Various Artists - Garden City Blues: Detroit's Jumping Scene 1948-1960 : 4 x CDs (due to weight, this price for the USA only. Outside of the USA, the price will be adjusted as needed) (Mega Blowout Sale)
SKU
23-JSP 77188
“This is another fine set. The notes are by noted blues writer Neil Slaven, and are well worth reading for the information he's dredged up about the performers and the songs. The sound varies--which I expected--because of the different recording practices. Suffice to say if you're an audiophile--forget it. But if you're a blues fan, any sonic anomalies aren't as important as the music. Each disc is crammed with music like other JSP sets.
CD-A is all Hooker from the years 1948 through 1951. This is some of his earliest recordings that are well worth hearing. The songs are basically Hooker solo except for bit of piano (mostly by James Watkins) here and there. This is primal Hooker (listen to "Miss Pearl Boogie") just before he started on the road to fame.
CD-B begins with Hooker (tracks 1-11 from mostly the 1950's) either solo or with a small band. Eddie Burns is heard on tracks 12-21 playing guitar/harp and vocals, again with a small band--including Hooker--from the early '50s. Track 22 is the Richard Brothers on vocals and guitars. Track 23 is Big Jack Reynolds on harp and vocals with a small band.
CD-C has Sylvester Cotton (tracks 1-20), a solo performer on vocals and guitar. Tracks 21-26 feature Andrew Dunham, also solo. Both performers were recorded in the late '40s/1950.
CD-D begins with Dunham again (tracks 1-4). Track 5 is L.C. Green from 1949. Tracks 6--9 is Green with a small band from the '50s. James Walton is on vocals on tracks 10-12 also with a small band. Bobo Jenkins (tracks 13,17) is on guitar/vocals with piano accompaniment and with a small band (tracks 14-16) from the late '50s. Eddie Kirkland is on 18-24 from the (mostly) '50s, either solo or with a band that includes a horn and piano. His '50s sides with a small combo are the toughest blues he ever laid down. He was John Lee Hooker's favorite guitarist, accompanying him on many recordings.
This is worth adding to your blues shelf for the rare Hooker tunes along with several other fairly rare tracks by some of the lesser/unknown performers collected here. Is every performance a real keeper? It depends on your feel for the blues. Me--I like these sets--Slaven continues to find stuff that hasn't been collected for a long while, or not ever. And his essays are almost always informative and interesting. Much of this is from that period when the blues was morphing from a country style into a more modern sound. The solo tunes here hark back to an earlier era, while the small bands look forward to a different more "sophisticated" style of blues.
The vast number of these tracks were recorded in Detroit with only a few from Philadelphia. The post-war years included on this set are the prime years for blues, and this set goes some distance in showing what the blues sounded like in one of the major regions for the music. Another winner for deep blues fans.” - Stuart Jefferson