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Various Artists - When the Sun Goes Down Vol. 1 - Walk Right In

Track listing:
  1. Catfish Blues - Robert Petway 2:54
  2. Baby, Please Don't Go - Big Joe Williams 3:25
  3. Ham an' Eggs - Leadbelly 3:01
  4. Mississippi River Blues - Big Bill Broonzy 2:43
  5. Just a Good Woman Through With the Blues - Trixie Butler 2:44
  6. Garbage Man Blues - Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies 2:46
  7. The Panama Limited - Bukka 'Washington' White 3:15
  8. Cool Drink of Water Blues - Tommy Johnson 3:35
  9. The Midnight Special - Leadbelly 3:09
  10. Worried Man Blues - Carter Family 2:47
  11. Les Blues de Voyage - Amede Ardoin and Denus McGee 2:57
  12. K. C. Railroad Blues - Andrew and Jim Baxter 3:32
  13. Somebody's Been Stealin' - Rev. J. M. Gates 2:50
  14. Beale Street Blues - Alberta Hunter 3:18
  15. Devil in the Wood Pile - Noah Lewis 2:57
  16. Walk Right In - Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers 2:59
  17. Ninety-Nine Year Blues - Julius Daniels 3:06
  18. Got Cut All to Pieces - Bessie Tucker 3:29
  19. Feather Bed - Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers 3:19
  20. Can't Put a Bridle on that Mule this Morning - Julius Daniels 3:26
  21. Davidson County Blues - Deford Bailey 3:24
  22. Frankie and Johnny - Frank Crumit 3:22
  23. Dixie Bo-Bo - Taskiana Four 3:04
  24. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child - Paul Robeson 3:04
  25. St. Louis Blues - Hall Johnson Choir 3:55

Notes

Recording Dates Feb 19, 1927 - Mar 28, 1941

Released Aug 20, 2002
RCA

from silver

Walk Right In was the first compilation that Bluebird/RCA assembled for its blues-oriented When the Sun Goes Down series, which examines the role that RCA Victor played in documenting American roots music. To a large degree, this 79-minute CD focuses on acoustic blues of the '20s, '30s, and early '40s. Walk Right In spans 1926-1941, and the most recent recording is Robert Petway's moody "Catfish Blues" (which had a major impact on John Lee Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins). The disc offers a variety of blues styles, and they range from pre-World War II, pre-Muddy Waters Chicago blues (Big Bill Broonzy's "Mississippi River Blues") to Southern country blues (Big Joe Williams' "Baby, Please Don't Go," Bukka White's "The Panama United") to jazz-influenced classic blues (including Albert Hunter's 1927 recording of W.C. Handy's "Beale Street Blues," which boasts Fats Waller on pipe organ). But Walk Right In isn't strictly a blues disc; this compilation also gets into everything from old-time country (the Carter Family's "Worried Man Blues") to a Cajun/Creole blend (Amédé Ardoin and Dennis McGee's "Les Blues de Voyage"). Anyone who expects every song on the CD to have 12 bars will be disappointed; the thing that ties all of the material together isn't a 12-bar format, but rather the feeling of the blues. In the 21st century, blues feeling enriches everything from hip-hop and dance music to alternative rock, and Walk Right In demonstrates there was a similar situation before World War II. Not everything on Walk Right In is a 12-bar blues, but everything on this compilation has the feeling of the blues. This compilation is enthusiastically recommended to anyone who is seriously interested in American roots music.