Sunday Morning Blues - Alberta Hunter, Ivory Joe Hunter, Robert Johnson

Onwards and Forwards with the ABC Of The Blues.


Volumes 17 & 18


Alberta Hunter
Born in 1895 in Memphis, moved to Chicago in her teens and started a career as a singer. By 1917 she had undertaken a tour of Europe and was a rising start. She had a flourishing career through the 1930s, and was successful through the mid 1950s. In 1954 her mother passed away and Alberta left music behind to become a nurse. It wasn't until the 1970s when she was approached by Chris Albertson to record again, and resumed her music, performing until her death in 1985. While Alberta is not usually cited as a great influence on modern blues, she is undeniably an important chapter in early blues and jazz singers.


The songs here are hit or miss in their recording quality. Some of them have a great deal of hiss from the old records they were lifted, some are very clean and clear. All of them have a bit of a ragtime feel, upbeat, even the true blues songs. Everything is as much jazz as it is blues. All of these recordings are from her early career, which I prefer, it's good to hear the older original recordings preserved.


Ivory Joe Hunter
Unlike many colorful names in the blues, Ivory Joe Hunter is his birth name. Born in Texas, he had his own radio show in the very early 1940s, before moving to Los Angeles in 1942. He became a member of Johnny Moore's Three Blazes and started his musical writing and recording career. He was a leader in the R&B charts of the 1950s, his first pop hits coming in the late 1940s. In the 1960s he reinvented himself as a country musician, and was popular until his death in 1974 from lung cancer. Ivory Joe was also an extremely prolific song writer, his songs were recorded by a wide range of artists from pop (Pat Boone), rock (Elvis Presley), and country (Sonny James).


I have to say, Ivory Joe is another slightly different addition to a Blues anthology. While he topped the R&B Charts in the 1950s, his songs are far towards the boogie and rhythm ends of that spectrum, tipping towards straight pop music and even some of the jazz of the era. But all of those came from the blues, and he's a good showcase of blues music evolving post world-war two into a wide body of work. The recordings, being post-war, are clean and clear. Ivory Joe is probably the best example of early R&B there is.


Robert Johnson
Volume 18 is dedicated completely to recordings of Johnson's work, this disc neatly covers nearly half his entire library. Robert Johnson was born in  completely to this legend. And he is as much legend as he is blues artist. With only 42 known Mississippi, and died at the age of 27. For someone with such a short list of recordings his influence as a Delta Blues artist is unmistakable, just about everyone puts him down as in influence one way or another. Beyond his recordings, he is pure legend, "The thing about Robert Johnson was that he only existed on his records. He was pure legend." - Martin Scorsese. He is the center of a Devil Legend where he sold his soul to the devil at a cross roads. There are only two confirmed pictures of him, and his actual birth date is a complete mystery. His death was a murder by poisoning, by a jealous husband of a woman he was seeing (so it's assumed, even that's in question). And then there's his music, after decades of listening, there comes into question that everyone may have been listening to it at too fast a speed, the label he was recording for was known for altering the speeds of their releases. And so, one of the most influential and mysterious blues artists is presented here.


If you want the definitive collection of Robert Johnson music, pick up the 2011 Centennial Collection, which includes all his known records properly remastered. Everything pales in comparison to those remasters. Including the ones here, which can be easily found on the many other Robert Johnson collections available. If you've never heard Robert Johnson before, the disc here in this collection is a good solid body of work to listen to.

Next Week:
We explore the music of Elmore James, Lonnie Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, Tommy Johnson, and Skip James.