1049. Mojo Special 7. Ska Bonanza: The Studio One Years (1961-65)

Track Listing

Disc: 1

1. Nimble Foot Ska - Alphonso, Roland & The Skatalites
2. Spread Satin - Alphonso, Roland & The Studio One Orchestra
3. Arte Bella - Cole, Stranger & Ken Boothe
4. Streets Of Gold - Skatalites
5. A De Pon Dem - Marley Anderson, Rita & The Wailers
6. Black Sunday - Skatalites
7. Don't Want Your Loving - Campbell, Cornell
8. Old Fowl Ska - Alphonso, Roland
9. Enna Bella (aka Lena Belle) - Harris, Eric 'Monty'
10. Jezebel - Gray, Owen & Millie Small/Clue J Blues Blasters
11. Always On A Sunday - Anderson, Frank & Tommy McHook/The Skatalites
12. Sugar Bag - Perry, Lee
13. Settle Down - Sterling, Lester & Johnnie Moore/Tommy McHook
14. Turn Me On - Ossie & The Upsetters
15. When The Well Runs Dry - Bunny & Skitter
16. Wheel And Turn - Anderson, Frank & Tommy McCook
17. Oceans 11 - Lloyd, Cecil & Roland Alphonso
18. Over The River - Jiving Juniors
19. My Heaven - Ellis, Alton & Eddie Parkins/Aubrey Adams Dewdroppers
20. Set Back (aka Just Cool) - Alphonso, Roland & Carroll McLaughlin
21. Du Du Wap - Josephs, Chuck & Dobby Dobson/Aubrey Adams
22. Don Cosmic - Drummond, Don & The City Slickers

Disc: 2

1. Man In The Street - Drummond, Don
2. Simmer Down - Marley, Bob & The Wailers
3. Shining Light - Toots & The Maytals
4. Push Wood - Opel, Jackie
5. Wonder No More - Andy & Joey
6. Bongo Tango - Alphonso, Roland
7. Sucu Sucu - Alphonso, Roland
8. 20.75 - Alphonso, Roland
9. Stop Making Love - Gaylads
10. How Many Times (Do You Remember) - Marley, Bob & The Wailers
11. Heaven And Earth - Drummond, Don & Roland Alphonso
12. Sit Down Servant - Opel, Jackie
13. Go Jimmy Go - Marley, Bob & The Wailers
14. Stew Peas And Cornflakes - Adams, Aubrey & Rico Rodriguez
15. Answer Me My Darling - Harriott, Derrick
16. River Jordan - Eccles, Clancy & Hersang/The City Slickers
17. Salt Lane Shuffle - Clue J & His Blues Blasters
18. Jeannie Girl - Charmers
19. Lonely Moments - Perkins, Lascelles & Clue J & His Blues Blasters

Review

Yet another great collection of Ska tracks. In fact this ska list has been surprising me quite a bit in the wide ranging quality of the whole thing. IT is clearly party music and it does its job really well.

This being said it is not as spectacular a collection as the two previous ones, maybe I'm getting a bit jaded but the instrumental Ska Collection and the Duke Reid collection were frankly more impressive in the overall quality and sheer "stick-in-your-earness".

So, although I don't feel the need to add this album to my collection it has to be said that it is another amazing collection of tracks and should not be missed by anyone with more than a passing interest for Ska.

Track Highlights

1. Simmer Down
2. Spread Satin
3. Nimble Foot Ska
4. River Jordan

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

When the R&B craze ended in the United States, Dodd and his rivals were forced to begin recording their own Jamaican music in order to meet the local demand for new music. Initially these recordings were exclusively for a particular sound system but the records quickly developed into an industry in their own right. In 1959 he founded a record company called World Disc. 1962 he produced the Jazz record "I cover the water front" on the Port-O-Jam label, two of the recorded musician, namely Roland Alphonso and Don Drummond should become along Dood founding members of the Skatalites three years later. In 1963 he opened Studio One on Brentford Road, Kingston. It was the first black-owned recording studio in Jamaica (see 1963 in music). He held regular Sunday evening auditions in search of new talent, and it was here that Dodd first found Bob Marley, singing as a part of The Wailing Wailers. He gave the group a five-year exclusive contract, paying them £20 for each song they recorded; for a time, Marley slept in a back room of the studio. The Marley-penned song "Simmer Down", a Dodd production, went to number one in Jamaica in February 1964.

Simmer Down:

1048 - Mojo 33. Koerner, Ray and Glover - Blues, Rags and Hollers (1963)

Track Listing

1. Linin' Track
2. Ramblin' Blues
3. It's All Right
4. Hangman
5. Ted Mack Rag
6. Down To Louisiana
7. Creepy John
8. Bugger Burns
9. Sun's Wail
10. Dust My Broom
11. One Kind Favor
12. Go Down Ol' Hannah
13. Good Time Charlie
14. Banjo Thing
15. Stop That Thing
16. Too Bad
17. Snaker's Here
18. Low Down Rounder
19. Jimmy Bell
20. Mumblin' Word

Review

So three white boys get together to sing and play the blues... this could go tragically wrong, but fortunately for all of us it doesn't. It goes very well indeed and this ends up being a great album.

Koerner, Ray and Glover are truly excited about what their playing and that comes out particularly in the fast speed of their singing and playing, the blues is faster and much rockier than what it had been before, if not in musical terms then at least in attitude.

With the innovations the album bring it doesn't stop from being a pretty respectable Blues album with both covers and originals on offer which do a pretty good work of the music. Here we see the major influence Harry Smith's anthology and the colleciton of Robert Johnson tracks released in '61 would be.

Track Highlights

1. Dust My Broom
2. Linin' The Track
3. Ramblin' Blues
4. It's All Right

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Despite recording, performing and being billed as a trio, the three play together only on the opening track, "Linin' Track". The other tracks are either solo performances by Koerner or Ray and two duets by Ray and Glover and one by Koerner and Glover.

Blues, Rags and Hollers was recorded in Milwaukee during a one-day session.

Documentary on Koerner, Ray and Glover:

1047 - Mojo 32. Sam Cooke - Night Beat (1963)

Track Listing

1. Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen
2. Lost And Lookin'
3. Mean Old World
4. Please Don't Drive Me Away
5. I Lost Everything
6. Get Yourself Another Fool
7. Little Red Rooster
8. Laughin' And Clowin'
9. Trouble Blues
10. You Gotta Move
11. Fool's Paradise
12. Shake Rattle And Roll

Review

A great album by Sam Cooke, eschewing overly sleek arrangements his amazing voice really shines through here. It is not as boisterous as the live recording at the Harlem Square Club, and it is a much quieter album, but it is indeed beautiful.

Sam Cooke must have had one of the best voices in the history of music and as such he has been pretty badly treated by his arrangers and by the image that they tried to sell of him.

It is in albums like this or the above mentioned live album that we really see what is underpinning his great voice. Here we have him in all his emotional glory without ever being drowned by anything other than his great voice.

Track Highlights

1. Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen
2. Get Yourself Another Fool
3. Mean Old World
4. Shake Rattle And Roll

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album is often considered one of Cooke's best, and also one of the best soul music albums of the period. Billy Preston, the organ player of the album, was just 16 years old at the time of recording. The album was recorded in just 3 nights.

Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen:

Mojo 31. James Brown - Live at the Apollo (1963)

See Review

Mojo 30. Charles Mingus - The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady (1963)

See Review

1046 - Mojo 29. Ray Charles and Betty Carter - Ray Charles and Betty Carter (1961)

Track Listing

1. Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye
2. You and I
3. Intro: Goodbye/We'll Be Together Again
4. People Will Say We're in Love
5. Cocktails for Two
6. Side by Side
7. Baby, It's Cold Outside
8. Together
9. For All We Know
10. Takes Two to Tango
11. Alone Together
12. Just You, Just Me

Review

Another album of standards this time with Ray Charles and Betty Carter. Not much new is brought into play here, the best thing here is really Betty Carter's voice which shines through the whole thing.

That being said all of the versions are pretty nice, and while Ray Charles doesn't really do much with his piano he has got a really nice young voice here and it is something interesting for those more used to listening to him later in his career.

So that is pretty much what I have to say about his perfectly nice but not amazing album. Enjoyed it, didn't blow me away. So let me take the free space to wish everybody a great Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Christmas, Winter Solstice, Yule or vacation.

Track Highlights

1. Baby, It's Cold Outside
2. Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye
3. Just You, Just Me
4. Cocktails for Two

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The pair's recording of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" on the album topped the R&B charts. A 1988 CD/LP re-issue included three bonus tracks and the 1998 Rhino Records re-issue combined, on a single CD, the original Ray Charles and Betty Carter with the complete Dedicated to You.

Morons do Baby It's Cold Outside:

Mojo 28. Bill Evans Trio - Sunday at the Village Vanguard (1961)

See Review

Mojo 27. Jimmy Smith - Back at the Chicken Shack (1961)

See Review

1045 - Mojo Special 6. Robert Johnson - King of the Delta Blues Singers (1961)

Track Listing

1. Cross Road Blues
2. Terraplane Blues
3. Come On In My Kitchen
4. Walkin' Blues
5. Last Fair Deal Gone Down
6. 32-20 Blues
7. Kind Hearted Woman Blues
8. If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day
9. Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped The Devil)
10. When You Got A Good Friend
11. Ramblin' On My Mind
12. Stones In My Passway
13. Traveling Riverside Blues
14. Milkcow's Calf Blues
15. Me And The Devil Blues
16. Hell Hound On My Trail

Review

This collection of tracks from the 1930s by Robert Johnson are reissued in 1961 as this album, the one that brought Johnson's music to attention, as the legend was already famous. Going to the crossroads to sell his soul to the devil for great musical skill. And he might just have done.

It is telling that this comes out when it does, 1961 is the ideal time for this collection to influence bands such as Cream and Led Zeppelin to define the style of music that would develop later in that same decade.

Much like the Anthology of American Folk Music, this album comes to influence the birth of whole new genres of music, and it is particularly strange how music is forgotten for 30 years only to explode on the 60s scene with a wide-ranging influence that really defined many of the best guitar players of that and the following decades.

Track Highlights

1. Cross Road Blues
2. Hell Hound on My Trail
3. Me and the Devil Blues
4. Terraplane Blues

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album became a badge of hip taste in the 1960s, evidenced by its appearance in the album cover photo to Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home amid various emblems of bohemian life. Songs from the album were repeatedly covered throughout the decade by many artists, notably Eric Clapton who recorded "Ramblin' On My Mind" on John Mayall's 1966 classic Bluesbreakers album, and "Cross Road Blues" with his own power trio Cream on the 1968 album Wheels of Fire. Clapton would later record an entire disc of Johnson's songs, Me and Mr. Johnson.

Cross Road Blues (sorry about the crappy video):

1044 - Mojo 26. Oliver Nelson - The Blues and the Abstract Truth (1961)

Track Listing

1. Stolen Moments
2. Hoe Down
3. Cascades
4. Yearnin'
5. Butch And Butch
6. Teenie's Blues

Review

Jazz seems to be pretty well represented in this list, and here we get another good jazz album. You will notice however I said good and not fantastic or whatever, because it was just good.

Stolen Moments is indeed a great track, but the rest of the album doesn't really live up to it. In fact the album feels a little bit samey after a while and although the music is always great there is a distinct lack of excitement in me when I listen to it.

So again a good Jazz album which didn't particularly impress me. I don't know I might be missing something here, but compared to some of the other great stuff we've been having here lately it really didn't impress me.

Track Highlights

1. Stolen Moments
2. Cascades
3. Hoe-Down
4. Teenie's Blues

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Of the pieces on Nelson's album, "Stolen Moments" is the most famous; it is a sixteen-bar piece (in an eight-six-two pattern), though the solos are on a conventional 12-bar minor-key blues structure in C minor. "Hoe-Down" is built on a forty-four-bar structure (with thirty-two-bar solos based on "rhythm changes"). "Cascades" modifies the traditional 32-bar AABA form by using a 16-bar minor blues for the A section, stretching the form to a total of 56 bars. The B-side of the album contains three tracks that hew closer to 12-bar form: "Yearnin'", "Butch and Butch" and "Teenie's Blues".

Guy plays stolen moments... for some reason there is none of the original to be found:

1043 - Mojo 25. Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain (1960)

Track Listing

1. Concerto De Aranjuez
2. Will O' The Wisp
3. Pan Piper
4. Saeta
5. Solea

Review

This one is a hard to categorise album, is it jazz? Is it classical music? Is it a little bit of both and none of them really. Basically Miles reinterprets Spanish classical and popular music to be played with his trumpet.

At moments this idea works very well indeed. At other times it's a bit uninteresting, but it is always original. It doesn't really sound like anything before or after it, the way in which the music becomes kind of adapted, meaning it does not sound pristine exactly, there is a kind of improvisational quality not present in the originals it is based on.

This is in fact the most interesting thing about this album, the way Miles' virtuoso playing can work with written down music. And it works. Still some of the music is a bit overplayed, such as the two first tracks, not necessarily in Miles' version but just in general (maybe living in Portugal has to do with the overexposure to Concierto de Aranjuez and El Amor Bruxo). Which is why Saeta is really my favourite track here and none of the obvious ones.

Track Highlights

1. Saeta
2. Will O' The Wisp
3. Concerto de Aranjuez
4. Solea

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Sketches of Spain is considered to be one of the most accessible albums of Davis's career: the most recent edition of the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD describes it as "elevated light music". Less improvisational than much other jazz, contemporaries suggested that Sketches of Spain was something other than jazz. Davis replied (according to Rolling Stone magazine), "It's music, and I like it".

Saeta:

Mojo 24. Joan Baez - Joan Baez (1960)

See Review

Mojo 23. Elvis Presley - Elvis is Back (1960)

See Review

1042 - Mojo 22. Billy Fury - The Sound of Fury (1960)

Track Listing

1. That's Love
2. My Advice
3. Phone Call
4. You Don't Know
5. Turn My Back On You
6. Don't Say It's Over
7. Since You've Been Gone
8. It's You I Need
9. Alright, Goodbye
10. Don't Leave Me This Way

Review

So a Brit rock album in 1960... well it pretty much sounds like American recordings of the time, and Billy Fury, despite his awesomely Rock 'n' Roll name is very much attempting to be the British Elvis.

There is not much British about the album though, it is much more a re-enactment of American rock without any particularly British elements, even if his accent does sometimes bely his origin. Not so much a precursor to the Kinks or Beatles but a successor to Elvis.

All this being said the album is quite fun, a nice mix of ballads and rockier tunes it holds up pretty well to the stuff happening on the other side of the pond. It is a very decent answer to American Rock even if it isn't too exciting.

Track Highlights

1. That's Love
2. My Advice
3. Don't Leave Me This Way
4. Since You've been Gone

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

An early British rock and roll (and film) star, he equalled The Beatles' record of 24 hits in the 1960s, and spent 332 weeks on the UK charts, without a chart-topping single or album. Allmusic journalist, Bruce Eder, states, "His mix of rough-hewn good looks and unassuming masculinity, coupled with an underlying vulnerability, all presented with a good voice and some serious musical talent, helped turn Fury into a major rock and roll star in short order".

That's Love:

1041 - Mojo Special 5. Harry James and Doris Day - Young Man With a Horn OST (1950)

Track Listing

1. I May Be Wrong (But I Think You're Wonderful)
2. The Man I Love
3. The Very Thought Of You
4. Melancholy Rhapsody
5. Get Happy
6. Too Marvelous For Words
7. Limehouse Blues
8. With A Song In My Heart

Review

So we come to the second of our great soundtracks list as chosen by Mojo... and again it isn't a particularly impressive one. Harry James is a great trumpeter and Doris Day is nice and all... but she's a bit too... how should I put it... Doris Day.

I am really not that into wholesome, and Doris Day is nothing if not wholesome, her singing voice has very little fire or pizazz, it's very nice but nice isn't really a great quality.

So in the end the album is nice, with nice renditions of nice classics for a nice audience with nice Doris Day sounding nice.... it doesn't really thrill me in the least.

Track Highlights

1. I May Be Wrong (But I Think You're Wonderful)
2. Get Happy
3. The Man I Love
4. With A Song In My Heart

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The film is regarded as one of the first major Hollywood productions to present a woman with strongly implied lesbian tendencies. This is suggested by Bacall's occasionally frigid character's unaccounted overnight absence from her husband at the same time she is talking of moving to Europe with a female artist. The artist, Miss Carson, is later present, and Amy gushes to her: "I'm dying to see the rest of your sketches."

Trailer for the film with some music:

1040 - Mojo 21 - Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um (1959)

Track Listing

1. Better Git It In Your Soul
2. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
3. Boogie Stop Shuffle
4. Self Portrait In Three Colours
5. Open Letter To Duke
6. Bird Calls
7. Fables Of Faubus
8. Pussy Cat Dues
9. Jelly Roll

Review

Another great Jazz album to close the 1950s with. In a much more traditional shape than Ornette Coleman's Shape of Jazz to Come, it is also a much more enjoyable album in pure pleasure terms, in fact it is a riot of an album.

Great track follows great track, from the party-like first track to the noir dance of Boogie Stop Shuffle the whole thing is pretty great. There are even nods to free jazz, Bird Calls starts dissonant but like a Beethoven symphony it all resolves itself into great music.

You can see from the titles of the tracks that plenty of them are tributes, to Lester Young (Goodbye Pork Pie Hat) or Charlie Parker (Bird Calls) or Duke Ellington (Open Letter To Duke) but they all are very much Mingus tracks even with allusions to other musicians. Another great, great album inexplicably absent from the previous list.

Track Highlights

1. Boogie Stop Shuffle
2. Better Git It In Your Soul
3. Bird Calls
4. Open Letter To Duke

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD calls this album "an extended tribute to ancestors" (and awards it one of their rare crowns), and Mingus's musical forebears figure largely throughout. "Better Git It In Your Soul" is inspired by gospel singing and preaching of the sort that Mingus would have heard as a child growing up in Watts, Los Angeles, California, while "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" is a reference (by way of his favored headgear) to saxophonist Lester Young (who had died shortly before the album was recorded). The origin and nature of "Boogie Stop Shuffle" is self-explanatory: a twelve-bar blues with four themes and a boogie bass backing that passes from stop time to shuffle and back.

"Self-Portrait in Three Colors" was originally written for John Cassavetes' first film as director, Shadows, but was never used (for budgetary reasons). "Open Letter to Duke" is a tribute to Duke Ellington, and draws on three of Mingus's earlier pieces ("Nouroog", "Duke's Choice", and "Slippers"). "Jelly Roll" is a reference to jazz pioneer and pianist Jelly Roll Morton; "Bird Calls," in Mingus' own words, was not a reference to bebop legend Charlie "Bird" Parker: "It wasn't supposed to sound like Charlie Parker. It was supposed to sound like birds - the first part."

"Fables of Faubus" is named after Orval E. Faubus (1910–1994), the Governor of Arkansas infamous for his 1957 stand against integration of Little Rock, Arkansas schools in defiance of U.S. Supreme Court rulings (forcing President Eisenhower to send in the National Guard). It is sometimes claimed that Columbia refused to allow the lyrics to be included on this album, though the liner notes to the 1998 reissue of the album state that the piece started life as an instrumental, and only gained the lyrics later.

Boogie Stop Shuffle:

Mojo 20. Kind of Blue - Miles Davis (1959)

See Review

1039 - Mojo 19. Ornette Coleman - Shape of Jazz to Come (1959)

Track Listing

1. Lonely Woman
2. Eventually
3. Peace
4. Focus On Sanity
5. Congeniality
6. Chronology

Review

Yet another album that is hard to judge separating it from its historical importance, let it be said, however, that this is definitely not my kind of Jazz although I perfectly understand what Coleman was going for and even admire him for it.

The freedom of expression shown in this collection of tracks is a quite radical and impressive thing which would influence Jazz music for the rest of the following century and beyond. If anything it was the last great revolution in Jazz.

So this is the birth of what would become (in)famously known as "free jazz" where feeling is express in an extremely free musical form. While this is doubtlessly interesting and often makes for some surprising music I can never help from feeling that the best bits are when the music devolves to some kind of harmonic construct, the little breaks in the Chaos that precedes and ensues. It is worth noticing Charlie Haden's particularly good use of the double bass here, at times playing by using a bow, quite uncommon in most jazz settings and to great effect.

Track Highlights

1. Lonely Woman
2. Peace
3. Chronology
4. Focus on Sanity

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The Shape of Jazz to Come was one of the first avant-garde jazz albums ever recorded. It was recorded in 1959 by Coleman's piano-less quartet. The album was considered shocking at the time, because it had no recognizable chord structure and included simultaneous improvisation by the performers in a much freer style than previously seen in jazz.
Coleman's major breakthrough was to leave out chord-playing instruments. Each selection contains a brief melody, much like the tune of a typical jazz song, then several minutes of free improvisation, followed by a repetition of the main theme; while this resembles the conventional head-solo-head structure of bebop, it abandons the use of chord structures.

Only bit of Lonely woman I could legally find online...:

Mojo 18. Marty Robbins - Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs (1959)

See Review

1038 - Mojo 17. Frank Sinatra - Sings Only for the Lonely (1958)

Track Listing

1. Only The Lonely
2. Angel Eyes
3. What's New?
4. It's A Lonesome Old Town
5. Willow Weep For Me
6. Good-Bye
7. Blues In The Night
8. Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry
9. Ebb Tide
10. Spring Is Here
11. Gone With The Wind
12. One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)


Review

Another Frank Sinatra album which coming so near after Come Fly With Me perfectly illustrates the variety of register in Sinatra's career. If Come Fly With Me was a joyous album, Sings Only For the Lonely is nothing less than suicidal and relentlessly depressing.

Interestingly it is here that I think Sinatra is at his best. Of course the merit isn't exclusively his, the arrangements are particularly poignant here with Nelson Riddle drawing heavily from later Romantic and early impressionist music to create a feeling of depressive melancholy throughout.

There is no big brass behind Sinatra, only muted tones, strings and piano, the trumpets are muted, the music is depressing... it's not a very cheery album, but it is above all that an excellent album. Frank at his best but also his most non-commercial.

Track Highlights

1. Ebb Tide
2. Only The Lonely
3. One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)
4. Gone With The Wind

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

At the time of the recording, Sinatra's divorce from Ava Gardner had been finalised, and the arranger of the album, Nelson Riddle, had recently suffered the deaths of his mother and daughter. Of these events Riddle remarked "If I can attach events like that to music...perhaps Only the Lonely was the result."

Ebb Tide:

1037 - Mojo Special 4. Ska After Ska After Ska (1958-1966)

Track Listing

1. Thoroughfare
2. Magnificent Ska
3. It's Real
4. Strongman Sampson
5. Alleycat Ska
6. When You Are Wrong
7. Carry Go Bring Come
8. Street Corner
9. True Confession
10. When I Call Your Name
11. Musical Storeroom
12. Words
13. Duke Reid Speaks
14. Burial
15. Guns Fever
16. Oh Little Girl
17. Get Your Feet Moving
18. Only Suffering
19. Storm Warning
20. Rough And Tough
21. Nuclear Weapon

Review

Another great compilation of early Ska tracks, this time all produced by Duke Reid who makes an appearance in the album giving "advice" from the production booth. Again this is great stuff, unlike the previous compilation there is a good mix of vocal and instrumental pieces.

Three of the tracks here are repetitions from those in the first Ska compilation on the list, but they are all great tracks in fact they are some of t he best tracks from the previous compilation. This means that there is really nothing wrong with having these tracks repeated because they are simply great.

The R&B influence is more than obvious here and it creates a nice bridge sound between Ska and R&B particularly in the vocal pieces, R&B with a Caribbean feel if you'd like. Great selection.

Track Highlights

1. Magnificent Ska
2. When You Are Wrong
3. Alleycat Ska
4. Oh Little Girl

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Storm Warning:

1036 - Mojo 16. Frank Sinatra - Come Fly With Me (1958)

Track Listing

1. Come Fly With Me
2. Around The World
3. Isle Of Capri
4. Moonlight In Vermont
5. Autumn In New York
6. On The Road To Mandalay
7. Let's Get Away From It All
8. April In Paris
9. London By Night
10. Brazil
11. Blue Hawaii
12. It's Nice To Go Travellin'


Review

And now for much lighter music. This is a Frank Sinatra concept album of songs thematically linked by theme but also with a more linear plot. It starts with Come Fly With Me daring the listener and after 10 different travels ends with a track talking about how nice it is to come home after travelling.

There is much singing about lush exotic places and stuff people with loads of money would do in the 50s. The whole thing is a lot of fun, there is not, however a lot of depth to it. Some of the lyrics are slightly too silly but this is nicely complemented by very good arrangements which do not necessarily bring anything new but which work extremely well.

This is not what I like most about Sinatra, unlike what might be thought from his public persona I find him substantially better at doing depressing than dandy. Still it is a very fun album which doesn't mean to do anything else than it does, and it does do it very well.

Track Highlights

1. Come Fly With Me
2. On The Road to Mandalay
3. Brazil
4. Moonlight in Vermont

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In his autobiography All You Need is Ears, famed producer George Martin writes of having visited the Capitol Tower during the recording sessions for the album. According to Martin's book, Sinatra expressed intense dislike for the album cover upon being first shown a mock-up, suggesting it looked like an advertisement for TWA.

Frankie sings Come Fly With Me in 1980:

1035 - Mojo 15. Mahalia Jackson - Live At Newport 1958 (1958)

Track Listing

1. Introduction - Willis Conover
2. Evening Prayer
3. City Called Heaven
4. I'm on My Way
5. It Don't Cost Very Much
6. Didn't It Rain
7. He's Got the Whole World in His Hands
8. When the Saints Go Marching In
9. I'm Going to Live the Life I Sing About in My Song
10. Keep Your Hand on the Plow
11. Lord's Prayer
12. Walk over God's Heaven
13. Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho
14. Jesus Met the Woman at the Well

Review

Another album on the list that is hard to separate from history, in this case the history of African American people in post-slavery but segregated times. The life story of the great singer Mahalia Jackson is one of poverty and privation, but her amazng voice brought her to the stages of the world.

Mahalia always refused to sing secular music and this expresses the devotion that she had to the music she sung. She is singing for more than entertainment, she is a truly great gospel singer with an amazingly impressive voice and capacity to emote.

This live set is a great example of that, accompanied by a great pianist Mahalia makes the best of her voice to sing her songs. This is Gospel but not a caricature of gospel, it is heartfelt music and not people jumping around and clapping like cinema and TV would like to make us think. Of course there are very joyous moments here but only when the music demands it. Gospel as Mahalia sings it is an emotional narrative expression of biblical story as oral tradition. This is the seeds of Soul, it is from here that you'd get James Brown even if with completely different thematics. Great stuff.

Track Highlights

1. Didn't It Rain
2. Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho
3. I'm on My Way
4. Evening Prayer

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Mahalia Jackson, born Mahala Jackson, nicknamed “Halie," grew up in the Black Pearl section of the Carrollton neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans, Louisiana. The three-room dwelling on Pitt Street housed thirteen people and a dog. This included Little Mahala (named after her aunt, whom the family called Aunt Duke), her brother Roosevelt, whom they called Peter, and her mother Charity. Several aunts and cousins lived in the house as well. Aunt Mahala was given the nickname "Duke". When Peter was born Halie suffered from genu varum, or "bowed legs." The doctors wanted to perform surgery by breaking Halie's legs, but one of the resident aunts opposed it. So Halie's mother would rub her legs down with greasy dishwater. The condition never stopped young Halie from performing her dance steps for the white woman her mother and Aunt Bell cleaned house for.

Mahalia was five when her mother, Charity, died, leaving her family to decide who would raise Halie and her brother. Aunt Duke assumed this responsibility, and the children were forced to work from sunup to sundown. Aunt Duke would always inspect the house using the "white glove" method. If the house was not cleaned properly, Halie was beaten with a "cat-o-nine-tails." If one of the other relatives was unable to do their chores, or clean at their job, Halie or one of her cousins was expected to perform that particular task. School was hardly an option.

Mahalia Live at Newport with excerpts from the concert:

Mojo 14. Billie Holiday - Lady In Satin (1958)

See Review 16

Mojo 13. Crickets - The "Chirping" Crickets (1958)

See Review 8

1034 - Mojo 12. Nina Simone - Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club (1958)

Track Listing

1. Mood Indigo
2. Don't Smoke In Bed
3. He Needs Me
4. Little Girl Blue
5. Love Me Or Leave Me
6. My Baby Just Cares For Me
7. Good Bait
8. Plain Gold Ring
9. You'll Never Walk Alone
10. I Loves You Porgy
11. Central Park Blues
12. He's Got The Whole World In His Hands
13. For All We Know
14. African Mailman
15. My Baby Just Cares For Me

Review

I really have trouble understanding why this album was not in the previous list of 1001 albums, because this is without a doubt the best collection of Nina Simone tracks you can get. There are of course some missing here like Four Women, Young Black and Gifted, Lilac Wine and Sinnerman, but as an album it works perfectly.

This collection of songs can also be found under the title "Little Girl Blue" but this is the original title of an album which was kind of ignored for a long time but which shows Simone at the height not only of her singing but particularly of her very original piano playing.

Listening to this you can tell perfectly how much she loved classical music, her piano arrengements often point more towards Bach than Jazz. With this you also have some of the best versions of famous songs, Love Me or Leave Me here is the best version of that particular song, no one has the fire that she has in performing it. Another more than excellent album.

Track Highlights

1. Love Me Or Leave Me
2. My Baby Just Cares For Me
3. Don't Smoke in Bed
4. Mood Indigo

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Nina was in her mid-twenties at the time of this album, and still aspiring to be a classical concert pianist. She immediately sold the rights for the songs on this album to Bethlehem for 3,000 dollars. In the end, this cost her royalty profits of more than a million dollars.

Love Me Or Leave Me live:

1033 - Mojo Special 3 - Various Artists - American Anthology of Folk Music (collection 1952)

Track Listing

1. Henry Lee - Justice, Dick
2. Fatal Flower Garden - Nelstone's Hawaiians
3. House Carpenter - Ashley, Clarence
4. Drunkard's Special - Jones, Coley
5. Old Lady And The Devil - Reed, Belle
6. Butcher's Boy (The Railroad Boy) - Kazee, Buell
7. Wagoner's Lad (Loving Nancy) - Kazee, Buell
8. King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O - Parker, Chubby
9. Old Shoes And Leggins - Dunford, Uncle Eck
10. Willie Moore - Burnett & Rutherford
11. Lazy Farmer Boy - Carter, Buster
12. Peg And Awl - Carolina Tar Heels
13. Ommie Wise - Grayson, G.B.
14. My Name Is John Johanna - Harrell, Kelly
15. Bandit Cole Younger - Crain, Edward.L.
16. Charles Giteau - Harrell, Kelly
17. John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man - Carter Family
18. Gonna Die With My Hammer In My Hand - Williamson Brothers
19. Stackalee - Hutchison, Frank
20. White House Blues - Poole, Charlie
21. Frankie - Hurt, 'Mississippi' John
22. When That Great Ship Went Down - Smith, William & Versey
23. Engine 143 - Carter Family
24. Kassie Jones - Lewis, Walter 'Furry'
25. Down On Penny's Farm - Bentley Boys
26. Mississippi Boweavil Blues - Masked Marvel
27. Got The Farm Land Blues - Carolina Tar Heels
28. Sail Away Lady - Stevens, Uncle Bunt
29. Wild Wagoner - Jilson Setters
30. Wake Up Jacob - Hunt, Prince Albert Texas Ramblers
31. La Danseuse - Gaspard, Blind Uncle
32. Georgia Stomp - Baxter, Andrew
33. Brilliancy Medley - Robertson, Eric & Family
34. Indian War Whoop - Ming, Floyd & His Pep-Steppers
35. Old Country Stomp - Thomas, Henry
36. Old Dog Blue - Jackson, Jim
37. Saut Crapaud - Fruge, Columbus
38. Acadian One-Step - Various Artists
39. Home Sweet Home - Breaux Freres
40. Newport Blues - Cincinnati Jug Band
41. Moonshiner's Dance Part One - Cloutier, Frank
42. You Must Be Born Again - Gates, Rev. J.M.
43. Oh Death Where Is Thy Sting - Gates, Rev. J.M.
44. Rocky Road - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers
45. Present Joys - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers
46. This Song Of Love - Middle Georgia Singing Convention
47. Judgement - Nelson, Sister Mary
48. He Got Better Things For You - Memphis Sancified Singers
49. Since I Laid My Burden Down - McIntosh, Elder & Edwards' Sanctified Singers
50. John The Baptist - Mason, Rev. Moses
51. Dry Bones - Lunsford, Bascom Lamar
52. John The Revelator - Johnson, 'Blind' Willie (1)
53. Little Moses - Carter Family
54. Shine On Me - Phipps, Ernest & His Holiness Singers
55. Fifty Miles Of Elbow Room - McGee, Rev. F.W.
56. In The Battlefield For My Lord - Rice, Rev. D.C. & His Sanctified Congregation
57. Coo Coo Bird - Ashley, Clarence
58. East Virginia - Kazee, Buell
59. Minglewood Blues - Cannon's Jug Stompers
60. I Woke Up One Morning In May - Hebert, Didier
61. James Alley Blues - Brown, Richard 'Rabbit' (1)
62. Sugar Baby - Boggs, Dock
63. I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground - Lunsford, Bascom Lamar
64. Mountaineer's Courtship - Stoneman, Ernest V.
65. Spanish Merchant's Daughter - Stoneman Family
66. Bob Lee Junior Blues - Memphis Jug Band
67. Single Girl Married Girl - Carter Family
68. Le Vieux Soulard Et Sa Femme - Breaux, Clemo
69. Rabbit Foot Blues - Jefferson, Blind Lemon
70. Expressman Blues - Estes, 'Sleepy' John
71. Poor Boy Blues - Thomas, Ramblin'
72. Feather Bed - Cannon's Jug Stompers
73. Country Blues - Boggs, Dock
74. 99 Year Blues - Daniels, Julius
75. Prison Cell Blues - Jefferson, Blind Lemon
76. See That My Grave Is Kept Clean - Jefferson, Blind Lemon
77. C'Est Si Triste Sans Lui - Breaux, Clemo
78. Way Down The Old Plank Road - Macon, 'Uncle' Dave
79. Buddy Won't You Roll Down The Line - Macon, 'Uncle' Dave
80. Spike Driver Blues - Hurt, 'Mississippi' John
81. K.C. Moan - Memphis Jug Band
82. Train On The Island - Nestor, J.P.
83. Lone Star Trail - Maynard, Ken
84. Fishing Blues - Thomas, Henry

Review

This is a collection that is truly hard to judge. Firstly it consists of 84 different tracks from loads of different artists, secondly it is split into three main categories (Ballads, Social Music and Songs) and in third place it is so historically important that it is hard to judge it in pure musical terms.

In 1952 Harry Smith compiled this collection from his 78rpms of Amateur, Semi-Professional and Professional singers from the years pre-dating the Depression from 1926 to 30 approximately. As such it is a unique collection of almost forgotten artists which really points us to the future of not only folk but all kinds of American music.

In this collection you can see what will become Soul, or alternative folk. You can hear Dylan, Barnhardt, Bunyan but also James Brown. The historical importance of this collection cannot be minimised. However, it is like any collection meant to give a realistic picture of music of a certain period widely varying in terms of quality. Some of the performers are less than proficient but they are always authentic. There is a certain sense of musical purity here which is hard to find elsewhere. Again this is an extremely important milestone in the democratisation of music, the voice of the disposessed, you couldn't get much further away from Cole Porter or Gershwin than this, the fact that the music isn't perfect or pristine made a revolution in the late 50s and 60 in some ways similar to the punk revolution, if they can do it so can we, Dylan might not have had the greatest voice but he sure as hell had something to say.

More than enjoyable this is a lesson in history which is essential as a learning tool for the development of Anglo-Saxon music in the 20th century.

Track Highlights

1. Spike Driver Blues
2. King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O
3. See That My Grave Is Kept Clean
4. John The Revelator

Final Grade

9/10 (musically) 10/10 (for other reasons stated above)

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Smith also edited and directed the design of the Anthology. He created the liner notes himself, and these notes are almost as famous as the music, using an unusual fragmented, collage method that presaged some postmodern artwork. Smith also penned short synopses of the songs in the collection, which read like newspaper headlines-- for the song "King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O" by Chubby Parker, a song about a mouse marrying a frog, Smith notes: "Zoologic Miscegeny Achieved Mouse Frog Nuptuals, Relatives Approve."

Spike Driver Blues: