Customer Reviews

Texas Worried Blues

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
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This CD, containing every one of Henry Thomas's recordings, is a must-have if you're a fan of Lead Belly and other black musicians who performed pre-blues and early blues(but you probably won't care for it if you're expecting to hear something similar to Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf). Thomas's songs are full of energy and humor, the delicacy with which he played the quills providing an interesting contrast with his rough guitar and vocal style.
My only quibble with Yazoo's otherwise excellent packaging has to do with the liner notes written by Stephen Calt. Couldn't they have found someone who had more favorable things to say about Thomas? While acknowledging Thomas's deft picking on the few straight blues numbers like "Texas Easy Street Blues", Calt questions the "documentary value" of this music--in other words, he seems to have serious doubts as to whether Thomas was representative of the black music of his time. He points out the influence of white music on Thomas's recordings, but the same thing can be said of every black musician of his generation(Thomas was born in the 1870s); blacks and whites often performed and recorded the same songs.
There is one point in particular, albeit a minor one, on which I question Calt's analysis. He calls Thomas's "Shanty Blues", a slide piece, "a truncated version of a hillbilly song Fiddlin' John Carson recorded in 1927 as 'The Smoke Goes Out the Chimney Just the Same'...". I have never heard Carson's version so I don't know how similar the Thomas song is to it, but Calt is either unaware of or completely ignores the great similarity between Thomas's vocal phrasing on "Shanty" and the slide licks on "Guitar Rag", a popular instrumental recorded by black musician Sylvester Weaver in 1923(and itself later copied by white country musicians).

One of the great pleasures of being a music historian is that I occassionally run across an unheard-of gem. Henry "Ragtime" Thomas is definitely such a gem. Making all of his 23 recordings between 1927 and 1929, Henry Thomas recorded unadulterated music the way musicians really played, not the way that many, like Robert Johnson were told to play. The mix is a cross between Blues, Country, Folk and just plain-old fun music.

Fans of Rock music will recognize some of the songs as later becoming hits. "Don't Ease Me In" was later recorded by the Grateful Dead, "Fishing Blues" was later recorded by the Lovin' Spoonful and "Bulldoze Blues" was later given a note-for-note, (down to the flute solo,)yet uncredited cover treatment by Canned Heat. Thomas played an instrument similar to panpipes that he played on a neckbrace, much in the style that harmonica players use.

If you want to explore the true roots of Rock music or if you are simply a Blues fan, this album is an absolute must.

Unique because the music in this collection is really unlike any other. It's certainly not blues, at least not as we know blues, and it's not really old-timey music. From my standpoint, what Henry Thomas was doing was collecting tunes, songs, popular lyrics of the day and combining them all into entertaining tunes for dancing and listening. And saying these tunes are entertaining is an understatement...they are simply some of the prettiest, happiest old-time tunes I've heard. Archaic sounding and fun, this collection is a keyhole look into another musical era. It's likely that old-time country music back in the late 1800s was similar to these. So, not only is this collection a very pleasant-sounding one, but it's also a view to a time before recorded music.

Henry Thomas was not a blues musician, although the four blues titles in this album are excelent. Henry Thomas was a songster, a performer of popular country songs. Fans of modern blues will find it hard to compare Thomas with people like Robrt Cray, Albert Collins or Albert King. But the music played on this CD does represent what was going on and popular in the beginning of the century. I found the Panflute playing reminiscent of African flute music. This in itself makes the CD worth listening to. The CD contains many types of songs. All are delivered with a great voice and inimitable - though simple - guitar backing. Henry Thomas has the musical charisma similar to that of blues greats such as Charlie Patton, Blind lemon Jefferson or Blind Willie Johnson (himself an example of a non-blues singer who is popular among blues fans). To me all the songs are great, but Railroadin' Some, Shanty Blues, and Texas Easy Street deserve special honors. I highly recommand the album.

Henry Thomas was not a blues musician, although the four blues titles in this album are excelent. Henry Thomas was a songster, a performer of popular country songs. Fans of modern blues will find it hard to compare Thomas with people like Robrt Cray, Albert Collins or Albert King. But the music played on this CD does represent what was going on and popular in the beginning of the century. I found the Panflute playing reminiscent of African flute music. This in itself makes the CD worth listening to. The CD contains many types of songs. All are delivered with a great voice and inimitable - though simple - guitar backing. Henry Thomas has the musical charisma similar to that of blues greats such as Charlie Patton, Blind lemon Jefferson or Blind Willie Johnson (himself an example of a non-blues singer who is popular among blues fans). To me all the songs are great, but Railroadin' Some, Shanty Blues, and Texas Easy Street deserve special honors. I highly recommand the album.

This music is absolutely joyous! It is thoroughly ancient dance music. I am listening to the album for the first time at this very moment, and I am overwhelmed with emotion. Henry Thomas's voice is perfectly inoffensive and endearing. Whole books can be written on the lyrics he sings and how they crop up in later tunes that would be called "Blues". The quills he plays make his music unlike anything else in all of Americana. His guitar playing can be plain, old, trance-like on the dance tunes, and intricate and glorious on the blues songs. At this exact second, I am listening to "Railroadin' Some," and I must conclude that this is one of the greatest albums I've ever heard in my life.

Thomas was a Texan who recorded in the late twenties, but his music is only tangentially related to the blues. The consensus seems to be that he represents an older style that was dying out when he recorded. Thomas was called "Ragtime Texas," but his music is more ragged and less technically sophisticated than the East Coast guitar ragitme associated with Blind Blake. Suffice it to say that Thomas is sui generis and comparisons to other artists just don't hold up.

The rhythms are jaunty, but the music is kept from cloying by the heaviness and resonance of Thomas's voice. His lyrics tend to be more-or-less random collections of "floating" verses rather than coherent stories. The lightness of the music and the lack of formal conherence might make Thomas emotionally unsatisfying for listeners who are used to the intimately personal and anguished statements of, say, Robert Johnson or Son House. Heard on its own terms, though, this is fun, warm music and a fascinating glimpse at an almost-forgotten folk style.

This compilation of late-20s recordings provides a great peek into the way blues were played and sung once upon a time. Musically quite a bit like Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton and Son House, it's just one man with his guitar and sometimes (yes, that's right) his panflute. Recorded before the harmonica had become the de facto accompaniment to voice and guitar, Henry Thomas employs a panflute in a couple of the tracks. One of them, BullDoze Blues, eventually became the Canned Heat classic "Goin' Up the Country". You'll recognize the riff immediately. Another track, "Honey, Won't You Allow Me One More Chance?" is the first recorded version of what eventually became the Bob Dylan hit. The rest of the album is primarily a mix of blues and Texas shuffle, and quite a bit more lighthearted than his contemporaries such as Robert Johnson with all his me-and-the-devil songs. A great listen for anyone who enjoys that late-20s, raw one-man blues, and a good start for anyone doing some digging into the roots of blues or classic rock (assuming you have the Robert Johnson collection already).

i just got this cd a few days ago and i can't stop listening to it. this guy is awesome he is so under rated,however i wish they would remaster it and take out all the hissing and popping,it seems they recorded it strait from the old records without touching anything up but it is still beautiful and addictive and i have to agree with one of the other reviewers that the guy they got to write in the cd booklet seemed very negative. all in all it is a beautiful chunk of history

Henry is important for being one of the only recorded blues players that accompanied hisself with the quills. Quills originated in Africa and are
there version of pan pipes. They then fell out of favor. If you have an interest in American origns of music and wish to hear the authentic sound (1927c) this is the album for you. Extra bonus is that this guy is really good and a leader in the early American renaissance. It is said of him that he is the crossroads of the blues form.