VARIOUS ARTISTS
The Bluesville Years Vol 11 (Prestige)
Reviewed by Eric Steiner

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The folks over at Fantasy Records in Berkeley have done it again. Fantasy's got quite a catalogue: from the early jazz classics laid down on Pablo to classic soul sides on Stax and Volt, they're sitting on a treasury of American music that's probably unmatched in the industry. I'm rather fond of the blues in their basement vaults, such as the Prestige blues records from the 1950's. The 11th volume is one of their best, featuring Lightnin' Hopkins and Sonny Terry doing "Last Night Blues" and Chicago blues piano legend Sunnyland Slim on "Everytime I Get to Drinking." Well, everytime I get to thinking about great blues collections, I think of the Bluesville Years, 'cause they've got a wealth of material to draw from. Samuel Charters' liner notes read like a graduate school seminar in the blues, rooted in fieldwork in the juke joints and studios that brought many classic blues players to wider audiences in the 1950's and 1960's. Taken together, Blues Is A Heart's Sorrow, and its ten predecessors, is more than an encyclopedia of the blues: the Bluesville Years' compilations capture some of the best that the blues has to offer.

Track List:

I Hate to Be Alone/Roosevelt Sykes * Selfish Woman/Roosevelt Sykes * Everytime I Get to Drinking/Sunnyland Slim * Pity and a Shame/Mercy Dee Walton * I'll Go On Living/Jimmy Witherspoon * Sail On, Little Girl/Jimmy Witherspoon * How Long Blues/Jimmy Witherspoon * Last Night Blues/Lightnin' Hopkins with Sonny Terry * The Train is Coming/Henry Townsend * Nervous/Willie Dixon with Memphis Slim * You Have No Love in Your Heart/Lonnie Johnson * Evil Woman/Lonnie Johnson * Four Walls and Me/Lonnie Johnson * I'm Getting' Long Alright/Mildred Anderson * Cry, Cry Baby/Little Brother Montgomery * Fool Blues/Curtis Jones * Good Women Blues/Curtis Jones * My Old Lonesome Blues/Pete Franklin * Dog House Blues/St. Louis Jimmy * Some Sweet Day/St. Louis Jimmy

© 2000 - Eric Steiner