Bear Family BCD 15578 AH
I Had a Dream – Juke Joint Mama – I Love You Too Much – Triflin’ on Me – The Last Letter – The Little Church – Mark of Shame – Losers Weepers – One More Time – Lonesome Daddy Blues – Frost on My Roof – Why Did You Change Your Mind – Hey Baby Baby – It’s Your Turn to Cry – Good and Lonesome – Country Cattin’ – The Way That You’re Living – Lonesome Man – I Love You Too Much – Don’t Conceal Your Wedding Ring – No One Loves a Broken Heart – It Takes a Lonesome Man – Honky Tonkin’ (In Mississippi) – I Love You Too Much – It Takes a Lonesome Man – Rattlesnake Daddy – Asleep in the Deep – Walkin’ My Dog – Good and Lonesome – Why Did You Change Your Mind
In his carreer Jimmy Swan recorded for various labels including Trumpet, MGM, and Decca. This compilation covers a period going from 1952 to 1968 and it’s amazing to see how his music saw little evolution during these 16 years. While country music radically changed, he sticked to his brand of raw and rural honky tonk heavily influenced by Hank Williams (sadly his political views also belonged to a bygone era). Many songs in this set of mostly self penned numbers remind of the lovesick blues boy. Lonesome Daddy Blues Triflin’ On Me, One More Time and Honky Tonkin’ are respectively variations around Long Gone Lonesome Blues, Lovesick Blues, I’m So Lonesome I could Cry and Honky Tonk Blues. He also played a couple of hillbilly boogie/proto rockabilly like Country Cattin’ and Rattlesnake Daddy that are worth the price of the cd alone. If you dig Hank Williams and country music before it changed for the worse, you’ll like this one.
Fred “Virgil” Turgis