Customer Reviews

Rural Blues

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The music's great, but note: These are two separate solo albums. The Robert Pete Williams disc is a reissue of Free Again.

As far the Snooks part of this CD (tracks 11-22), it's available as "That's All Right", which may or may not be easier to find. Actually, "That's All Right" has one additional song, "One More Drink".

'It's difficult to approve the banalities of most blues singers after listening to Robert Pete Williams', according to critic Peter Guralnick who went on to compare Williams's unique blues style with John Coltrane's exploration and development of the jazz form. Indeed, Robert Pete Williams brought to the blues a lyric intensity seldom encountered elsewhere. Discovered and recorded by folklorist Harry Oster in Angola Prison Farm serving life for murder, he followed in Leadbelly's footsteps by being paroled because of his musical talents. The Bluesville LP 'Free Again', which appears here, followed the year after his release in 1959, and is perhaps the most stunning of all his recordings.

Robert Pete Williams was something of an enigma. His sound was in part primitive, although not traditional, and totally devoid of the often used cliches. And yet he also seemed to be creating a new, modern style of blues, one which rejected conventional rhythms, melodies and rhymed lyrics, but was highly dependent on spontaneous improvisation to tell the sorrowful story of his life against a guitar style of irregular beat and unresolved harmony. Because of the uniquely personal nature of his music, the fervour of Robert Pete Williams's performances may come as a shock on first acquaintance. It is not easy listening but must be worked at. The rewards, particularly from this, his finest album, will be considerable.

Fird 'Snooks' Eaglin, was also from Louisiana, discovered and recorded by Harry Oster around the same time as Williams, although their music could not be more different. Oster found Snooks singing on the streets of New Orleans, playing folk and blues for nickels and dimes. He recorded him singing a variety of mainly traditional material, sprinkled with recent blues and popular hits. In fact, Snooks had previously featured on r&b releases some six years earlier, by James 'Sugar Boy' Crawford & His Cane Cutters, and was also one of the Flamingos (not the Chicago group) alongside pianist Allen Toussaint. He took up street-singing in order to raise funds for a new r&b band, and was later produced in such a larger format by Dave Bartholomew for Imperial.

The album included here (lacking the track 'One More Drink' for reasons of timing) originally appeared on Bluesville as 'That's All Right', and is one of the best examples of Eaglin in folk-singer mode. He has a distinctively plaintive voice, and a superbly talented guitar style, on both 6 and 12-string instruments. The beautiful 'Brown Skinned Woman' is possibly the stand-out track of the album, although each number is tackled with consummate skill, and it's easy to appreciate Eaglin's popularity as a successful street performer, even if that's not how he would wish to be remembered.

A timely reissue of two essential classic albums on one CD, with useful notes by the late Robert Shelton.