« Back to Top Level | J. B. Lenoir

J. B. Lenoir - Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: J.B. Lenoir (1958)

Track listing:
  1. Eisenhower Blues 2:50
  2. Korea Blues 2:51
  3. Mama Talk To Your Daughter 2:20
  4. Sitting Down Thinking 2:56
  5. Give Me One More Shot 2:17
  6. Natural Man 2:32
  7. Don't Dog Your Woman 3:11
  8. Low Down Dirty Shame 2:23
  9. If You Love Me 2:48
  10. Don't Touch My Head 2:15
  11. Mama, What about Your Daughter 2:28
  12. When I am Drinking 2:38
  13. Five Years 1:45
  14. Good Looking Woman 2:06
  15. Voodoo Boogie 1:52

Notes

Most of the CD compilations released in conjunction with the major television documentary series The Blues were devoted to famous bluesmen or blues-rockers. So those who administered the CD companion volumes are to be applauded for taking a chance and including an installment on Lenoir, who — unlike most of the rest of the spotlighted performers — will probably not be familiar to many, perhaps most, of the series' viewers. This anthology could well be subtitled "J.B. Lenoir at Chess," for though his career did take in work at several different labels, all but two of these 1950s tracks were first released on Chess. Frankly, it doesn't make a case forLenoir as a blues giant; it's good but second-division '50s electric Chicago blues, a little monotonous in flavor, distinguished by his so-high-pitched-it-could-be-a-woman vocals. It does have the Lenoir songs that have proved to be his most enduring, those being his political commentaries "Eisenhower Blues" and "Korea Blues," "Mama Talk to Your Daughter," and "Don't Touch My Head"; "Eisenhower Blues" and "Mama Talk to Your Daughter," both originally released on Parrot, are the two non-Chess pieces on offer. It's too bad, however, that it doesn't license any of his mid-'60s socially conscious acoustic tracks, which demonstrate there was considerably more range to Lenoir's music and artistry than was displayed in his 1950s recordings.