Track Listing

1. Alabama Blues
2. Mojo Boogie
3. God's Word
4. Whale Has Swallowed Me
5. Move This Rope
6. I Feel So Good
7. Alabama March
8. Talk to Your Daughter
9. Mississippi Road
10. Good Advice
11. Vietnam Blues
12. I Want to Go
13. Down in Mississippi
14. Slow Down Woman
15. If I Get Lucky
16. Shot on James Meredith
17. Round and Round
18. Voodoo Music
19. Born Dead
20. Leaving Here
21. Vietnam Blues
22. How Much More?
23. Tax Payin' Blues
24. Feelin' Good

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87499 in Music
• Released on: 1995-06-27
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Customer Reviews

A great reissue of the brilliant work of a neglected master
Most hardcore blues fans know of J.B.Lenoir, but if you're unfamiliar with him then this CD will be a revelation. He is a unique stylist, master guitar player, and profound lyricist. His singing is powerful, idiosyncratic and full of conviction.

The cuts on this disc have been remastered beautifully, are full of depth and clarity. They represent the broad range of Lenoir's music, from biting social and political songs, through rocking dance numbers, to pieces in a more gospel or spiritual vein. Many of the songs foreground Lenoir's signature "African hunch" polyrhythm, a style as unique to J.B. as the "Bo Diddley beat" is to, well, Bo Diddley.

If you can only get one Lenoir CD, get this one. You'll love it and it'll compel you to get everything available.

Essential Collection
While most people have learned about J.B. from the recent PBS special, this collection is a good way to familiarize yourself with his great work. He and Josh White were probably the original "message men" when it came to th eblus and this collection shows why.

J.B. Lenoir's lyrical subject matter varied greatly, and his guitar playing was filled with percussion, which makes his solo efforts sound like more than one person on the record. Here we get the typical man vs. woman blues in "Mama Talk To Your Daughter," and some religious tunes in "God's Word" and "The Whae Has Swallowed Me." What is really interesting is th epoliticla tunes, relating to the condition of Blacks in the 1960s, such as "Alabama Blues," the brutal "Born Dead" (about the fate of children being born in poverty in Mississippi), the antiwar "Vietnam Blues" (all once has to do is change "Vietnam" to "Iraq" to bring this up to date) and "Shot on James Meredith" (about the wounding of the civil rights icon in 1966).

While not quite the poet that Bob Dylan or Bob Marley was, Lenoir basically told it like it was using simple and direct lyrics and a voice that sounded like a rougher version of Curtis Mayfield. In either case, lovers of message music and some really good blues in general would do well to snap up this, which is an essential collection of the (up to now) forgotten poet of the blues.

Overlooked Master
Among the most expressive and creative blues ever, this music also puts J.B. Lenoir into the category of folk singer/songwriter with its solidly unique guitar and deep lyrics. Well played, well sung, extremely original and deeply personal, this captivating CD of two previous LP's features Lenoir solo and accompanied by Chess veteran Fred Below on drums and Willie Dixon on some backing vocals. The combo of acoustic guitar and drums is funky, and the use of what sound like finger cymbals is inspired. Partly rocking, and partly soulful and profound, this CD of the prematurely departed Lenoir is a tremendous legacy from an overlooked and underrated master of the blues craft. This kind of music brings together the purist and the radical, and would fit along side of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson or Ted Hawkins, and shares much in common with a similarly underrated master of blues today, Jimmy Johnson. You gotta hear it.