Customer Reviews

Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1, 1923

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Ida Cox was perhaphs the best blues singer that come out of the 1920's, she wrote the famous "one Hour Mama" that LaVay Smith recenly reprised in the mid 90's. Anyhow this CD is a fine example of her artistry although it doesn't contain the classic "One Hour Mama" it is a great CD to start with when exporing the timeless Ida Cox. Highly Recommended

Ida Cox had a distinctive and very appealing voice, she was one of the few blues moaners who could sing on the same artistic level as Bessie Smith, as a matter a fact many of Cox's recordings have more bite to them then Smith's. Here are 24 of Cox's 1st recordings which date between 1923-1924. The sound quality is exellent considering this is the early 20's, and Cox communicates to todays listeners just as well as she did in the 20's. One can clearly hear and understand every word she says, a somewhat dicty singer, yat so bluesy and down to earth. If you like a blues singer who can sing jazz and swing, you will enjoy Ida Cox, and if you like Bessie Smith you will also appreciate Cox's work. There are three other volumesin this series that reissue all of Cox's recordings and they are all stronly recomended. Also if you like Ida Cox, go see Lavay Smith, next time she stops by you're town. Lavay Smith sings a lot of classic blues numbers made popular by or written by Ida Cox, Helen Humes, Billie Holiday, and Bessie Smith. Lavay is a young but stylized vocalist in the traditional jazz vein, listen to her CD "One Hour Mama"(which was Cox's composition), you'll lover her too.

Ida Cox was one of the most talented of the classic blues singers of the 1920s. This Document CD has 24 of her first 32 recordings and, although one regrets that it is not a "complete" series (hopefully the dozen other alternate takes will be reissued by Document eventually), the music is consistently enjoyable and timeless. In fact, quite a few of the lyrics (many of which were written by Cox) were later permanently "borrowed" by Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams; the first stanza of "Goin' to Chicago" was taken from "Chicago Monkey Man Blues" and "Bear-Mash Blues" has a couple of Williams' best lines. When one considers that the music on this CD is taken from 1923-24, it can certainly be considered ahead of its time! Most of the musicians backing Ida Cox are excellent, particularly pianist Lovie Austin and (on five numbers) cornetist Tommy Ladnier and clarinetist Jimmy O'Bryant. The recording quality (even with some surface noise) has been greatly cleaned up for this reissue and Cox's singing is very easy to understand. Although uncrowned, Ida Cox (who after retiring in 1945 came back for a final recording in 1961) can still communicate to today's listeners, something than can be said about very few other singers from 1923 HIGHLY RECOMENDED

In theory,the idea of sorting this precious blues recordings in chronological order sounds great (why Austrian label?) but once faced with full-lenght CD,listener must admit that these songs were not meant to be played for more than 30 minutes.What sounds as cracky,charming primitive sound of 20-ies, soon became monotonious - specially as the only music background was often just plink-plonking piano (in this case Lovie Austin,interesting female piano player) and tempo hardly changes.Instead of presenting overview of her career in chosen song programe,this precious but hard-to-digest "Document" CD kills any desire to explore more of Ida Cox music.She was interesting woman but her music in 1923. was very much the same story over and over again. NOTE: her own "Graveyard Dream Blues" was succesfully covered by "Empress" Bessie Smith who had strange habbit of showing her superiority (and complex) by covering hits of her competition singers.