Classic Blues Artwork from the 1920's Volume 20 - 2023 Calendar and CD

 

I've been picking up these calendars every year for a decade or so because the imagery is amazing, they are fun'n'informative and they come with a fantastic CD of rare, early blues performances and each edition includes some previously unreleased material - I don't know how they manage to do that every year, but they have so far!  Ironically, I just read the text in the calendar only to discover that this will be their last edition! I am very sorry to see this series go, as it has always been stellar - pick it up while you can!

As the title suggests, the music is primarily drawn from the 1920's but they fudge that a bit and include some terrific cuts from the 30's, as well. They combine some more well-known (comparatively) artists like Joshua White, Bessie Smith, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, Ida Cox, Ma Rainey, Charley Patton, Scrapper Blackwell and more with some less familiar (at least to me) names like Henry Thomas, who does the fantastic title cut, Funny Paper Smith, Brother Fullbosom (his cuts are sermons that he preached, not music, but I love them just as much!), Pete Franklin and others.

Playboy Fuller is especially powerful, with fantastic acoustic slide guitar work reminiscent of Muddy Waters, who he dedicates one of the tunes to. Three out of four of his cuts here were previously unreleased, which is fairly astounding, as they are terrific! Other unreleased tunes include Pete Franklin's "Mr. Charlie", Irene Scruggs and Little Brother Montgomery's two takes of "St. Louis Woman Blues" and Memphis Willie Borum's "Ain't Gonna Worry My Life Any More".

If you're an aficionado of such works then you will probably have some of these numbers already, but the comp is well put together, with high quality recordings (as much as can be from these old records, in any case) and the more rare items make it all worthwhile! 

Always recommended!