large orders will usually be sent via parcelforce. You may cancel your order at any time prior to your order being dispatched by emailing us at orders@acerecords.com ensuring that you quote your name, address and order reference number or by telephoning +44 (0) 208 453 1311 between 9am and 5pm GMT/BST, Monday to Friday. Please note: As music downloads are dispatched immediately after purchase, there is no possibility of cancelling these orders.

In the event that any products supplied to you by us are damaged or defective, we agree to replace or repair the damaged or defective products or refund the amount you paid for such goods (including postage & packaging) providing you notify us (either via post at or e-mail: orders@acerecords.com ) and return the goods within 28 days of purchase. Physical goods should be sent back to us in the same condition you received them to: “Returns” Ace Records, Such Close, Letchworth Garden City SG6 1JF, United Kingdom. Music downloads should be returned to us via the e-mail address above including a copy of your notification.

You have the right to cancel your order within seven days of purchase, or seven days of receipt of the goods (whichever is the longer). If you choose to cancel your order, full payment will be returned to you. Returned items should be sent to: “Returns” c/o Ace Records, Such Close, Letchworth Garden City SG6 1JF, United Kingdom. Music downloads should be returned to us via the email address: orders@acerecords.com including a copy of your notice of cancellation and order number.

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