1) Broke Down Engine No. 2
(take 1); 2) Broke Down Engine No. 2 (take 2); 3) B & O Blues No. 2; 4)
Some Lonesome Day (take 1); 5) Some Lonesome Day (take 2); 6) New Lovin'
Blues; 7) Unkind Woman; 8) When The Hearse Roll Me From My Door; 9) Insane
Blues; 10) Tricks Ain't Walking No More; 11) Stinging Bull Nettle; 12) Oh Lordy
Mama; 13) Dough Rolling Papa; 14) Some Lonesome Day; 15) Misery Man Blues; 16)
Jinx Man Blues; 17) Evil Hearted Woman; 18) Too Dog Gone Jealous; 19) Someday
Baby (I'll Have Mine); 20) Love Me, Baby, Love Me; 21) Sleepless Night; 22)
Shake It All Night Long.
The second volume of Buddy's complete oeuvres
(to be precise, complete pre-war oeuvres) covers a one-year period from
September 1933 to August 1934 and runs pretty much in a straight, unbroken line
together with the first one, so it is not highly likely you will find any
serious differences from the first volume, other than perhaps a larger
percentage of completely solo (single guitar) tracks, and just a few scattered
attempts to introduce syncopated «dance blues» patterns in the repertoire
(ʽTricks Ain't Walking No Moreʼ) that broaden the range, but do not add extra
insights that hadn't already been there with Blind Blake.
One song from these sessions that has managed
to make a little history is ʽOh Lordy Mamaʼ, later known as ʽHey Lawdy Mamaʼ
and remade by countless artists from Count Basie and Louis Armstrong to Freddie
King and even Cream (who played the song for the BBC and later merged it with
Albert King's ʽCrosscut Sawʼ to make a ʽStrange Brewʼ indeed). Musically, it
sounds exactly the same way as about a dozen other songs in Buddy's catalog
(country-blues with a boogie bass line to it), but it goes to show how much
fuss just a teensy-weensy bit of variety in the 12-bar world can make — here,
inserting the «hookline» of "oh lordy mama..." after each first line
of the verse, which gives a funny illusion of extra complexity and
«progressiveness» compared to the more rigid three-line-verse formula. Just an
illusion, really, but sometimes an illusion is all it takes to gain additional
popularity.
On the other hand, Buddy is just too good a
guitarist to be continuously recycling exactly the same ideas, and serious
blues fans with a good ear for nuance will most certainly be able to single out
unusual takes — for instance, ʽDough Rolling Papaʼ makes some interesting stop-and-starts
between the regular bars, and the melody is played as if the bass strings and
the higher strings were holding a busy dialog with each other rather than
working in tandem; the opening notes of ʽSomeday Baby (I'll Have Mine)ʼ are
quite pretty-poetic; and the final track from the 1934 sessions (ʽShake It All
Night Longʼ) ends the period on a musically/lyrically joyful rather than melancholic
note. If only half of the other songs did not begin with the exact same note
sequence (the pre-proto-ʽDust My Broomʼ pattern), I'm sure Buddy's legacy would
have enjoyed more attention today; as it is, admiring all of these twenty-two
tracks in straight sequence is more of a business for fanatical connoisseurs or
students of acoustic blues playing techniques.
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