Chess New Orleans

Various Artists - Jazz - New Orleans/Dixieland/Ragtime | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 25, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Mca
• ASIN: B000002OCH
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #281,259 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Jock-A-Mo - Sugar Boy Crawford

2. Overboard - Sugar Boy Crawford

3. Let's Have Some Fun (Honey) - Slim Saunders

4. Oo Wee Sugar - Sugar Boy Crawford

5. No More Heartaches - Sugar Boy Crawford

6. Down Boy - Paul Gayten

7. What's Wrong - Sugar Boy Crawford

8. Mardi Gras Mambo - Hawketts

9. Your Time's Up - Hawketts

10. If You Love Me, Tell Me So - Paul Gayen

See all 22 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Ain't Got No Home - Clarence 'Frogman' Henry

2. I Ain't Gonna Do It No More - Bobby Charles

3. Nervous Boogie - Paul Gayen

4. My Soul - Clifton Chenier

5. Bayou Drive - Clifton Chenier

6. It Won't Be Long - Clarence 'Frogman' Henry

7. Hip Hip Hooray - Eddie Bo

8. Flatfoot Sam - T.V. Slim

9. Where's My Baby? - Eddie Bo

10. Lawdy Mama - Edgar Blanchard

See all 22 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Collection of Songs You Won't Get Elsewhere, July 10, 2007

By 

Dennis G. Voss Jr. (Lexington, KY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chess New Orleans (Audio CD)

Hurricanes aside, people rarely leave the New Orleans area voluntarily. That's true of the city's regular denizens but it's also been true, strangely enough, of their artists. Even the ones who rise to a national reputation generally keep their roots in the Crescent City, often to their commercial detriment. Think Irma Thomas or The Meters. The cost they paid in riches and fame, though, brought a corresponding benefit: It insulated them from the musical fads of their time, imprinting a regional sound on the music that set it apart, that keeps it fresh.

"Chess New Orleans" documents one such example of this New Orleans distinctiveness. The 44 songs on the collection were a small part of the huge boom in independent-label R&B recordings issued after World War II, but the artists recorded by Chess were not among the chart-topping stars who went national (such as Fats Domino on the early end to Little Richard at the tail). The musical approach in this collection is rooted in the Crescent City -- not the recordings of one band, but clearly the recordings of one musical community -- so it manages to avoid the piecemeal feeling of most compilations until you're well into CD#2. It's a rich testament to what happened when you applied the raw and rootsy Chess approach to recording Louisiana's regional artists.

Highlights include the original recordings of "See You Later Alligator" (popularized by Bill Haley) and "Jock-A-Mo/Iko Iko" (popularized by the Dixie Cups and a long-running feature of the Grateful Dead setlist), the still-popular "Mardi Gras Mambo" with Art Neville on vocals, and Clarence "Frogman" Henry's pop hits "Ain't Got No Home" (Corey Haim sings it in the bathtub in "The Lost Boys") and "(I Don't Know Why) But I Do." Personal favorites include "Down Boy" by Paul Gayten, "The Joke" by Reggie Hall, "Loud Mouth Annie" by Myles and Dupont, "Feeling My Way Around" by Earl King, and almost all the songs by the great Bobby Charles.

Final note: Remember that sound fidelity is going to be limited with independent recordings from this period. Otherwise, give this recording a try; I hope it gives you as much pleasure as it's given me.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars THREE AND A HALF STARS, January 4, 2007

By 

COMPUTERJAZZMAN "computerjazzman" (Cliffside Park, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chess New Orleans (Audio CD)

THIS CD FEATURES MUSIC RECORDED ON THE CHICAGO BASED CHESS LABEL OF ARTISTS IN NEW ORLEANS IN THE EARLY 50'S. NOT A LOT OF WELL KNOWN STUFF HERE, I NEVER HEARD OF ANY OF THESE SONGS OUTSIDE OF CLARENCE FROGMAN HENRY'S "AIN'T GOT A HOME". MOSTLY UPBEAT R&B STUFF WITH A NEW ORLEANS FLAVOR, KIND OF LIKE EARLY FATS DOMINO AND OTHERS FROM THAT ERA. A LOT OF IT IS REALLY GOOD, BUT SOME OF THE SONGS ARE A BIT WEAK, SO I WILL GIVE THIS CD THREE AND A HALF STARS