Mercy Dee (Walton) – Troublesome Mind / Arhoolie CD-369

Description

CD 369

Mercy Dee (Walton) – piano and vocals
with Sydney Maiden – harmonica; K.C. Douglas – guitar; and Otis Cherry – drums on some selections.

Mercy Dee (Walton) 1915-1962 was one of the finest Texas blues and barrellhouse pianists. He had an expressive voice and was among the best composers of blues which often reflected his own experiences. Mercy Dee’s lyrics were well crafted honest humerous sardonic philosophical extra-ordinary poetry. A new version of Mercy Dee’s 1950s hit “One Room Country Shack” is included in this comprehensive collection of his best recorded work.

1. Have You Ever Been Out In The Country
2. Five Card Hand
3. After The Fight
4. Lady Luck
5. Betty Jean
6. One Room Country Shack
7. Mercy’s Troubles
8. Sugar Daddy
9. Red Light
10. Walked Down So Many Turnrows
11. Call The Asylum
12. Mercy’s Shuffle
13. Troublesome Mind
14. Shady Lane
15. Eighth Wonder Of The World
16. I Been A Fool

REVIEWS

“Mercy D. Walton is one of the more obscure figures in the blues with his sole claim to fame being the minor hit single `One Room Country Shack’ for Specialty in 1950. He had arrived in California a decade earlier after growing up in rural Texas and being strongly influenced by the house party piano players he heard there. This disc is a compilation of four sessions for Chris Strachwitz in 1961 and find the 45 year old Walton in superb form. Five of the sixteen tracks are solo piano and vocal pieces while the rest have varying degrees of accompaniment from rhythm guitarist K. C. Douglas harpist Sidney Maiden and drummer Otis Cherry. Although Walton passed away a year after these recordings this set is an excellent document of an overlooked musician who possessed multiple talents. An authentic rural bluesman who could sing and play with the best Walton wrote some truly amazing songs and performed them with distinctive style. `If it was rainin’ soup I’d be caught with a fork. Tryin’ to live in the mad mad atomic age.’ Recommended.”

(Rick Swenson — Record Roundup)

“Texas blues piano whether pre or post war was relatively ill-served record-wise during the 78 rpm era and so it is particularly important that Chris Strachwitz managed to cut Mercy Dee Walton extensively during 22 month period prior to Mercy’s untimely death at the age of 47 close to Christmas 1962. The emergence of this splendid CD serves to highlight a number of facts but above all Mercy Dee’s own extravagant talent both as performer and as a writer of songs chock-full of contrastweltschmerz is often followed by a rumbustious paean to the joys of well just life.

Walton who had first recorded back in 1949 for the smallest of independent companies saw over a dozen releases on singles in the early ’50s for the bigger guys on the block (Imperial Specialty and Flair) but Strachwitz’s skill as a producer let Mercy stretch himself out within the blues format with which he was most at home rather than the R&B/rock `n’ roll formula with which the Biharis had tried to chain him down. Of the tracks on the CD four are retreads the inevitable `Shack’ (Mercy’s only real hit): `Have You Ever Been Out In The Country’ which Walton recorded for Flair (`Have You’) with a lumpen drummer aboard; `Turnrows’ cut for Specialty as `Dark Muddy Bottom’ and `Fool’ recorded for Flair as `Romp And Stomp Blues.’ By and large the Arhoolie re-recordings work better; for a start there is sympathetic accompaniment on all but four tracks (the CD booklet claims five) from part or all of an aggregation comprising guitarist K.C. Douglas harmonica player Sidney Maiden and drummer Otis Cherry (whatever happened to these last two?). But this is also important in that we get a sprinkling (the booklet claims six but if the old Blues Records is right it’s only four) of material never released by Chris Strachwitz on ’60s vinyl. That such sides as `Mercy’s Shuffle’ a fine country breakdown instrumental propelled by Walton’s piano and Maiden’s harp waited 30 years for issue speaks volumes for the uniformly high standard of Walton’s work and Arhoolie’s production. But if you need convincing that your money would be well invested purchasing this CD check out Mercy’s lyricshow about `No woman has ever loved me all they wanted was to keep my pockets clean’ from the nine-and-a-half-minute autobiographical `Mercy’s Troubles’ or `I wouldn’t tell a mule to get up if he was sitting in my lap’ from `After The Fight.’ Buy the CD if you are fed up with 100 mile an hour guitar solos and could use some quiet reflective piano and poetry; it all depends on whether you prefer Ferlinghetti to Andrew Morrell.”

(Chris Bentley — Juke Blues)