Bummer Road [Extra tracks, Import, Original recording remastered]

Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 6, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks, Import, Original recording remastered
• Label: Universal Japan
• ASIN: B0002J51MQ
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #613,657 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. She Got Next To Me

2. Santa Claus

3. Little Village

4. Your Funeral And My Trial

5. Lonesome Cabin

6. I Can't Do Without You

7. Temperature 110

8. Unseen Eye

9. Keep Your Hand Out Of My Pocket

10. Open Road

11. This Old Life

12. Your Imagination

13. Key ( To Your Door) (Alternate)

14. Unseeing Eye

15. I Can't Be Alone

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a bummer..., December 22, 2004

By 

Docendo Discimus (Vita scholae) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bummer Road (Audio CD)

Originally an eleven-track LP, Rice Miller's "Bummer Road" has been remastered and bolstered by four bonus tracks, "Unseeing Eye", a gritty "Key To Your Door" and two little-known songs, "Your Imagination" and "I Can't Be Alone".

This album was originally issued with a warning sticker which said something like "Not suitable for airplay". That was because of one particular song, "Little Village", which is actually twelve minutes of takes and re-takes, complete with a heated discussion between producer Leonard Chess and Sonny Boy Williamson. Lots of cursing going on, and not just "well, gosh darn it!" Great song, by the way, and an enjoyable glimpse into what recording at the Chess studios around 1960 must have been like ;-)

Rice Miller is backed by superstar sidemen like Otis Spann, Luther Tucker, Fred Below, Robert "Jr." Lockwood, and Willie Dixon, and "Bummer Road" includes one of his least recognized, yet very best songs, the magnificent "Santa Claus" (raspiest vocal delivery ever). But virtually every track is a burner, really, from the classic, swinging "Your Funeral And My Trial", to the sizzling "Temperature 110".
If you aren't satisfied with just "The Essential Sonny Boy Williamson" or the 20-track "His Best" (and there's no reason why you should be), go pick up this magnificent blues record right away.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars must be heard to be believed! marycpa, September 16, 2007

By 

ida mae poopsnatch "[e-mail]" (CA, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bummer Road (Audio CD)

I have this album but have been dragged, kicking & screaming, into the digital age. All my records are now enclosed in drywall cuz I was too lazy to move them (400+) during a remodel. Anyway, I LOVE the 12 minute version of "Little Village." The piano player is clearly Sonny Boy's smacked-out brother-in-law who keeps falling face-first into the keyboard about 10 seconds into each take. Sonny Boy yells at an exasperated engineer: "He'll git it, he'll git it!!" The tinny voice of the engineer replies: "OK. Take 92--Little Village." Sonny Boy hits it & blammo--the piano player falls off his bench. The engineer gets so dingy he finally can't recall the name of the song. Sonny Boy shouts: "Little Village! Little Village, M*therf*cker!!
Tempers flare, songs never get sung, and we get to laugh our fool heads off. This cut will always get a dullish party group loosened up. Or it will get everyone to leave--if they don't laugh, you don't need to know them. Either way, it ought to be played, always and often.

5.0 out of 5 stars Little Village, September 1, 2007

By 

Stephen Lamade (East Northport, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bummer Road (Audio CD)

I heard "Little Village" on a copied tape years ago but since lost the tape and forgot who the artist was. For some reason the song got stuck in my head - it's very entertaining. Today I spent about an hour searching for it and finally found it here. I'm going to put the album on my "wish list" to reference it and will get it before too long. Great album.