Robert Shaw – The Ma Grinder / Arhoolie CD-377

Description

CD 377

Robert Shaw — piano & vocals.

“When you listen to what I’m playing you got to see in your mind all them gals out there swinging their butts and getting the mens excited. otherwise you ain’t got the music rightly understood. I could sit there and throw my hands down and make them gals do anything. I told them when to shake it and when to hold back. That’s what this music is for.”
Robert Shaw 1963

Includes all of ARH LP 1010 plus 6 previously unissued selections.

1. The Ma Grinder
2. Hattie Green
3. The Fives
4. Black Gal
5. Put Me In The Alley
6. Groceries On My Shelf (Piggly Wiggly)
7. The Clinton
8. People People
9. The Cows
10. Whores Is Funky
11. Here I Come With My Dirty Dirty Ducking
12. Saturday Night Special
13. Jim Nappy
14. Fast Santa Fe (Bear Cat)
15. Mobile & K.C. Line
16. Going Down To Gulf
17. She Used To Be My Baby (Ma Grinder #2)

REVIEWS

“If you have the Robert Shaw LP you will know whether you want an extra six tracks of equal quality (though recorded 10 years later) which have never been issued before. Personally I would not want to be without them. The LP has been a favourite of mine for a good few years a beautiful collection of solo piano instrumentals and songs one of the most distinctively regional sounding records on the instrument. It combines dazzling dance tunes in a relaxed boogie style with touches of ragtime mixed in and tough lowdown blues. This is the Texas Santa Fe piano style as originally put on record by shadowy figures like Black Boy Shine Andy Boy and Rob Cooper in the 1930s. Shaw was every bit as good as those men and was a real discovery in the early ’60s which is when most of these recordings were made – a few choice notes on the piano and a whole era a whole way of life is instantly evoked. There is a wonderful quote from Shaw on the back of the disc box which I won’t repeat here but which encapsulates just perfectly the background of frantic good times of sex and drinking and dancing against which this music was originally made. Utterly wonderful stuff and unreservedly recommended. Shaw is really something else.”

(Ray Templeton — Blues & Rhythm)

“Robert Shaw was a member of a tight knit group of musicians who in the 1930’s played hot blues piano in barrelhouses and brothels along the Santa Fe R.R. Line near Houston. Their `Santa Fe’ style was characterized by a heavy touch on the keyboard grinding out stomping bawdy tunes. Songs were designed to promote free spending on nights of drinking dancing forgetful-ness and fun. Many of the piano solos are variations of the same musical themes. The lyrics reflect the barrel-house and bordello environments.

Robert Shaw said it best in 1963: `When you listen to what I’m playing you got to see in your mind all them gals out there swinging their butts and getting the mens excitedI told them to shake when to shake it and when to hold it back. That’s what this music is for.’ (From the CD liners.) The first 11 cuts here were recorded by Mack McCormick in 1963 and saw first issue in the mid-’60s. The remainder were done by Chris Strachwitz in 1973 and 1977; they bring the CD’s playing time to over 70 minutes and are released here for the first time. The ’63 sides are worth the price of admission all by themselves. Shaw was 55 at the time and still at the peak of his powers. Songs like `Whores Is Funky’ `Black Gal’ and `The Ma Grinder’ are simply staggering Texas piano blues with Shaw’s powerful left hand laying down the rhythm underneath a right hand of amazing dexterity and inventiveness. The ’70s material recorded when Shaw was in his mid-to-late 60s is a step behind in both power and technique. Still marvelous music by a consummate musician the later numbers nonetheless rely on reflection and introspection more than the ’63 tunes. If you are a piano blues fan of any kind this is a CD to get. The music is wonderful the recording is clean and bright and the liners contain 10 pages of small type about Shaw his music and the milieu of which he is a product. Buy this along with Arhoolie’ Mercy Dee CD (#369) and you’ll have as fine an introduction to traditional Texas piano as you could ever want.”

(Peter R. Aschoff — Living Blues)