If SOTW did a rhythm and blues compilation...

[Gordon Neill]

Con suggested:

Gordon, I hope you'll be gathering these together and dropping a copy into the CD Circle.

Good grief! Collecting this lot could cost me a fortune. This is a truly humbling experience. I've been buying and listening to this stuff for decades but, so far, there's only five of the suggestions that I've actually heard before. I think it would be a lot cheaper if Charlie edited all these suggestions down to, say, 20 tracks and instructed Ace to rush release it for the Christmas market (or, if that's unrealistic, my birthday in July).

PS 'Mama Doll' Roy Teo

[Con Murphy]

Good grief! Collecting this lot could cost me a fortune.

Sorry about that - no pressure!


(although maybe this will provoke a storm of mp3s heading your way)

[Adam Blake]

Another one to lurch around to:

"Madison Shuffle" by Buster Brown - the rhythm guitar is playing ska, I tell you! (You can tell I've got the old Sue compilations out!)

Maybe a bit too famous for our purposes but Slim Harpo's "Got Love if You Want It" is the original swamp groove from R'n'B heaven.

[Alan Balfour]

And a few ladies:

Sugar Pie DeSanto - I Don't Wanna Fuss
Koko Taylor - I Got What It Takes
Irma Thomas - It's Raining
Faye Adams - Shake A Hand

[Alan Balfour]

Another one to lurch around to:

"Madison Shuffle" by Buster Brown

Somewhere I've got the original song that kick started the dance craze. Bobby Robinson even got ol' Elmore to record a Madison!

[Gordon Neill]

Adam suggested:

"Madison Shuffle" by Buster Brown

Hmmm. Yet another one that I've not heard, although I was thinking about including Buster's version of 'Is You Is Or Is You Ain't'. Dare I say that it's even better than Louis Jordan's original?

[Adam Blake]

Well my criteria for an SOTW r'n'b comp would be great black American records from, say, 1946 on that aren't too famous that have at least a suggestion of some music from a different part of the world. Hence, that version of "Madison Shuffle" always got me because it sounds like ska. From the other side, you have Laurel Aitken's "Hey Bartender" - a Jamaican record that sounds like r'n'b. But would that count? I think we have to keep it American, don't you?

If we're allowed to stray into jazz then can I have the 45 version of "Comin' Home Baby" by Herbie Mann? No. Too famous. Quite right, quite right...

[Rob Hall]

Another one to lurch around to:

"Madison Shuffle" by Buster Brown

Somewhere I've got the original song that kick started the dance craze. Bobby Robinson even got ol' Elmore to record a Madison!

Would that be Ray Bryant's "Madison Time" Alan? (Genuine enquiry, not a smart arse response.)

[Gordon Neill]

This is getting humiliating. People toss in a suggestion and then mention that it's probably too famous a track. Not for me it ain't.

I've just gone back and listened to Magic Sam's '21 Days In Jail'. It is like black rockabilly!

In an attempt to salvage some credibility, another suggestion:

'Baby Baby' Katie Webster and Ashton Savoy. Possibly my favourite duet/story record, with Ashton as the lazy ne'er do well and Katie as the beefy no-nonsense mama ('you can take take that guitar and git! 'Cos if you've got no bread there's no meat here!').

[Ted]

I've just gone back and listened to Magic Sam's '21 Days In Jail'. It is like black rockabilly!

TUNE!

[Adam Blake]

Take it that's a sign of approval, Ted.

Can I have the version of Etta James's "Stop The Wedding" recorded by Ike and Tina Turner but unreleased at the time because it was considered too over the top? (I know it from a great comp called "The Kent Years") They call it "All I Could Do Was Cry".

Thanks.

[Ted]

And what about:

Georgia Slop - Jimmy McCracklin
I Wish You Would - Billy Boy Arnold

[Jamie Renton]

From the other side, you have Laurel Aitken's "Hey Bartender" - a Jamaican record that sounds like r'n'b. But would that count?

Dunno, but I reckon the (original?) version by Floyd Dixon certainly would!

How about: "My Achin' Back" by Lowell Fulson

From the jazz side what about Oscar Brown Junior's "Mr Kicks" or (as recently mentioned in another thread) Harry "The Hipster" Gibson's "Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs Murphy's Ovaltine"

Is the Ikette's "Peaches & Cream" too well known for inclusion?

[Alan Balfour]

Another one to lurch around to:
"Madison Shuffle" by Buster Brown

Somewhere I've got the original song that kick started the dance craze. Bobby Robinson even got ol' Elmore to record a Madison!

Would that be Ray Bryant's "Madison Time" Alan? (Genuine enquiry, not a smart arse response.)

The version I have is "The Madison" by Al Brown's Tunetoppers featuring Cookie Brown (Amy 804) but damned if I can locate it to give it a spin. I last listened to it 25 years ago when writing a 5,000 word Elmore James retrospective for a French magazine to mark the 20th anniversary of his death.

I had tracked down a copy of the 45 becuase Paul Oliver had written saying that when he visited Leadbelly's niece, Tiny Robinson, in her New York apartment (July 1960) her "bobby soxer" children were dancing to Al Brown's "hit of the moment", The Madison.

[Alan Balfour]

(as recently mentioned in another thread) Harry "The Hipster" Gibson's "Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs Murphy's Ovaltine"

Obviously missed this mention. In early 1976 it was a CG Honky Tonk fave after it appeared on an American entitled Reefer Songs, on the appropriately named Stash Records, rubbing shoulders with such titles as "Sweet Marijuana Brown" and "Wacky Dust".