"The Very Best of Blues" - Volume 2 (Vee Jay)

Vee-Jay Records is an American record label founded in the 1950s, located in Chicago and specializing in blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll.
...Nobody's quite sure what Sheriff and the Ravels are singing on "Shombalor," although there are references to chicken knees and Nazis along the way. Vee-Jay was also home to one of the last great doo-wop records, 1961's "Duke of Earl," by Gene Chandler.
By then, Vee-Jay was one of America's top labels, with a strong jazz catalog, some top gospel groups, and Jerry Butler, Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker and Betty Everett cranking out hit after hit. The first hint of disaster came in 1962, with their biggest record to date.
The Four Seasons hit "Sherry" was so big that Vee-Jay's owners found themselves without the money to pay for pressing more copies of the records, although the label stumbled along for a while. The worst thing it could have done would be to sign another hit group, but it did. And what a group: Capitol Records already had passed on the option to release The Beatles in America, but the Brackens jumped at the chance. "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You" both came out on Vee-Jay, followed by an album at the end of 1963. The Four Seasons and the Beatles both went to greener pastures, and Vee-Jay wound up in court, its day in the sun over.
In 1953, Vivian and James Bracken from Gary, Ind., borrowed $500 from a pawnbroker to start a record company. Thirteen years later, Vee-Jay Records became the country's biggest independent, black-owned record label, and for a time, it was bigger than Motown...to be continued... - npr

trax:
1 Ain't That Lovin' You Baby - Jimmy Reed 2 Lonely - L.C. McKinley 3 Dimples - John Lee Hooker Big Town Playboy - Eddie Taylor 5 I Ain't Got You - Billy Boy Arnold 6 Hands Off - Jay McShann With Priscilla Bowman 7 The Telephone Is Ringing - Pee Wee Crayton 8 Come On Baby - Jimmy Reed 10 Any Old Lonesome Day - Floyd Jones 11 Business Woman - Camille Howard 12 Someone To Love Me - Snooky Pryor A Frosty Night - Pee Wee Crayton 14 Baby, Don't Say That No More - Jimmy Reed 15 Trouble Blues - John Lee Hooker 16 Down With It - L.C. McKinley 17 Ride 'Em On Down - Eddie Taylor 18 Don't Stay Out All Night - Billy Boy Arnold 19 Floyd's Blues - Floyd Jones 20 I Don't Go For That - Jimmy Reed
…served by Gyro1966...