BO CARTER: COMPLETE RECORDED WORKS, VOL. 4 (1936-1938)
1) It's Too Wet; 2) Dinner
Blues; 3) Ain't Nobody Got It; 4) Cigarette Blues; 5) Pussy Cat Blues; 6) The
Ins And Outs Of My Girl; 7) All Around Man (part 2); 8) Bo Carter's Advice; 9)
Doubled Up In A Knot; 10) Worried G Blues; 11) Your Biscuits Are Big Enough For
Me; 12) Don't Mash My Digger So Deep; 13) Flea On Me; 14) Got To Work
Somewhere; 15) Sue Cow; 16) Shake 'Em On Down; 17) A Girl For Every Day Of The
Week; 18) Trouble In Blues; 19) World In A Jug; 20) Who's Been Here; 21)
Whiskey Blues; 22) Shoo That Chicken.
Vol.
4 is clearly an improvement
over Vol. 3 — simple statistics
shows that Bo is actively back to the world of innuendos and double entendres:
even one lone title like ʽThe Ins And Outs Of My Girlʼ is enough to regain the
honors, and that's not even mentioning the actual lyrics ("She got something
that I really do love / It ain't in her stocking, and you know it's just
above").
Musically, the 1936-38 sessions are very
sparse: no harmonica or piano accompaniment, and Bo's own guitar skills were not
exactly improving (although everything is perfectly listenable as usual). But
lyrically, he was on such a roll that it only makes sense to turn this review
into a set of mini-quotes. Say, from ʽCigarette Bluesʼ: "Just draw on my
cigarette baby / Until you make my good ashes come". Or from ʽYour
Biscuits Are Good Enough For Meʼ: "Some men don't care for biscuits /
They like the doggone fat bun". From ʽAll Around Manʼ: "Now I ain't
no milkman / I ain't no milkman's son / I can pull your titties till the
milkman comes". Want some more? Well, think of this as the «free tour
introduction».
Only a tiny handful of songs veer away from the
carnal subject this time — of which only one number, ʽGot To Work Somewhereʼ,
deserves special mention: it is Bo's first (I think) and most straightforward
number that directly addresses Depression issues, and although he performs it
the same «humble» way as he sings and plays everything else, it shouldn't pass
by unnoticed: without an occasional excourse into tragedy of this kind, Bo's
image of a «sexual clown» could have passed for genuine identity rather than
an entertaining act. But this here song gives us a guy in the same turmoil and
distress like everybody else at the time — "beneath this mask I am wearing
a frown" indeed.
Of course, one frown is just enough: half a
dozen more sides like this and the effect would have been washed out with
boredom. So it's a good thing that ʽGot To Workʼ is stuck here somewhere in the
middle, and that the collection starts off with ʽIt's Too Wetʼ (what is too wet? Why, Bo's shirt is too wet — what did you think of?..) and ends with the
equally playful ʽShoo That Chickenʼ (because he interferes with "my
loving at night"). Welcome back to the state of predictable reliability,
Mr. Carter. The 1930s wouldn't have been what they were without you.
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