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Kokomo Arnold - Kokomo Arnold Vol. 1 (1930-1935) (1935)

Track listing:
  1. Rainy Night Blues 2:59
  2. Paddlin' Madeline Blues 3:19
  3. Milk Cow Blues 3:11
  4. Old Original Kokomo Blues 2:54
  5. Back to the Woods 3:06
  6. Sagefied Woman Blues 3:05
  7. Old Black Cat Blues (Jinx Blues) 3:25
  8. Sissy Man Blues 3:10
  9. Front Door Blues (32 20 Blues) 3:24
  10. Back Door Blues 3:25
  11. The Twelves (Dirty Dozens) 3:13
  12. Feels So Good 3:16
  13. Milk Cow Blues #2 3:09
  14. Biscuit Roller Blues 3:14
  15. Slop Jar Blues 3:00
  16. Black Annie 3:02
  17. Chain Gang Blues 3:06
  18. Monday Morning Blues 3:04
  19. How Long How Long Blues 3:15
  20. Things 'Bout Coming My Way 2:48
  21. You Should Not a 'Done it (Gettin' it Fixed) 3:16
  22. Lonesome Southern Blues 3:06
  23. Black Money Blues 3:07
  24. Hobo Blues 3:11

Notes

All Music Guide Review of this CD by Scott Yanow
All of Kokomo Arnold's 1930s recordings have been made available on four Document CDs. Vol. 1 features the singer/guitarist on two songs from 1930 (recorded in Memphis, TN, as Gitfiddle Jim") and then the first 22 selections that he cut in Chicago during 1934-1935, two of which were previously unreleased. Best known is "Milk Cow Blues," but the memorable and sometimes haunting blues singer also performs such numbers as "Old Original Kokomo Blues," "Front Door Blues," "Back Door Blues," "Chain Gang Blues," and "Hobo Blues." Blues collectors will definitely want all four CDs in this perfectly done series.


Biography by Uncle Dave Lewis
"Kokomo" was a popular brand of coffee early in the 20th century, and was the subject of Francis "Scrapper" Blackwell's first recorded blues in 1928. When slide guitar specialist James Arnold revamped this number as "Old Original Kokomo Blues" for Decca in 1934, little did he know that this would soon become his permanent handle — Kokomo Arnold.

Kokomo Arnold was born in Georgia, and began his musical career in Buffalo, New York in the early '20s. During prohibition, Kokomo Arnold worked primarily as a bootlegger, and performing music was a only sideline to him. Nonetheless he worked out a distinctive style of bottleneck slide guitar and blues singing that set him apart from his contemporaries. In the late '20s, Arnold settled for a short time in Mississippi, making his first recordings in May 1930 for Victor in Memphis under the name of "Gitfiddle Jim." Arnold moved to Chicago in order to be near to where the action was as a bootlegger, but the repeal of the Volstead Act put him out of business, so he turned instead to music as a full-time vocation.

Some of Kokomo Arnold's songs proved highly influential on other musicians. His first issued coupling on Decca 7026 paired "Old Original Kokomo Blues" with "Milk Cow Blues." Delta Blues legend Robert Johnson must've known this record, as he re-invented both sides of it into songs for his own use — "Old Original Kokomo Blues" became "Sweet Home Chicago," and "Milk Cow Blues" became "Milkcow's Calf Blues." "Milk Cow Blues" ultimately proved of use, more or less, in its original form with some "real gone" modifications, to another artist a little further down the line: Elvis Presley.

Some blues pundits have drawn a direct qualitative value between Peetie Wheatstraw and Kokomo Arnold, with Arnold coming out on top. There was a popular re-issue album in the 1960s featuring eight songs by each artist which seemed to support this conclusion. This has no real relevance however; although they were personally acquainted and recorded together, Kokomo Arnold and Peetie Wheatstraw were really working different ends of the 1930s blues spectrum. Their main connection to one another is their combined influence on Robert Johnson, and in this respect Wheatstraw seems to have had the upper hand.