JOHNNY YOUNG "I Can't Keep My Foot From Jumping" (Bluesway 1973)

While there are a few modern day blues mandolin revivalists, the instrument has largely consigned to the dustbin of history. Although little-heard on commercial recordings after the 1940s, the mandolin played an important role in blues and early rural black music. The mandolin can be heard on numerous recordings of the 1920’s and 1930’s particularly on several black string band and jug band recordings. Johnny Young was the most famous of the post-war mandolin players who after waxing a couple of exciting 78′s for Ora Nelle and Planet/Old Swing-Master circa 1947-48 didn’t resurface on record for fifteen years. Thankfully the 1960′s and 70′s were a different story with Young recording for Testament, Arhoolie Vangaurd, Spivey, Blue Horizon, Blues On Blues, Bluesway as well as a number of of other scattered sides. Young played traditional Chicago blues, rooted in the 40′s and early 50′s, and didn’t share much in common with more modern upstarts like Otis Rush, Buddy Guy and Magic Sam. He also had one foot in his home state of Mississippi, his music still tied to the southern blues style of the 1920′s and 30′s and the vibrant string band tradition.
The general consensus ranks his Arhoolie recordings among his best but for my money his Bluesway album, I Can’t Keep My Foot From Jumping, is one of his finest and one that gets unjustly ignored. Of course it doesn’t help that the album has been long out of print and that the Bluesway label doesn’t have the best reputation. Producer Al Smith has been the target of much of the animosity against the label summed up writer Pete Lowry in a 1974 Living Blues review: “Here was a strange man-I don’t know if he was any kind of bass player, but he surely produced some screwed-up sessions. I won’t go into artist “relations,” but merely deal with the sessions; there have been some predictable characteristics. Lousy liner notes, replete with phonetic spelling (to be kind), incomplete or wrong personnel data, as well as often incomplete or disordered listings of the tunes… As for the records themselves, they varied from good to near disasters. The results of Al’s Special Ninety Minute Album Sessions included inconsistent levels on instruments, as if the warm up/test stuff was mixed for release (as was most likely the case!), some strange sounding stuff (out-of-synch echo units), and just total lack of programming. Al seems to have assembled albums in the order recorded, with no concept of the album as a programmed whole. For an artist to survive this sort of “production” he had to be damn good, or be having a better than average day in the studio.” - sundayblues

trax:
01 stop breaking down 02 i gotta find my baby 03 deal the cards 04 train fare out of town 05 i know she's slick 06 tried not to cry 07 keep on drinking 08 kid mama blues 09 lend me your love 10 sweet mama 11 no. 12 is at the station 12 i can't keep my foot from jumpin'
...album rip and served by Gyro1966...