VA ~ Country Negro Jam Session(s) 1959-62 [Arhoolie]

01 - Butch Cage And Willie B. Thomas - 44 Blues
02 - Robert Pete Williams And Robert J. Welch - Mississippi Heavy Water Blues
03 - Clarence Edwards Cornelius Edwards And Butch Cage - Smokestack Lightnin'
04 - Butch Cage And Willie B. Thomas - Who Broke The Lock
05 - Clarence Edwards Cornelius Edwards And Butch Cage - You Don't Love Me
06 - Butch Cage And Willie B. Thomas - It's The Sign Of The Judgement
07 - Ben Douglas - Foxhunt
08 - Sally Dotson Smoky Babe And Hillary Blunt - Your Dice Won't Pass
09 - Butch Cage And Willie B. Thomas - Jelly Roll
10 - Rebecca Smith Tom Miller And Ruth Miller - I've Got Religion
11 - Smoky Babe - Going Downtown Boogie
12 - Clarence Edwards Cornelius Edwards And Butch Cage - Stack O'Dollars
13 - Butch Cage Martha Thomas And Willie B. Thomas - Brown Skin Woman
14 - Napoleon Strickland, Lucius Bridges & Leslie Anders - I Won't Be Yr Dog No Mo
15 - Butch Cage And Willie B. Thomas - The Piano Blues
16 - Smoky Babe - Cotton Field Blues
17 - Otis Webster - The Farm Blues
18 - Otis Webster - The Boss Man Blues
19 - Butch Cage And Willie B. Thomas - Whoa Mule
20 - Otis Webster - Boll Weevil Blues
21 - Clarence Edwards Cornelius Edwards And Butch Cage - Thousand Miles From Nowhere
22 - Butch Cage And Willie B. Thomas - Dead And Gone
23 - Butch Cage And Willie B. Thomas - Called For You Yesterday
24 - Butch Cage And Willie B. Thomas - Me And My Chauffeur
25 - Butch Cage And Willie B. Thomas - Baby Please Don't Go

All recordings made by Dr. Harry Oster in Louisiana 1959/1960 and 1962
except 19,22,23,24 and 25 made by Chris Strachwitz and Paul Oliver in 1960



“The title is accurate to a time and place: Southwestern Louisiana between 1959 and 1962. The folklorist Harry Oster did a series of field recordings, informal `jams'with a group of obscure blues men and women, only one of whom, Robert Pete Williams, won fame. Williams was singular in composing stream-of-consciousness blues, support-ed by a guitar style as jarring for blues as Monk was for jazz piano. But Williams sounds nearly traditional compared to others in these recordings. Butch Cage plays fiddle in a nineteenth-century style now gone. And Cage himself sounds nearly conventional compared to the unknown resident of a state mental hospital who does a high-pitched whoop a la Sonny Terry into a Coke bottle while other inmates bang wood blocks.

In case you're wondering how a seventy-seven-minute disc with such diversity can cohere, let me assure you it does, and plenty. I've never heard a better, `rootsier' blues collection in my life, and when I wore out my vinyl album, I sadly wondered, who would ever bother to release this on disc? It's here, and if you have a taste for relaxed, funky, real-gone, real back-porch blues, it's a must.' - Norman Weinstein: Los Angeles Reader

likely the only reason this record isn't more well known is due to the slightly taboo title. a quintessential collection of amerikan folk musique