Strange, isn’t it, how things workout sometimes? Just a couple of days back I was looking at some photographs I took at the Burnley Blues festival many years back. There were a couple of Johnnie Copeland’s drummer Barry Harrison, whom I recall as a really nice guy. I wondered what happened to him. Lo and behold, the notes to ‘Vintage 1040’, on which he appears, gave me the answer. Of course though, that isn’t a reason to buy this CD.

Neither, for most readers, will be the thinking behind that curious title, which does in fact demonstrate a direct blues continuity that stretches right back around eighty years or so now. In the early sixties, vaudeville blues diva and twenties recording artist Victoria Spivey started her own record label, documenting the blues scene of New York and beyond. When Queen Victoria died in 1976, her friend Lenny Kunstadt kept the label alive until he himself died in 1996.  Lenny was a devoted fan of Big Frank and the Healers, and he supervised these 1995 recordings with the aim of making them Spivey LP 1040. It wasn’t to be, unfortunately. It’s a nice story – and true – but people don’t buy albums for nice stories. Lenny’s name should bring a smile to the faces of some of those associated with this website, as his column ‘New York Really Has The Blues’ was a quirky and regular feature of its predecessor, the magazine ‘Blues Life’.  Maybe though that won’t be enough to persuade those who didn’t experience his er, let’s call it ‘unique’, and extremely informative writings.

No, there’s only one reason why you should buy ‘Vintage 1040’ – and that’s because the music is wonderful! The sound is totally authentic - and that sound is what? Well, think Elmore James, the disgracefully under-rated Eddie Taylor, Lefty Dizz maybe, and most particularly JB Hutto. Big Frank’s playing is immaculate, his vocals are as declamatory as this music demands, and the band are equally talented: Dona Oxford on piano, Margey Peters on bass, and Barry on drums, of course. Spivey records always had a cameo appearance from Victoria, a tradition continued in proxy here by the extremely accomplished Dona who sings two Spivey numbers and one from Koko Taylor (who also recorded for Spivey). In short, a real gem of a release – now that is a valid reason to buy it!

...and the five track ‘Big Shot’, recorded some years later, only goes to confirm the impression that here is an outfit totally committed to and passionate about the real blues. Big Frank, Dona, and Margey are still there, with Bill Rankin occupying the drum stool and the sound filled out with the harmonica playing of Eric ‘Little Brother’ Baker. This time around it is the shades of the mighty Howling Wolf, Elmore, Slim Harpo and Willie Dixon that are conjured up. And come on, the credit on the final track ‘Got Someplace To Go’ is ‘Traditional, After Alabama Jr.’ If that doesn’t means anything to you, listen and learn; if it does, you are probably already salivating at the prospect of checking out the kind of tough, down-home blues you thought had gone for good. |||Norman Darwen