Basin Street Blues - Earl 'Fatha' Hines

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...back, very bluesy in places - a true classic. Then we have "Little Brown Jug". I defy you to not try and lindyhop or jitterbug your way round the room when this is on. It's so infectious it should carry a health warning. Some fantastic drum playing by Kenny John. "St. Louis Blues - March" has you thinking of cheerleaders and Max Wall all at once. There. Now you'll have to get the album to see what I mean! This is incredibly catchy and it'll have you practising baton twirling with a broom handle in no time. If I was a soldier I'd have gladly marched all day long to this little number. This next one is an all-time favourite, definitely on my desert island discs list, and it's "Basin Street Blues". Because this is from the soundtrack of the film, the vocals are done by none other than the great man Louis Armstong himself. It starts... Read review

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Advantages: It will blow your mind
Disadvantages: It will disturb your complacency

...in the Village) and Chicago (for blues at Mr. Kelly's),.. I had never heard Earl Anderza play. In the three weeks we spent locked down together, we talked about a wide-world of subjects, of course, we spoke about music, books and our lives in the life, while we awaited transportation to different prisons; he to the State and me to the Feds. Earl spoke about music with the sort of authority that --- when I got out many months later and bought my first vinyl copy of "Outa Sight" --- I wasn't the least bit surprised that his musicianship was amazing or that his lyrical sense was fully formed. I have been delighted by these cuts for more than 35 years; each time I go back to them they re-delight me. After about three weeks, I got carted off to Lompoc FCI and I never saw Earl Anderza again. Since Earl never re-emerged into the first-rank of musicians... Read review

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...out of the Bruce Springsteen book of lyric writing and musically akin to John Cougar Mellencamp but with his Texas drawl spitting out the words with regret and venom he manages to retain his own identity. These two songs also nicely encompass the vision in Earle's head. At one extreme its heading off down the highway with your friends raising hell and not looking back, at the other its being caught in the poverty trap of American government policy, this is the sound track to Earnest Hemmingway and Jack Kerouac. Also from this album, My Old Friend The Blues remains one of Earle's highest regarded songs. A solo ballad of regret and having one constant and faithfully ally in his life, the blues, it highlights his haunting voice, full of emotion and pain. Short and sweet, poignant and sorrowful it sits at odds with the country rock he... Read review

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