Customer Reviews

Ragtime Guitar's Foremost Fingerpicker

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a worshipper of Django, Robert Johnson and other guitar legends, I'm ashamed to say that I didn't know about Blind Blake. If you like guitar, this is ambrosia. It's like being a baseball fan and hearing about Shoeless Joe Jackson for the first time.

As a fingerpicker and long-time fan of Rev. Gary Davis, Dave Van Ronk, Jorma Kaukkonen I am astounded to learn from this record that virtually everything they did was done not only first by Blind Blake, but better.
Brilliant, beautiful, indispensible!

Blind Blake was a master of the acoustic guitar. His rag-time style is clearly one of the most technically difficult to perform; but his natural ability makes it sound so smooth. A musical genius, Blake perfected a sound that can only rarely be imitated. Anyone who appreciates acoustic guitar will fall in love with this classic recording.

Before the blues began to dominate the black Southern country music scene there was a transition period where the previously dominant ragtime commingled with the emerging blues picking sound. That is where Blind Blake comes into view. This CD shows off his masterly picking style but also shows that he gets the new blues country beat, as well. This CD has liner notes that are very informative (as are most Yahoo liner notes) about these evolutionary moves. As to the music highlights here are Southern Rag, Hard Pushing Papa, Sweet Papa Low Down and a classic rendition of Rope Stretching Blues (with the classic anti-death penalty line 'in a couple of days I will not be singing this song'). Get this if you need a nice clean country blues pick.

Before purchasing this, I had heard only a couple of Blind Blake tunes and was very impressed... but as some other reviewers have said, this is a revelation! The guitar playing is simply mind blowing. Few fingerpickers could stand in the ring with Blind Blake. I pride myself on being a very good blues guitarist, but I can't even dream of being able to play like Blind Blake, the speed, complexity (balancing of different voices on the guitar, and various other aspects of his playing are simply beyond compare and beyond belief. The sounds that Blind Blake and his guitar make together are truly amazing; at times it is hard to believe that it is one guy... and that he sings so well over such complex and beautiful guitar. I recommend this about as highly as one can recommend anything; if you love blues or love great guitar, you can't go wrong with this!

I've explored early blues for years, but it took me a long time to get around to Blind Blake. Let me set the scene for you: I'm digging in the corner of a local record store. In a box (literally covered in dust) I find several sealed Yazoo cassettes, this one among them. Now, I've been wary of early Yazoo releases since my first Charly Patton experience (ugh), but for the price I couldn't go wrong. And my gamble paid off...
Firstly, the music. Blake is an amazing guitarist. His acoustic playing is agile, versatile, and fairly well-recorded for the time. His playing bounces, even on some of the sad tunes. And speaking of tunes, there is a tremendous variety of them here: rags, straight blues, pop songs, instrumentals, etc. The diversity and Blake's ability keep this from sounding like 20 versions of the same tune (I'm looking at you, Leadbelly).
This album is so dense with songs, by the time you get to the end you really feel like you've been on a journey. Now, it appears that the CD version only has 23 songs, while the cassette version has 28 songs. I don't know which Blind Blake CD to recommend since this is out of print. The "Best of" disc does and doesn't share songs with this, while the "Published Sides" set might be more for completists. Either way, you owe it to yourself to get some Blind Blake if you're a blues fan. The audio imperfections don't get in the way of the music, all of which is full of humor and amazing musicianship. Good stuff.

I fell silly giving this a 5 star rating - who am I to rate work like this? It's peerless and on a level entirely its own. Suffice it to say that if you care anything at all about music, of any genre, you must acquaint yourself with the brilliant guitar work done by Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller and a handful of other men from the south who picked up guitars and showed the world something truly amazing.

Many of the collections from the 20's suffer from really terrible sound, which is unavoidable. This album is extremely listenable. Some of the cuts are so perfect they sound like they were recorded last month. Others (especially Playing Policy Blues) are nearly unlistenable due to surface noise. But by far, the good outweighs the bad, and the brilliant, dancing shimmering music will live, literally, to the end of human history.