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- Verified Buyer
Anyone who's interested in post WWII blues in general and the genius Sam C. Phillips in particular needs this set. My words of praise would be otiose--buy this box if you have to beg, borrow, or steal the purchase price.A few comments and/or quibbles about some details ...(1) Whoever wrote the comment on "Talking Boy" Stewart missed a major point--that he's attempting to copy the guitar accompaniment to Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Matchbox Blues", simplifying it, but doing a pretty fair job (though his vocal is not good). To say, as the commentator does, that he just changes chords willfully, clearly, reveals that he hasn't heard Lemon's recording. Myself, I find it fascinating that a musician in 1950s Memphis would still have Lemon in his ears.(2) Willie Nix may not have been a great blues singer in general, but his vocal on "Seems Like A Million Years" is one of the most evocative in the whole Sun catalogue. What spoils this recording is James Cotton's apprentice tootling on harmonica: he didn't have sufficient chops at this period. Walter Horton should have spelled him.(3) "Little Walker", judging from overwhelming aural evidence, is clearly Walter Horton, a possibility the commentator allows, but calls into question because of personnel data. Apart from the distinctive sound of Horton, commonsense dictates that a player as good as "Little Walker", if he existed, would have cut more than one side and an alternate take of it. Sam Phillips liked good harp players.(4) The commentator questions Sam Phillips good faith in Earl Hooker for not releasing any singles by Hooker despite avowals that he was among the most talented artists who recorded at Sun. But the truth is that Hookers' instrumentals, good as they are, weren't the sort of stuff that could sell in the 1950s, and his vocal prowess was, like Ike Turner's, mediocre at best (listen to "Move on Down The Line").(5) D,A. Hunt had a very limited grasp of Lightnin' Hopkins guitar technique, whom he imitates note for note. His vocals are no more than interesting. Why he got a release is puzzling. (That there was no follow up, as with Jimmy DeBerry, speaks volumes.) It's also untrue to say, as the commentator does, that Lightnin' Hopkins was a "hard sell" after 1953. He released a bunch of sides on Herald and even had an LP out in the mid-late-1950s.(6) Little Milton's guitar solo on "Carry My Business On" is among the most spectacular of its kind ever heard on land or sea! Too bad that Houston Boines' vocal in near-intelligible, though the information about whiskey brands is helpful. (For years I thought he was singing, "I hear the oil drums ringing ...)(7) Phillips says that the initial Sun label number (174) is insignificant, just an attempt to make it easy for people to remember, but surely there has to be more to it than that? 174 isn't a memorable number--150 or 200 is.(8) Did Joe Hill Louis ever play all three instruments (guitar, harmonica, drums) on any Sun release? It seems not, judging from the commentary.(9) Has any harp player besides Hot Shot Love ever attempted to do on amplified harp what Sonny Terry did without electricity? I find it amazing that he's the only exponent, though I've never heard another.(10) Why don't we get at least a modest admission that Sam Phillips' recorded so many green musicians because he wanted to keep his profit margin maximal? I'm glad he documented this wonderful music, but can't help feeling he knew singers who never recorded before would accept whatever he gave them for their efforts. I know it was a cutthroat business, and staying solvent was a herculean task, but Phillips always made it sound as if he was a sort of commercial Alan Lomax, not a shark swimming with other sharks, though definitely a shark with a genius ear!!!!!.(9)
