Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall

Jimmy Reed | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 13, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Shout Factory
• ASIN: B000WS4P56
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40,570 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #61 in Music > Blues > Harmonica Blues

Track Listings

1. Bright Lights, Big City

2. I'm Mr. Luck

3. What's Wrong, Baby

4. Found Joy

5. Kind of Lonesome

6. Aw Shucks, Hush Your Mouth

7. Tell Me You Love Me

8. Blue Carnegie

9. I'm a Love You

10. Hold Me Close

11. Blue Blue Water

12. Baby, What You Want Me to Do

13. You Don't Have to Go

14. Hush Hush

15. Found Love

16. Honest I Do

17. You Got Me Dizzy

18. Big Boss Man

19. Take Out Some Insurance

20. Boogie in the Dark

See all 23 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Jimmy Reed was the biggest blues artist of the '50s and early '60s, outselling giants such as Muddy Waters and B.B. King. His stature was so great that Vee-Jay released a double album on him in 1961, a rarity at the time even for rock and pop artists. Though marketed as a live album, At Carnegie Hall was actually a collection of new stereo versions of Reed's biggest hits. As such, it was tremendously influential on a generation of rockers, including Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, and Aretha Franklin, all of whom covered songs from this album

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Weirdly titled; excellent music, January 10, 2004

By 

Docendo Discimus (Vita scholae) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall (Audio CD)

This CD was originally issued as a double LP by Vee-Jay in the early '60s, and the title is decidedly odd considering that none of these songs are recorded live, or at Carnegie Hall for that matter.
The first dozen tracks, which made up the first of the two original vinyl LPs, are some nice middle-period studio tracks, while the following dozen constitutes a "reissue" of sorts of the Vee-Jay label's "Best Of Jimmy Reed album.

If you're looking for a live document of Jimmy Reed, this ain't it, but stereophiles will love this as the sound is Mobile Fidelity impeccable, even on the mono masters, while stereo masters of such classics as "Baby What You Want Me To Do" and "Big Boss Man" sound almost revelatory.
The various musicians include Reed's lead guitarist and childhood friend, the great Eddie Taylor, as well as Willie Dixon, Curtis Mayfield and Phil Upchurch on bass, pianist Henry Gray, and guitarists Lee Baker and William "Lefty" Bates (who was indeed lefthanded and played his instrument upside down).

In addition to the eleven "Carnegie Hall" tracks, which are supposed to recreate the track list from an actual concert at that venue, the second half of the album features most (but not quite all) of Reed's classic blues shuffles, including crisp renditions of "You Got Me Dizzy", "You Don't Have To Go", "Honest I Do", "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby", and the wrongly titled "Baby What You Want Me To Do" (Jimmy Reed sings, and always did sing, "baby why you wanna let go?").

Critics hated Mathis James Reed's nasal, badly articulated vocal delivery, simple, two-string boogie patterns, and virtual inability on the harmonica, but the record buying public loved him, and he frequently crossed over to the pop charts, an amazing feat for a black blues singer in the 1950s. And Reed outsold everybody from Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf to Little Walter and Elmore James in the process.

The story of Jimmy Reed is a tragic one, really. Illiterate, alcoholic and stricken with undiagnosed epilepsy, Reed was ill equipped to handle fame and fortune, and even though his faithful wife Mary (known to fans as "Mama" Reed) did everything she could to keep him functioning, he ended up slowly falling apart, finally dying at age 50 in 1976. His epilepsy had been diagnosed by then, and he had managed to quit the bottle and was receiving medical treatment, but too late, and he died while trying to make a comeback to the blues circuit.

Rhino's "Blues Masters: The Very Best Of Jimmy Reed" remains the best introduction to Reed's music, and this is not an ideal starting point for newcomers (even with most of the hits aboard), but if you have to have some classic Jimmy Reed in clean stereo, this is the place to go.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars T'ain't live but it sure is classic Jimmy Reed!, July 15, 2000

By 

J. Mark Sappenfield (Overland Park, KS USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall (Audio CD)

Collectable Records recently reissued JIMMMY REED AT CARNEGIE HALL a Vee-Jay album(VJLP 1035) originally released in 1961. The first eleven songs are a recreation of performance Jimmy Reed gave at the "Blues at Carnegie" series(per the liner notes). The liner notes state that the reason the recording could not be done at Carnegie Hall was due to "technical and contractural problems" so the album ended up being recorded at New York City's Bell Sound Studios. Some new tunes, at the time, were written for the Carnegie performance such as "Blue Carnegie"(instrumental) and "Blue, blue, blue." It also includes such Reed classics such as "Ah Shucks,Hush Your Mouth" and "Bright Lights Big City", the first song on the album. The twelve remaining cuts is a best of Jimmy Reed songsfest which are faithful rerecordings of his best known songs. "Take Out Some Insurance" is the only song not written by Jimmy Reed. Although it has the same feel as a Jimmy Reed song the liner notes state that he hated it. Though his singing is sometimes slurred and out of tune, the sound of the blows on his harmonica and his guitar, sometimes accompanied by Eddie Taylor on bass guitar, make his blues songs shine. This cd is a faithul reproduction of the lp including the ever present oval Vee-Jay oval on the front cover along with the original liner notes.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jimmy Reed's hits from the original master tapes, July 26, 2004

By 

Bradley Olson (Bemidji, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall (Hybr) (Audio CD)

This was Jimmy's best selling album ever but the title is very misleading in that these are all studio recordings, not live recordings, which means they weren't recorded at Carnegie Hall, but the tracks are in the order he performed them at a Carnegie Hall concert one week prior to recording the first dozen in the studio of this double album. This is actually the first time all of the original master tapes of this album were used as the songs recorded in mono were on all previous issues in rechanneled stereo while the true stereo tracks on this disc have always been in true stereo on every release. Steve Hoffman searched high and low for the first generation tapes of each song on the album in the Vee Jay vaults and as a result, Audio Fidelity has issued the definitive release of the album. Audiophiles and casual blues fans who like quality sound must pick up this issue of Jimmy Reed At Carnegie Hall as it contains most of his biggest hits in the best possible quality sound due to the work of Steve Hoffman.