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Japan 24-Bit Remaster

Andrew 'Smokey' Hogg (27 January 1914, near Westconnie, Texas - 1 May 1960, McKinney, Texas) was one of the most popular of the post-war Texan country blues artists.

He grew up on the farm and was taught to play guitar by his father Frank Hogg. While still in his teens he teamed up with a the slide guitarist and vocalist, B.K. Turner aka Black Ace and the pair travelled together playing the turpentine and logging camp circuit of country dance halls and juke joints that surrounded Kilgore, Tyler, Greenville and Palestine in East Texas.

In 1937 Smokey and Black Ace were brought to Chicago, Illinois by Decca Records to record, and Smokey had his first gramophone record ("Family Trouble Blues"/"Kind Hearted Blues") released, as by Andrew Hogg. It was an isolated occurrence - he did not make it back into a recording studio for over a decade. By the early 1940s Hogg was married and making a good living busking around the Deep Ellum area of Dallas, Texas.

Hogg was drafted in the mid 1940s and after a brief spell with the U.S. military, he continued working in the Dallas area where he was becoming well known. In 1947 he came to the attention of Herb Ritter, boss of the Dallas based record label, Bluebonnet Records, who recorded several sides with him and leased the masters to Modern Records.

The first release on Modern was the Big Bill Broonzy song "Too Many Drivers", and this racked up sufficient sales to encourage Modern Records to bring Hogg out to Los Angeles, California to cut more sides with their team of studio musicians. These songs included his two biggest hits, "Long Tall Mama" in 1949 and another Broonzy tune "Little School Girl" (#9 U.S. R&B chart) in 1950.

Blues enthusiasts have reserved most of their approval for his two-part "Penitentiary Blues" (1952), a powerful retelling of the old Texas prison song, "Ain't No More Cane on the Brazos".

Hogg's country blues style, influenced by Broonzy, Peetie Wheatstraw and Black Ace was popular with record buyers in the South during the late 1940s and early 1950s. He continued to work and record until the end of the 1950s, but died of cancer, or possibly a ruptured ulcer, in 1960.

Smokey's cousin, John Hogg, also played the blues, recording for Mercury in 1951.

Smokey was reputed to be a cousin of Lightnin' Hopkins, and distantly related to Texas Alexander, although both claims are ambiguous.

He is not to be confused with Willie "Smokey" Hogg, an imposter who was based in New York and recorded mostly after 1960, taking the name of "Smokey" after Andrew had died. He recorded mostly for Spivey Records, and his work is primarily a poor imitation of Lowell Fulson. Although Andrew was the younger man, his sound represented an older style in Texas Blues.

Smokey Hogg was a rural bluesman navigating a postwar era infatuated by R&B, but he got along quite nicely nonetheless, scoring a pair of major R&B hits in 1948 and 1950 and cutting a thick catalog for a slew of labels (including Exclusive, Modern, Bullet, Macy's, Sittin' in With, Imperial, Mercury, Recorded in Hollywood, Specialty, Fidelity, Combo, Federal, and Showtime).

During the early '30s, Hogg, who was influenced by Big Bill Broonzy and Peetie Wheatstraw, worked with slide guitarist Black Ace at dances around Greenville, TX. Hogg first recorded for Decca in 1937, but it was an isolated occurrence — he didn't make it back into a studio for a decade. Once he hit his stride, though, Hogg didn't look back. Both his chart hits — 1948's "Long Tall Mama" and 1950's "Little School Girl" — were issued on Modern, but his rough-hewn sound seldom changed a whole lot no matter what L.A. logo he was appearing on. Hogg's last few sides were cut in 1958 for Lee Rupe's Ebb label.

Texas bluesman Andrew "Smokey" Hogg's greatest talent was his dogged persistence, since he couldn't keep a steady rhythm to save his life, and paired as he usually was with professional rhythm sections who were understandably baffled by Hogg's beat-baffled detours, it is truly a miracle that he recorded as much and as long as he did. This set collects 21 tracks Hogg recorded for the Modern and Combo imprints in the early '50s, and it is music for the unsteady of feet, since it lurches more than it rocks or rolls.

Song after song starts out hopefully, only to derail into rhythmic chaos as the drummer and bass player struggle to find firm footing on what is hopelessly shifting ground. It really is fascinating to behold, and songs like the almost internally coherent "It's Rainin' Here" manage to work mostly because Hogg just never quits charging ahead. This same determination makes other tracks here like "You Can't Keep Your Business Straight," "Worryin' Mind," and the undeniably goofy but somehow endearing "Runaway" succeed in spite of their rhythmic uncertainties. There's no way to doctor this stuff, so what you hear is what you get.

01. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (1947)
02. Coming Back Home To You Again (1950)
03. Look In Your Eyes Pretty Mama (1950)
04. You Can´t Keep Your Business Straight (1950)
05. Worryin' Mind (1947)
06. My Baby´s Worryin' Me (1947)
07. Runaway (1950)
08. You Just Gotta Go (1947)
09. It´s Raining Here (1951)
10. I Got Your Picture (1950)
11. When You Get Old (1950)
12. Goin' Back to Chicago
13. Too Many Drivers (1947)
14. Country Girl (1947)
15. What More Can A Woman Do (1947)
16. Oh, Woman, Oh (1947)
17. Long Tall Mama (1947)