Various Artists – Female Blues Singers Vol. 8: H1 (1923-1928) / Document CD-5512

Description

Document Records Compact Disc-CDDOC5512

1923-1928 Josie Harley Lillian Harris Sister Harris Alma Henderson Clara Herring

Josie Harley
01 – I`m through with you as I can be (take 2)
02 – 2 am. blues (take 1)

Lillian Harris
03 – Four o`clock blues (take 3)
04 – Sugar blues
05 – Baby won`t you please come home (take 1)
06 – Baby won`t you please come home (take 3)
07 – Mama`s got the blues (take 1)
08 – Mama`s got the blues (take 3)
09 – Down hearted blues (take 5)
10 – Gulf coast blues (take 4)
11 – Gulf coast blues (take 5)

Sister Harris
12 – Sugar blues
13 – Don`t mess with me
14 – The cootie crawl
15 – You can have my man (if he comes to see you too)
16 – Laughin` cryin` blues
17 – Voo-doo
18 – Beale Street mama
19 – Don`t make a dog out of me

Alma Henderson
20 – Red lips, kiss my blues away
21 – Where the wild, wild flowers grow

Clara Herring
22 – Park no more mama blues
23 – Beating blues

Volume eight of this A to Z of female blues singers presents five singers from the vaudeville style of the Classic Blues era. It is possible that Sister Harris is none other than Estelle Harris, one of the stars of the Savoy Theatre in Memphis between 1910 and 1913 and one of the first black vaudeville singers to become known as a blues specialist. Clara Herring shows that she was a worthy competitor to Bessie Smith and Alma Henderson’s strong vocals are inspired by the first class accompaniments provided by Lonnie Johnson on guitar and DeLoise Searcy on piano.

The female blues singers who made records in the 1920s and early 1930 are often simplistically characterized as “vaudeville” artists. This series of fourteen volumes, concentrating on singers who made only a handful of recordings and who mostly remain biographically obscure, reveals the true diversity of the female artists of this era. While the vaudeville theatres and travelling tent shows were probably the main venues for most of them, some sang in cabarets and others in low-down barrelhouses. Some were vaudeville veterans whose careers stretched back to the teens or even earlier, while others were young new arrivals on the stage. Yet others sound as though they had just emerged from a rough saloon and house party environment. Some created their own excellent song material, while others were merely the vehicles for ambitious song-writers who often also served as their accompanists. Some are obscure and many others leave us wishing they had been more extensively recorded. Whatever the case, they fill out the picture of the blues of this era and present plenty of fine musical moments and material of great interest.