Barbecue Bob: Complete Recorded Works Vol. 3 (1929-1930)

BARBECUE BOB: COMPLETE RECORDED WORKS VOL. 3 (1929-1930)

1) She Moves It Just Right; 2) Tellin' It To You; 3) Yo-Yo Blues No. 2; 4) She Shook Her Gin; 5) We Sure Got Hard Times; 6) Twistin' That Stuff; 7) Monkey And The Baboon; 8) Spider And The Fly; 9) Darktown Gambling Pt. 1; 10) Darktown Gambling Pt. 2; 11) Jambooger Blues; 12) It Just Won't Quit; 13) Atlanta Moan; 14) New Mojo Blues; 15) Doin' The Scraunch; 16) I'm On My Way Down Home; 17) Diddle-Da-Diddle; 18) She Looks So Good; 19) She's Coming Back Some Cold Rainy Day.

Like most country bluesmen with only their guitar to keep them company, at first Barbecue Bob did not suffer from Depression effects nearly as much as the urban blues queens — apparently, his rate of recording just wobbled a bit, rather than crumble. But he certainly was no Hollywood million­naire, either, and his 'We Sure Got Hard Times' is one of those symbolic tunes of the era whose names are so prone to becoming clichéd in our minds without remembering where it all comes from. He must have taken some inspiration from Blind Blake, probably, the first country blues­man not afraid to inject some political bite in his lyrics — "Just before election, you was talking about how you was going to vote / And after election was over, your head's down like a billy­goat" (ironically, he did not live long enough to see FDR in power).

Other than this landmark, Vol. 3 boasts a couple curious novelty tunes ('Monkey And The Ba­boon') and a few darker-than-usual numbers like 'Spider And The Fly', as well as a silly two-part «skit» called 'Darktown Gambling', in which Bob plays and sings a tiny bit and then spends some­thing like five minutes quarrelling with his brother Charley Lincoln over a crap game. (Peri­od historians and etnographers ahoy!). In terms of guitar technique or recording quality, there are no changes whatsoever.

Perhaps the biggest individual attraction of Vol. 3, though, are the last four tracks, credited to «The Georgia Cotton Pickers» — a one-time band assembled from Bob, Curley Weaver on se­cond guitar, and newcomer Buddy Moss on harmonica; Buddy would go on to become one of the most important East Coast bluesmen, but here he is just an aspiring sideman learning his craft from the masters of action — Bob and Curley — quite happy to even be allowed to blow his harp quietly in the background. They do Blind Blake ('Diddle-Da-Diddle', an easily recognizable re­tit­ling of 'Diddie Wah Diddie'), 'Sittin' On Top Of The World' renamed as 'I'm On My Way Down Home', and a couple other generic blues pieces. If I am correct in my reckoning, it is Curley who plays lead, mostly, and does it far more elegantly than Bob ever could — on the other hand, it is Bob who is responsible for all the vocals, and performs with far more expression than Curley could ever muster on his records. Quid pro quo all over the place.

Sadly, these few recordings by the Pickers in December 1930 were the last for Bob. Hard times caught up with him pretty soon: for the following several months, he was out of work, and then, at the peak of unluckiness, got car­ried away with influenza, pneumonia, and tuberculosis on October 21, 1931. It is highly unlikely that he would have gone on to bigger and better things had he stayed alive, so, from a completist-reviewer's cynical-pragmatic point of view, he did good, but from the humanist point of view — well, the best we can do is go on ensuring that the world remembers his best creations, such as 'Motherless Child' etc., for at least a little while longer.

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Barbecue Bob: Complete Recorded Works Vol. 2 (1928-1929)

BARBECUE BOB: COMPLETE RECORDED WORKS VOL. 2 (1928-1929)

1) Mississippi Low-Levee Blues; 2) Ease It To Me Blues; 3) She's Gone Blues; 4) Cold Wave Blues; 5) Beggin' For Love; 6) Bad Time Blues; 7) Meat Man Pete; 8) Dollar Down Blues; 9) It Just Won't Hay; 10) It's Just Too Bad; 11) Good Time Rounder; 12) Honey You're Going Too Fast; 13) Red Hot Mama Papa's Going To Cool You Down; 14) California Blues; 15) It's A Funny Little Thing; 16) Black Skunk Blues; 17) Yo Yo Blues; 18) Trouble Done Bore Me Down; 19) Freeze To Me Mama; 20) Me And My Whiskey; 21) Unnamed Blues.

Bob's second year at Columbia clearly showed that the man wasn't going anywhere special, but it's not as if anyone expected progress. On the contrary, everyone expected, and demanded, no­thing but remakes of the old hits; symbolically, the album opens with 'Mississippi Low-Levee Blues', which is simply 'Mississippi Heavy Water Blues' with a new set of lyrics. There are also a couple rewrites of 'Motherless Child' here, and lots of fast dance-blues numbers all set to the same pattern ('It Just Won't Hay' and its clones).

Dirty song of the day: 'Meat Man Pete', of course, in which Bob is all excited to tell us all about "Peter's meat" which is "always fresh" (for some reason, he doesn't do the popular verse which mentions his "boneless ham"). However, it must also be mentioned that Hicks' songs are not all that heavy on dirty double entendres — the barbecue man preferred a cleaner approach.

On the positive side, it seems that the more time Hicks spent in the studio, the more he was get­ting into his instrument. The simple «flailing» technique is still there all over the place, but gene­rally there is more emphasis on his slide playing, and almost every number, no matter how primi­tive, has plenty of little flourishes and, sometimes, even counter-melodic lines that show how honestly the cooking bluesman was trying to hold his own territory against giants like Blind Le­mon. It is hardly a crime that he never got around to matching Jefferson's creativity. He did beat him in the vocal department, though, in a «technical» manner at least — easily going from growl to falsetto and then to his regular tenor whenever the situation called for it. But not in the «perso­nality» department — his drinking songs, such as 'Me And My Whiskey', do not really betray the soul of a goddamn drinking man.

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Barbecue Bob: Complete Recorded Works Vol. 1 (1927-1928)

BARBECUE BOB: COMPLETE RECORDED WORKS VOL. 1 (1927-1928)

1) Barbecue Blues; 2) Cloudy Sky Blues; 3) Mississippi Heavy Water Blues; 4) Mamma You Don't Suit Me; 5) Brown-Skin Gal; 6) Honey You Don't Know My Mind; 7) Poor Boy A Long Ways From Home; 8) When The Saints Go Marching In; 9) Jesus' Blood Can Make Me Whole; 10) Easy Rider Don't You Deny My Name; 11) Thinkin' Fun­ny Blues; 12) My Mistake Blues; 13) Motherless Child Blues; 14) How Long Pretty Mama; 15) It Won't Be Long Now Pt. 1; 16) It Won't Be Long Now Pt. 2; 17) Crooked Woman Blues; 18) 'Fo Day Creep; 19) Blind Pig Blues; 20) Waycross Georgia Blues; 21) Goin' Up The Country; 22) Chocolate To The Bone; 23) Hurry And Bring It Back Home.

Barbecue Bob broiled barbecues, boiled bouillons, and... uh... brewed bouillabaisse? In between that and other culinary delights, he played guitar and, in stark contrast to Barbecue Bill, Barbecue Tom, Dick, and Harry, got put in history when, through Columbia Records talent scout man Dan Hornsby, he was offered the chance to record some of his playing and singing for the rapidly growing acoustic blues market. Actually, his real name was Robert Hicks, and he wasn't half bad, but it is highly likely that most people bought his records all based on the «singing cook» gimmick. One of the only two photos of the man that we know has him wearing an apron — even though, upon starting to make some real money in the record business, the apron must have been making its reappearance for promo reasons only.

Barbecue Bob is usually lumped in together with the «Piedmont Blues» style, because of his Geo­rgian origins. He wasn't, however, one of the true Piedmont innovators: compared to real fabu­lous greats who almost seemed to come from nowhere, like Blind Blake, his «flailing» style of play­ing was much simpler and more traditional. He mostly played the 12-string, and wasn't half bad at sliding (sometimes he manages to «flail» and slide at the same time), but overall, it is no crime to state that he was not a great player, not according to these here ears. But as a repre­sen­ta­tive of one long gone generic kind of sound, he's all right. For all we know, that's just about the way them old Negroes would play this thing in 1897, or even before that, once they got acquain­ted with the guitar and started playing them like the white folks would play the banjo. So that's gotta count for something.

Bob was much better at singing, though, sounding like a slightly less versatile, but somewhat griz­zlier, less explicitly «effeminate» early version of Blind Willie McTell; after a while, his tim­bre becomes unmistakable, and his feel for the blues easily equates that of the greats of that era. Furthermore, as much as the limited formula did allow, he tried to somehow diversify his played and sung parts — echoes of old folk songs, newer country sounds, and spirituals (a nice pre-Arm­strong take on 'When The Saints' included), all ran through his friendly tone that mixes friendli­ness and pain in just the right proportion.

Two of Bob's better known songs are on this first volume, covering his 1927-28 years: 'Mississi­ppi Heavy Water Blues', commemorating a series of floods so close to everyone's hearts that the song made him into a hitmaker almost overnight, and 'Motherless Child', best known today, per­haps, through Clapton's cover on From The Cradle — for which Eric humbly reproduced, al­most note for note, Bob's «simplistic» rolling-droning rhythm, and did a good job at it, but only improved on the original in terms of sound quality. Many of the other titles are recognizable as well, but it is these two that constitute the cornerstone of the barbecue man's legacy, and it will sure harm none to get to know them in their 1927 incarnations.

Especially since the sound quality is quite remarkable; although Paramount was the leading force on the country/Delta blues market during the pre-Depression years, Columbia had the better en­gineering department, and all of Bob's sides are consistently listenable — whereas, for instance, trying to listen to all of Blind Lemon Jefferson's output in a row is a very serious challenge.

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