Jill Turner experiences, unrequieted love, cool daddies, unfaithful lovers, wrongful jailings, soulful mamas, sonic experiments, heavy backbeats, moaning blues harmonicas, mesmerising guitar work and above all rhythm....whether you are a winner or a loser in love, I defy you to stand still whilst this is playing.
Borrowing its title from the Shakey Jake track, Roll Your Moneymaker's compiler, Johnathan Fischer has done an excellent scheduling job. Dazzling tracks from the familiar names of Bo Diddley & Johnny Guitar Watson, are sandwiched between those of lesser known artists, shedding light on the variety and full extent of the roots of "Early Black Rock n Roll".
The inclusion of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Howlin' Wolf and Lazy Lester evidences how musicians drew on all the great music from the American south . Gospel, delta blues, jazz as well as country hillbilly were used to create the sexy, soulful, exciting and sometimes irreverant soundtrack to a post war era of joy and celebration in life, resonating from the juke joints and the black urban clubs of the day.
What makes this compilation even better, as ever with the Trikont compilations, is their attention to the accompanying booklet. Here you can read the individual trials, tribulations and achievements of the artists as well as a general background and staging to the music, warts 'n all.
Here's one of the many gems in the sleeve notes, about the experimental directions from the label bosses, " The Chess brothers invented their own echo - system: over a speaker in the basement they let the sound run through a pipe, it was variable in length and had a microphone at its end to send the outcome back to the mixing desk, sometimes a rat came in during recording sessions and ruined everything."
We also get an indication of frustration and unjust practices towards the artists. Here were these black dudes and mamas full of sassiness, soul and creativity, yet they never really reaped the financial dividends. Anne Cole's 'Got My Mojo Working' being a case in point. It was the music publisher's who owned the rights in those days and they would introduce the songs to cover artists who would then adapt them for the white teenage radio audience...and then of course someone discovered Elvis, " a white kid who could sing like a negro " with Bill Haley and his Comets paving the way, the music had become irrevocably "white-washed".
A thoroughly entertaining and educating c.d. which shows the true roots of Rock n Roll from the Trikont label, people who know how to put out a compilation or two.
