Blues, Songs and Ballads

Yusef Lateef, Tom Rush

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 11, 1991)
• Original Release Date: 1989
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Fantasy
• ASIN: B000000XF5
• Also Available in: Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #78,564 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Track Listings

1. Duncan and Brady

2. I Don't Want Your Millions, Mister

3. San Francisco Bay Blues

4. Mole's Moan

5. Rye Whiskey

6. Big Fat Woman

7. Nine Pound Hammer

8. Diamond Joe

9. Mobile-Texas Line

10. Joe Turner

11. Every Day in the Week

12. Alabama Bound

13. More Pretty Girls Than One

14. Sister Kate

15. Original Talking Blues

16. Pallet on the Floor

17. Drop Down Mama

18. Rag Mama

19. Barb'ry Allen

20. Cocaine

See all 23 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top 10 Best Folk Recordings, June 20, 1999

By	Jay M. Wilson (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This recording belongs on anyone's list of the best folk music recordings ever made, preserving the best work of one of the folk revival's finest from the pioneer days in Boston in the early 60's. The best selections are the Jack Elliot reprisals like Diamond Joe and San Francisco Bay Blues, but Mobile-Texas Line and Nine Pound Hammer are extraordinary. There is not a weak song on the disk. Later seduced by amplification and other sound studio enhancements like Baez, Dylan and many others, Rush never again attained the heights reached in these first two recordings, preserved here on one fabulous and essential disk.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Classic Blues/Folk, June 13, 2000

By	A. Everett Logan (New Hampshire, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a combination CD made from the original LPs "Got a Mind to Ramble" and "Blues, Songs, Ballads." An excellent example of the blues/folk revival of the early 1960s. The singing, guitar, and washtub bass are great. The only thing that keeps me from giving it five stars is that they left off the gospel classic "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" that was on the original "Got a Mind to Ramble" LP. But, it's still one of the best albums out there, and more than worth the price!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The seminal urban folk revival album of traditional blues, August 23, 1998

By A Customer

These two albums came out of the Club 47 period in Cambridge, before Dylan and Phil Ochs and the rest started writing the new stuff. With his easy focused baritone, Tom Rush prefigured the urban warm/cool later perfected by James Taylor and Jackson Browne (two songwriters whose work he was among the first to popularize in "The Circle Game." While Tom Rush stole from everyone, he also did their material better, and his versions of Staggerlee, Cocaine, Sister Kate, San Francisco Bay Blues have stayed in my brain for more than three decades now, overpowering all the other versions. This album and the very-influential-at-the-time "The Circle Game," which also was among the first recordings of Joni Mitchell, are two of the bricks at the foundation of folk-rock.