Track Listing

1. Keep on Churnin' (Till the Butter Comes) - Wynonie Harris
2. Drill, Daddy, Drill - Dorothy Ellis
3. Rockin' at Midnight - Roy Brown
4. Turn the Lamps Down Low - Little Esther
5. Rocket 69 - Connie Allen, Todd Rhodes
6. Coffee Grind - Hank Ballard
7. Chocolate Pork Chop Man - Pete "Guitar" Lewis
8. Silent George - Myra Johnson, Lucky Millinder

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #299622 in Music
• Released on: 1996-01-01
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Jumpin' like mad, but not so naughty !
O.K. more risque blues were made in this era (with the exception of DRILL DADDY DRILL - - a bit surprizing even by today's standards) however, I'll tell you one thing... this album rocks, jumps, swings... and has those great 50's R&B backbeats that sadly have long disappeared from American music... ROCKETSHIP 69 is a perfect example - - drum beat is SO groovin'... you can really feel the church and motion in it. Then you have other tunes with mandatory handclapping on the 2 and 4, and wailing early rock and roll meets jazz type Mickey Baker guitar - - and let's not forget the wailing sax solo... oh and those cool cool cool (and super slick) bass walks. (Oh and let's not forget an era where vocalists REALLY knew how to shout the blues... took pride in the lyrics they delivered, and knew how to entertain!)

Though the sound quality is great and the music is well picked - - but my only disappointment is that I think this would have been way better as a Rhino type box CD thing (booklet and all) - - instead it seems like the label's just gonna... how should I say... milk it a few tunes at a time. OH WELL... any steps to liberate this material from the vaults are a step in the right direction, however, by the time you get all the volumes I can't say it'll be very economical...

Mildly Entertaining But Not Greatly Memorable
When it comes to double entendre lyrics and suggestive intonations, 1920s blues makes every other decade seem tame. Even so, many recordings of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s have a lot of charm--particularly when the singer is the memorable Wynonie Harris, who belts out a version of "Keep On Churnin'" with enough raise-your-eyebrow power to compete with the best.

Unfortunately, however, the Harris cut on this release, which is one of several CDs in the King Records RISQUE BLUES series, is really the best thing you'll find in this particular collection. True enough, you'll get plenty of milage with "Rocket 69," but by and large the cuts here aren't really risque. Indeed, most of them aren't really blues, but a style generally known as rhythm and blues--which is something quite a bit different from blues pure and simple.

All the cuts, which date from between the late 1940s and the early 1960s, are well done, and the sound quality is generally very good. But they just aren't all that memorable. My own suggestion: unless you have a hankering for a particular selection included on this CD, pick up RISQUE BLUES: IT AIN'T THE MEAT instead, which offers several of the same artists from the same period... performing better songs!

GFT, Amazon Reviewer