Tales of Symphonia is ripping my life apart.

The Tom Robinson Band was a late 70s early 80’s one hit wonder pub rock band with smart lyrics and a great front man in Tom Robinson. They had one really great hit, off a really great album - but it’s easy to see why they were limited to that one hit. Their other albums didn’t come close to their debut, but i can’t get any of their songs out of my head.

I just have to pose 2-4-6-8 Motorway, one of the best fist pumping songs that bruce springsteen didn’t write and the equally rocking Long Hot Summer that’s perfect for the end of summer. It’s a Dance Party.

Summer Session II is finally over, so the next two weeks will be some type of bliss. I was also looking back through my archives and it’s shocking that i’ve been doing this blog for so long. I hope that everyone is still enjoying it as much as I enjoying doing it.

Roosevelt Graves, is another of my favorite gospel singers. Graves (And Brother) recorded some of the most innovative sounds of the era - sounds that would sound right at home at Hi or Stax in the 60’s and 70’s. This track “I’ll Be Rested” features a driving guitar and vocals backed with a great proto-soul tambourine shake. it makes you wanna dance and pray all in the same motion. Graves produced a fair number of recordings in the 20’s and 30’s before vanishing in the 40’s.

Quick Update today, after the longest two and half hour class ever (it lasted 3 fucking hours).

Sippie Wallace one of my favorite blues singers, did this track - “Dead Drunk Blues” which features her and her band at the top of their games. it is one of those gut wretnchingly sad blues songs.

Thanks to the people who let me know that the link was all messed up yesterday. it’s working properly now - so everyone can listen to that awesome alberta hunter song.

I tend to focus on prewar blues on this blog, but today’s track is from a couple of people who recorded during the prewar era - but this track is from a live show they did in france during the early sixites.

Willie Dixon and Memphis Slim, two of the blues blues players and singers put together a pretty fantastic show that’s complied by verve with their Jazz in Paris group of cds. Both Slim and Dixon don’t show age on these tracks, which are mostly Dixon songs with a Big Bill Broonzy song thrown in for good measure. The track i’m posting is a light hearted blues track called “Shame, Pretty Girls” which features a great boogie-woogie piano track and driving bass.

I hope that everyone had a good weekend - great weather in Greensboro this weekend, i could have spent the whole time outside.

I have really unfairly ignored one of my favorite blues singers here on the blog. Alberta Hunter, one of the earliest and most important blues singers of all time, started out like many other blues singers by doing cabaret. Actually, most of her money was made doing those shows - and not recording. Luck for us she dhttp://gmail.google.com/gmailid record many of the songs that made her stage show so famous. Hunter was one of the best, and likewise she worked with the best. Her band lists read like a whose who of jazz and blues during the early twenties.

This track - Mistreated Blues- was recorded in May of 1923 for Paramont Records. This is one of my favorite tracks by her because it shows her amazing voice and phrasing as well as featuring a great piano track by Fletcher Henderson. The quality of the recording is okay, there is some surface noise, but the vocals/piano easily overcome that.

I first heard Howard Tate a few weeks ago at a friends party - at first i thought it was Johnny Adams, then Sam Cooke - but the production was so much different then those two singer’s works. Finally, my friend told me that it was Howard Tate - and i was sold. Tate’s voice is a perfect blend of Addams and Cooke and features some great prodcution vaules.

Tate had a few average hits in the 60’s, but has kept working and is still releasing albums to this day - while his voice has changed, the quality of his work as always remained high. Hopefully with the increasing attention being place on finding “lost great” soul stars like Candi Stanton and Solomon Burke of recent years and the return of Al Green to memphis soul maybe Howard Tate will be the next one “found”

Yea, so i thought i had updated my blog yesterday, turns out…
and thanks, i now see the preview button - i’m not handling changes very well, i’m afraid.

Martha Copeland was a highly successful artist, whose talents were mismanged and wasted by columbia. Copeland’s wonderful voice was often used to record substandard sides - and copies of currents hits by Bessie Smith and others rather than promoting her own work. Copeland became famous - but never of the level that her talent would have allowed. Copeland’s body of work is also lessened by the choices others made for her(much like Johnny Adams) but on her stand out tracks like the one posted today you can see how much talent and skill she possessed.

Did Blogspot steal the preview post button? Why would they thinkg that was a good idea, now i can change the time and date of my post(for whatever purpose that would serve) but i can’t preview my post before it’s up, lame.

I haven’t really focused on the gospel aspect of this blog so far, but i hope to change that in the upcoming weeks. Starting off is Rev. Gary Davis with “There’s Destruction on This Land.” One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say that Gary Davis was from New York, i guess because of his title of his album - Harlem Street Preacher. Davis was born in Greenville, South Carolina and lived most of his life in the Carolinas before moving to new york in 1944. This recording was done at Davis’ house in New York by John Cohen in 1953 and Davis is accompied on this track by his lovely wife. The song’s tune is a varation of “Whitehouse Blues” and it is likely a standard that Davis had sung in his youth. This set of recordings that are complied by Folkways under the name “If I Had My Way: Early Home Recordings” are some of my favorite blues recordings of all time.

One of my friends hooked me up with some amazing Howard Tate tracks this weekend. It is taking all of my power not to post these until Friday, so be on the look out for them.

For the month or two that I’ve been doing this blog i haven’t repeated any of the artists. However after the endless rain we’ve been expereincing here in Greensboro for the past two weeks, Lonnie Johnson’s New Falling Rain Blues.

Lonnie Johnson first recorded Falling Rain Blues in 1925, he recorded it (and made it a lot stronger)four years later in 1929. Johnson, one of the best piano and guitar players of the era plays a pretty solid violin on this track and is accompanied by a great piano track.

Capping off a good week here at Honey, Where You Been So Long, with some roots reggae by the name of Johnny Clarke. I’m not a huge fan of reggae or dub (though i really like a few people) but i really love Johnny Clarke. One of the best vocalists, regardless of genre, Clarke’s voice is so smooth and powerful making every song a call to action.

The Two tracks I’m posting are two of his very best. The first is a cover of “Declaration of Rights” oringally done by he Abyssinians, whose verison is sadder and less a call to arms as Clarke’s. The production by Bunny Lee is very solid and features one of the best session bands around. The Second Track is “Enter His Gates With Praise” another Lee produced, was the first reggae song i heard that really made me jump to hit repeat on my cd player and listen to about eight times in a row.