Various Artists Blues With A Message (blues)(mp3@320)[rogercc]

Various Artists Blues With A Message
Label : Arhoolie
Released : 21 June 2005
Format : Mp3@320



Blues With a Message isn't just about lost love and the toils of specific lives, the blues (particularly within the folk-blues traditions) spent some time dealing with sociopolitical issues on the side, primarily before the rise of electric blues. Here, Arhoolie has compiled a set of pieces related to a surprisingly large number of issues. Among them: Minstrel shows, the mechanization of cotton farming, and its related exodus to the North, sharecropping, segregation, the Korean War, the influenza epidemic, the New Deal, civil rights movements, Chicago employment opportunities -- all are given a song or two here. The music quality is roughly equivalent to many of the folk-blues recordings available, though the "big name" artists are largely absent from this one (Lightnin Hopkins does make an appearance singing about sharecropping, however). The songs are deliberately focused on the issues more than the music, but the music can still carry its soul. This one probably won't be on many highest-sales lists in the blues, but it's both historically important and musically enjoyable.

Tracklist:

01. Sam Chatman - I Have to Paint My Face (02:50)
02. John Jackson - John Henry (03:53)
03. Mercy Dee - Walked Down So Many Turn Rows (03:08)
04. Mance Lipscomb - Tom Moore's Farm (03:41)
05. Lightning Hopkins - Tom Moore Blues (05:01)
06. Lowell Fulson - River Blues Parts 1 & 2 (05:19)
07. Fred McDowell - Levee Camp Blues (05:35)
08. Essie Jenkins - The 1919 Influenza Blues (04:04)
09. Willie Eason - Why I Like Roosevelt (05:59)
10. Doctor Ross - Little Soldier Boy (03:03)
11. Robert Pete Williams - Prisoner's Talking Blues (05:14)
12. Johnie Lewis - I Go To Climb A High Mountain (03:15)
13. Herman E. Johnson - Depression Blues (04:46)
14. Johnny Young & Big Walter Horton - Stockyard Blues (03:24)
15. Juke Boy Bonner - What Will I Tell The Children (03:30)
16. Juke Boy Bonner - It's Enough (02:59)
17. Bee Houston - Things Gonna Get Better (03:10)
18. Big Joe Williams - Back Home Blues (0