Various:
Let Me Tell You About The Blues - The Evolution Of Texas Blues
‘The blues come to Texas, loping like a mule,’ Blind Lemon Jefferson sang through a shower of surface noise as he made his recording debut in March 1926. He established the primacy of Texas blues musicians that continued unchallenged for the next 30 years, encompassing the likes of Henry ‘Ragtime’ Thomas, Texas Alexander, T-Bone Walker, Smokey Hogg, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown, Clarence Garlow, Lil’ Son Jackson, Lowell Fulson and Frankie Lee Sims. Other famous musicians recorded when they were passing through Texas, and that included Lonnie Johnson, Walter Davis, The Mississippi Sheiks, Robert Johnson, Roy Brown, Joe Turner, Honeyboy Edwards, Memphis Slim and Jimmy McCracklin.Two of the most influential blues musicians to come out of Texas in the postwar years were Lightnin’ Hopkins and T-Bone Walker, both of whom encountered Lemon Jefferson in their youth. Both also developed individual guitar styles, one cleaving to the country blues traditions that personified Texas blues, the other creating the basic vocabulary for all single-string electric guitar soloists, black and white. As Oak Cliff T-Bone, Walker made his recording debut in December 1929. It wasn’t until later, after a brief creative partnership with jazz guitarist Charlie Christian, that he developed the combination of jazz-inflected chords and single-string runs that would change the nature of guitar blues. Lightnin’ stayed within his country roots, creating an angular, minimalist style that became instantly recognisable, virtually defining Texas blues for the world at large.Through the last years of the 1940s, small group Texas R&B also found its voice, driven by gifted pianists like Little Willie Littlefield, Lonnie Lyons and Willie Johnson (the latter heard here backing Hubert Robinson). Guitarist Goree Carter took his lead from T-Bone and appears here under two pseudonyms, Little T-Bone and Rocky Thompson. Gatemouth Brown’s guitar style grew from T-Bone’s, too, but he added aggression to the mix. Clarence Garlow used the same source, adding a Cajun edge to his work. Manny Nichols, Johnny Beck, Ernest Lewis and Soldier Boy Houston thrived within the country tradition, while Joe Turner led the way for blues shouters like Lester Williams, Peppermint Harris, Hubert Robinson, Clarence Samuels and Earl Gilliam. While remaining with their origins, both Smokey Hogg and Frankie Lee Sims became individual stylists. But no matter their diversity, all the artists represented here testify to the resilience of the Texas blues tradition.
Various - Let Me Tell You About The Blues: Texas by FantasticVoyage