Atlantic Blues: Vocalists, various artists, Atlantic Records, 1986

This is the first two-record set that I want to say twice as much about. More tomorrow. Sippie Wallace was the Texas Nightengale. Her recordings inspired Bonnie Raitt to sing and play the blues in the late 1960s. On the record, Raitt sings back up and plays slide guitar for Wallace on Suitcase Blues. Jimmy Witherspoon, whose signature tune was Ain’t Nobody’s Business, does Trouble in Mind and In the Evenin’. LaVern Baker covers Bessie Smith doing Gimme a Pigfoot (and a bottle of beer). Good advice for us all: Check your razors and your guns/We gonna be rassling when the wagon comes. Mama Yancey sang with her husband Jimmy for years, recording with Erwin Helfer in her late 80s. Joe Turner has Elmore James playing behind him, recorded in 1953. I’m glad to have discovered Lil Green, who has fine timing on her two songs. She started out as a blues singer but switched to jazz in the style of Billie Holiday. Wynonie Harris was like Elvis Presley and did songs with lyrics like “Keep on churning till the butter comes.” Wikipedia says that’s double entendre. What—they think those could be instructions for making butter? I’m impressed that in 1946 Harris cut two records with Sonny Blount, after the trip to Saturn and before he was Sun Ra. Ruth Brown, the queen of R and B, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. She was in Hairspray. Atlantic Records had some fine vocalists with impressive accomplishments.