Last night I was listening to American Primitive Vol. II, Revenant’s sublime and wonderfully freakish anthology of fiercely original and raw sounds from this country’s rural (and sometimes urban) heartlands recorded between 1897-1939. It’s packed will all kinds of startling gems such as the opening gospel piece “I Want Jesus to Talk With Me,” where one Homer Quincy Smith battled with his chintzy-sounding organ in a plea to a higher power. With this collection and the recently issued Good For What Ails You: Music of the Medicine Shows, 1926-37, a lavishly packaged and compiled 2-CD set from the good folks at Old Hat, I’m continually amazed at how much brilliance can keep erupting from America’s deep, forgotten past.
While in hindsight the selections on the long o/p 4-CD set Roots N’ Blues—The Retrospective (1925-1950) that Columbia Records released back in 1992 aren’t any more out there than what’s come in their wake from the various independent reissues, I’m still floored that this stunning clearing house—much of it previously unissued--was ever released. Delta blues, Cajun, boogie woogie, western swing, gospel, shaped-note, old-timey, jug bands, bluegrass, and other mutant strains all gloriously smashed together in a woozy tangle of passion, murder, humor, and recklessness that stands as tall as anything in representing that special cauldron from whence sprang what we now regard as American music. There are familiar names—Muddy Waters, Bill Monroe, Gene Autry, Leroy Carr, Charlie Poole, and Roosevelt Sykes among them--but the less familiar names deliver the goods just as often as not. Here’s one I still remember being flabbergasted by when the set was first released—a wild take on the Jimmie Rodgers classic by a group called the Rhythm Wreckers. The record was cut in LA back in 1937, although I don’t know if that’s where the band was from. Apparently, most of the group’s repertoire consisted of old blues songs—their version of “Never No Mo’ Blues” was featured on another great and out-of-print Columbia/Legacy offering, White Country Blues, 1926-1938—and the thing that makes them special is singer Whitey McPherson, who was either 14 or 15 when this record was made. (McPherson also made some records with swing drummer Ben Pollack—but otherwise he and the band are a void, far as I can figure out). McPherson’s pre-pubescent wail is pure charisma, rubbing up against a liquid pedal steel curls with growl-laden yodels that sound like the horny entreaties of some liquored-up bull dyke—no 14 year old should sound this, um, constipated.
Blue Yodel #2 (My Lovin' Gal Lucille)
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