I updated the release dates for the first blues mix below - I knew someone would call me out for not including it - yet here we are. Does anyone know if Yazoo Records is still releasing albums? Their website doesn’t seem like it has been updated since the last batch of Patton reissues, but I keep seeing new (at least to me) discs pop up every so often.

We have a trio of songs from Luella Miller today. Miller was was a well traveled blues singer - her topical songs seem to focus on St.Louis and Mississippi though she recorded in both New York and Chicago. The first track was her first release and feature guitar great Lonnie Johnson on violin! He would appear on several of her early recordings on guitar, but it’s interesting to hear him on violin - which I’ve only heard a handful of songs feature him on that instrument. The last two tracks are my favorite, and unfortunately her last recorded works - her voice has matured a lot in couple years between recordings and she’s back by her best band, especially on the on wonderful side Wee Wee Daddy Blues.

Luella Miller - Dago Hill Blues (1926)
Luella Miller - Chicago Blues (1928)
Luella Miller - Wee Wee Daddy Blues (1928)

There’s not a whole lot out there about “Hambone” Willie Newbern - the story about him giving guitar tips to Sleepy John Estes and his temper - which may of led to his death in prison in 1947. Listening to his sides over the weekend, and pretty much all day today - I haven’t heard a more interesting and exciting blues musician for the first time in a very long time. Newbern’s got that hard, driving guitar that’s as steady as the railroad - and a great booming voice that must have been amazing to hear in person, and both of which make for a great blues musician and one that needs to be heard by everyone.

Newbern was born in Tennessee, and traveled as musician all across the South playing in medicine shows which shows in his vocal style and subject matter. I prefer his more personal material - his narrative about being arrested and thrown in jail is my personal favorite. These tracks were recorded in 1929 in Atlanta over two sessions for Okeh.

Hambone Willie Newbern - Shelby County Workhouse (1929)
Hambone Willie Newbern - Hambone Willie\’s Dreamy Eyed Woman\’s Blues (1929)

I don’t really make apologies for posting mostly piano based music, but the sheer number of emails asking more guitar based blues tracks this week has given me pause.

Ed Andrew recorded a couple of sides in the early 20s for Okeh - the first of which is usually referred to as “the first country blues” record made. While I haven’t really done the research to state that claim without warning, It does appear that this is one of the earliest, but more importantly it’s one of the most solid examples of the genre that would sweet out of Georgia and and cover most of the non-delta South. Andrews is tired but plaintive on this side as he gives a overview of his life long blues. Andrews has a weird wobble on the end of his stanzas - I’m not sure if it’s from the recording of possible medicine show past - but it lends an element of weariness that the track benefits from I think.

Ed Andrews - Time Ain’t Gonna Make Me Stay (1924)

I don’t really know anything about today’s singer - Genevieve Davis - outside of this track she recorded with Louis Dumaine’s Jazzola Eight is flat out fantastic. The song is a familiar theme of northern disillusionment that followed both great migrations northward best represented in the blues world in Lonnie Johnson’s Southland Is Alright By Me. Davis doesn’t go into the theme as deeply as Johnson - but her lyrics are particularly effective lines like “did you ever dream lucky/wake up gold [referring to her honey] in hand/and you didn’t have a dollar to pay your house rent man.” Davis’ work on the song is done pretty quickly at around the minute and the half mark - leaving the rest of the song up to the Jazzola Eight who really knock it out of park - incredible work and some of the best examples of pre-war New Orleans jazz that I’ve heard. It is also the first by the Eight that I’ve heard. If anyone has their solo or backing work - I’d love to hear it.

Genevieve Davis - Haven’t Got A Dollar To Pay Your House Rent Man (1927)

My recent request for help with my spam problem was a success, so I’m asking for some more tech help - Is anyone using WP- Mint - Popular Posts? I would like to track my downloads per file, something dreamhost doesn’t offer, and all the Mint plugins for download track use a php script that also prevents the songs from being saved - only streamed. If I could this mint popular post plugin working, at least I would know which posts people are reading the most, and hopefully also download the song the most, not ideal but at least I’d get some idea of what ya’ll are downloading. I have the plugin pointed at my Mint database - but I don’t know what to do from there. My Wordpress theme isn’t widget aware is that the problem?

I recently discovered this Sara Martin track - Shipwrecked Blues and it’s unlike any Sara Martin song I’ve heard before. She sings in vaudeville pitch and the song has lots of strange pauses and breaks - and is only minimally backed up by a solo piano. The pace of the song is also really strange - it’s very rocky - side to side much like a ship making it hard to follow, not to mention Martin who is normally very clear mumbles and slurs her way through some of the stanzas and she also reaches for the higher notes (and does some awful rolling of them), something not typical of her style at all. It makes me wonder if this is her at all. Thoughts?

Sara Martin - Shipwrecked Blues (1926)

If anyone can help me out with my spam issue I’d love to know how to prevent it. I’m currently using Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam plugin for Wordpress, but it doesn’t seem to work that well. Also it doesn’t seem to work with Safari.

I often search my archives to see what I’ve posted before - and upon searching Ida Cox, one of my favorite blues singers of all time - I noticed I’ve only posted her one other time. Of course in that post I expressed my outrange of that same fact. I’ve been listening to Ida sing Coffin Blues, quite possibly the saddest blues song I’ve heard this side of Lonnie Johnson’s Death Valley is Only Half Way To My Home. Backed by Jesse Crump on his beautiful and heartbreaking reed organ Ida sings about burying her man - without metaphor or happiness - this is the sadness of the blues at its most pure.

Ida Cox - Coffin Blues (1925)

Lizzie Miles was a New Orleans Singer who had a wide range of singing styles though I think she was only able to pull off jazz and blues - this track in particular is a fantastic blues performance and really shows why she was one of the biggest blues star of her time. She Is backed by Jelly Roll Morton on piano, and what a wonderful piano track this is - he almost steals the show from Miles who is at her somber and plaintive best.

Lizzie Miles - I Hate A Man Like You (1929)

My computer is in tip top shape. Time Machine managed to scramble my password upon restore which didn’t make my life easier, I’ll say that.
If anyone has any information on the Folklore programs at Western Kentucky, Georgia State or UNC(Chapel Hill) let me know. Thanks!

Doom and Gloom is the latest pre-war related release on the Trikont label and like always it’s a fantastically researched and document release two things that almost never ever go together. The theme behind Doom and Gloom and pretty self explainartory - though War and Wrecks might be more clear - as most of the songs deal with wars and accidents and ships sinking (this is also the theme behind People Take Warning) more so than gloom per se. The set is also smartly bookended with two wonderful Blind Willie Johnson songs and features some real deep cuts from family faces like Charlie Poole, Big Bill Broonzy and Casey Bill Wheldon which is always refreshing. The two tracks I’m highlighting are a solid pre-war side from Big Bill Broonzy about the great flood of 1927, and I’ve sadly neglected Big Bill even though he is one of the finest blues guitar players of all time. The second side is the Sinking of the Titanic by Richard Rabbitt Brown who I hadn’t heard before - but according to the linear notes played mostly in brothels which makes me want to seek out the rest of his recordings.

update: apparently I have heard Richard Rabbitt Brown before, he’s on The Anthology as well as Goodbye, Babylon I’ve never really noticed him until now though. There is also a movement that says he might have recorded under Blind Willie Harris

Buy It Here!!!

Big Billy Broonzy - Southern Flood Blues (1937)
Richard Rabbitt Brown - Sinking of the Titanic (1927)

John Bondurant left a couple of comments on the Buel Kazee and Wise County posts from a few months ago - and linked to Berea College’s wonderful collection digitalized field recordings from Kentucky and the greater Appalachia area. It’s a revelatory website and really well laid out - you can even search by county! Check it out here.

I received the new Dust To Digital Release, Victrola Favorites from Ms. Honey for Christmas, and I haven’t been able to stop listening to it since then. I think that Dust To Digital is a pretty hit and miss reissue group - but all their releases have a striking amount of detail and love poured into the song choices (though the art direction and build quality of another one of their new releases, Art of Recording, leaves a lot to be desired and has prevented me from reviewing it fairly thus far.) and this one might be their best work yet.

The set is loosely themed around a collection of 78s from around the world compiled by collectors Jeffery Taylor and Robert Mills and design to simulate a Victrola parlor or I guess more accurately - their Victrola parlor where they play long forgotten 78s they have found from all corners of the world and through many different means. The collection of sides is wonderfully sequenced and each song moves smoothly into the next despite being all different corners for the world. The names and records are mostly unfamiliar to me - which is a pleasant surprise - as this is not just a good collection of sides in the way Goodbye, Babylon or Tikont’s Flashback series are, but it’s a masterful and well documented collection of songs, unheard a much more challenging feat - and one that puts this collection on a short list for one of the best collections of songs that I’ve ever heard. The collection is two discs and held in the covers of a 144 page booklet with amazing detail shots of the 78 labels, sleeves and advertising that accompanied these sides. I can’t really say this strongly enough, but I highly recommend this release.

Buy It Here !

Kelly Harrell - O! Molly Go Ask Your Mother (1927)
Carlos Ramos - Torre De Belem (1931)

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe holiday - here at Honey H.Q. our holidays have been postponed until after the New Year because of shipping and logistic delays. I’ve fixed the Utah Smith link below - so everyone can hear that wonderful song, instead of me just teasing you with it. In the comments section of that post I was correct about the location of Mississippi Records, it is actually a domestic record shop in Portland,OR. I was able to track down one e-retailer that has it (Other Music out of NYC) Aquarius Records out of San Fransisco stock the record, but they are out of stock at the moment.

I’m going back to an older Trikont release today, Flashback #4 Blue and Lonely is a great introduction to pre-war blues and jazz. It covers most of the big names like Ma Rainey, Blind Willie Johnson and Tampa Red, but also has some more obscure artists and some other non-blues popular music from the period. I think it makes a much better introduction to blues as a whole than those Rough Guide To… compilation discs or even the Folkways Classic Blues series (as far as introduction to the genre goes). This track is by Lee Morse and the Blue Grass Boys, though it’s certainly not a bluegrass song - Morse goes in and out phrasing styles - from blues to vaudeville which might put some people off - but I find the song enjoyable despite the questionable choice of her flat delivery.

Buy the disc here!

Lee Morse and the Blue Grass Boys - Moanin’ Low (1928)