"Chess New Orleans" 1956-1965 - CD2

Hurricanes aside, people rarely leave the New Orleans area voluntarily. That's true of the city's regular denizens but it's also been true, strangely enough, of their artists. Even the ones who rise to a national reputation generally keep their roots in the Crescent City, often to their commercial detriment. Think Irma Thomas or The Meters. The cost they paid in riches and fame, though, brought a corresponding benefit: It insulated them from the musical fads of their time, imprinting a regional sound on the music that set it apart, that keeps it fresh......"Chess New Orleans" documents one such example of this New Orleans distinctiveness. The 44 songs on the collection were a small part of the huge boom in independent-label R&B recordings issued after World War II, but the artists recorded by Chess were not among the chart-topping stars who went national (such as Fats Domino on the early end to Little Richard at the tail). The musical approach in this collection is rooted in the Crescent City -- not the recordings of one band, but clearly the recordings of one musical community -- so it manages to avoid the piecemeal feeling of most compilations until you're well into CD#2. It's a rich testament to what happened when you applied the raw and rootsy Chess approach to recording Louisiana's regional artists.
Highlights include the original recordings of "See You Later Alligator" (popularized by Bill Haley) and "Jock-A-Mo/Iko Iko" (popularized by the Dixie Cups and a long-running feature of the Grateful Dead setlist), the still-popular "Mardi Gras Mambo" with Art Neville on vocals, and Clarence "Frogman" Henry's pop hits "Ain't Got No Home" (Corey Haim sings it in the bathtub in "The Lost Boys") and "(I Don't Know Why) But I Do." Personal favorites include "Down Boy" by Paul Gayten, "The Joke" by Reggie Hall, "Loud Mouth Annie" by Myles and Dupont, "Feeling My Way Around" by Earl King, and almost all the songs by the great Bobby Charles. (Goldmine)

trax:
1. Ain't Got No Home - Clarence "Frogman" Henry 2. I Ain't Gonna Do It No More - Bobby Charles 3. Nervous Boogie - Paul Gayten 4. My Soul - Clifton Chenier 5. Bayou Drive - Clifton Chenier 6. It Won't Be Long - Clarence "Frogman" Henry 7. Hip Hip Hooray (a/k/a Hep Hep Hooray) - Eddie Bo 8. Flatfoot Sam - T.V. Slim 9. Where's My Baby? - Eddie Bo 10. Lawdy Mama - Edgar Blanchard 11. Tickle Toe - Paul Gayten 12. I'm In Love - Clarence "Frogman" Henry 13. Oh Oh - Eddie Bo 14. Loud Mouth Annie - Myles & Dupont 15. This Should Go On Forever - Rod Bernard 16. Pardon Mr. Gordon - Rod Bernard 17. (I Don't Know Why) But I Do - Clarence "Frogman" Henry 18. Little  - Clarence "Frogman" Henry 19. The Joke - Reggie Hall 20. You Can Think What You Want - Reggie Hall 21. The Glory Of Love - Clarence "Frogman" Henry 22. Feeling My Way Around - Earl King
…served by Gyro1966...