VA: BLACK A BILLY Vol. 1 to Vol. 5 (5xLP bundle)

Description

Sleazy Records presents: ‘Black-A-Billy’ a ground-breaking new series on vinyl LPs compiled by the ‘Mojo’ Man. If you liked his ‘Boss Black Rockers’ series, you will definitely love this new one. They feature a truly remarkable artwork, a lot of obscure songs, the best possible sound, and liner notes about the ‘story behind’ the series, and also a blurb about each and every artist and track.Finally, the first five volumes of this new series are now available.

A FEW WORDS FROM THE “MOJO” MAN
After the tremendous success of my series “Boss Black Rockers” and ‘More Boss Black Rocker”
I asked myself, “Where do I go after that?” and the answer was “I can only go BLACK-A-BILLY” and so I did. The bar was set pretty high, but I think this new series is even better, because I could go way deeper into the exploration of obscure and forgotten rockin’ black sounds from the Golden Age of American music.
The term “Black-Billy” has been used in recent years to describe rockabilly-sounding music made by black artists. Years ago it was called “Blues-a-Billy” but it was gradually abandoned because a lot of “rockabilly-sounding” songs were by black folks that were not actually blues artists. As I wrote in the liner notes of the compilation album “Elvis Stole My Job” Elvis Presley (the guy who started rockabilly) became famous in the fifties for his moves, his crazy clothes, his hairdo, his music, and his singing style. Before him, only African-American blues and rhythm and blues singers would move that way on stage, wear those crazy clothes, sang that type of music in that style etcetera.
Elvis always credited much of his success to pioneering black musicians. He could never really understand what all that fuss was about. In June 1956, he made the following statement about rock ’n’ roll music to the press “The colored folks have been singing it and playing it just like I’m doing now, man, for more years than I know. They played it like that in the shanties and in their juke joints, and nobody paid it no mind ’til I goosed it up.” In spite of that statement, the press started to call Elvis the “King” of rock and roll, but on the other hand, Chuck Berry was hailed as a “Rock-a-Billy Troubadour” as you can read in the sleeve notes of After School Session, the first album he released in the 1950s. Many of his songs as Maybellene, You Can’t Catch Me, Beautiful Delilah, Too Much Monkey Business, and many more, were de facto Rockabilly tracks. Was Chuck the only black artist recording that type of music in the 1950s? Hell no, and these LPs will easily prove that.
For this series, I hand-picked hundreds of songs by African-American artists. Not only from the 1950s but also decades before and after that. You’ll find a few “familiar” tracks on each and every volume, along with more obscure tracks and a lot of songs you probably never heard before. I could have easily made two or three volumes in no time, strictly with songs by black artists that sounded just like “White” Rockabilly.
Instead, I decided to also include a larger range of tracks to make it way more interesting. Is often believed that Alan Free “invented” the term “Rock And Roll” (an old African-American slang word for “vigorous fornication”) or was the first one to use it for this musical genre, but that’s not actually true, because magazines like Cashbox and Billboard were already using the word “rock and roll” in the mid and late 1940s to describe blues and R&B records by Wynonie Harris, Roy Brown, and other blues shouters of that era. Freed understood that racist and legally segregated America would never accept rhythm and blues (it was depreciatively dismissed as “nigger’s’ music at the time), so he used a different word for it. He also started to promote white artists who played this music. Rock And Roll soon became a multi-racial genre, even if white artists were a minority in the genre.
Basically, anything “black” or R&B in the 1950s and was de-facto rock and roll, even if nowadays most folks are aware or remember only a handful of black rock and roll artists To set things straight I recently compiled two fantastic ten-volume series titled “Boss Black Rockers” and “More Boss Black Rockers” but I could have released probably a dozen more.
On the other hand, Rockabilly, with very few musical exceptions (all included in this series) stayed pretty much “white” just like Country and Western before Civil Rights, singers like Charley Pride etc., because I guess no black artist wanted to get lynched at a gig or on the way to a recording session. Is simple as that. Like the vast majority of American Music C&W was also pioneered by African Americans (I compiled a ten-volume series titled “Rhythm & Western” many years ago about this) but that’s a different story.
In the States “Rock” music is called “Rock And Roll” so anything even remotely “rocking” recorded in the 1950s or in the early 1960s before the Beatles, The Rolling Stones etcetera is called “Rockabilly” even if it’s not. Actually, everything from the Atomic Era is pretty much advertised as “rockabilly” from bicycles to cooking stoves. It’s sad but true. In Europe, it’s a bit different. Most people seem to know the difference. After checking out pretty much all the best “classic” rockabilly compilations out there (mostly made in Europe) I noticed that they are rarely only composed of strictly “rockabilly” tracks. They also often include C&W, white R&B, honky tonk, rock and roll from the late 50s and 60s, popcorn, and white artist trying to sound like Little Richard and other black artists, so I decided to do the same, adding to the dozens of pure “Rockabilly- sounding”” songs I first picked for this series pre-war songs, R&B, blues boppers, black rock and roll, gospel, rockin’ blues, early soul and even a few jazzy tunes. DIG IT!
Little Victor Mac (a.k.a. DJ “Mojo” Man)

Tracklist:

Volume 1
Side A:
1- G. “Davy” Crockett – Look Out Mable
2- Junior Wells – Lovey Dovey Lovey One
3- Don And Dewey – A Little Love
4- Lonesome Lee – Cry Over You
5- Muddy Waters – You’re Gonna Miss Me (When I’m Dead And Gone)
6- Louisiana Red – I’m The Seventh Son
7- Mac Sims – Drivin’ Wheel
8- Earl “Zeb” Hooker . Frog Hop
Side B:
1- Johnny Shines – Fat Mama
2- June Alexander – Sally Sue Brown
3- Washboard Sam – Diggin’ My Potatoes
4- Clifford Curry Jr. – Kiss, Kiss, Kiss
5- Harold Burrage – Messed Up
6- The Premiers – Hey Miss Fancy
7- Square Walton – Bad Hangover
8- Selling That Stuff – The Hokum Boys

Volume 2
Side A:
1- Al Downing With Poe Kats – Down On The Farm
2- Sugar Pie DeSanto – It Won’t Be Long
3- Little Junior’s Blue Flames – Feelin’ Good
4- Jerry Butler And The Impressions – Sweet Was The Wine
5- Eddie Daniels – I Wanna Know (Why You Love Me So)
6- Big Bill Broonzy – Hey, Hey
7- Bokker Lee Jr. – You Are My Happiness
8- Tender Slim – Teenage Hayride
Side B:
1- J.B. Hutto – Hip Shakin’
2- Little Walter – It’s Too Late Brother
3- Billy Williams – The Pied Piper
4- Stick’ McGhee And His Buddies – Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee
5- The Bees – Tough Enough
6- Arthur Gunter – Baby Let’s Play House
7- Peppermint Harris – Angel Child
8- Elder Curry And Congregation – Memphis Flu

Volume 3
Side A:
1- Magic Sam . 21 Days In Jail
2- Edna McGriff – The Fool
3- Slim Harpo – Don’t Start Cryin’ Now
4- Bunker Hill – You Can’t Make Me Doubt My Baby
5- Fention Robinson With The Dukes – Tennessee Woman
6- Jerry McCain and His Upstarts – My Next Door Neighbor
7- Steve Gibson – Big Game Hunter
8- Muddy Waters – Eva’s Shuffle
Side B:
1- Bo Diddley – I’m Looking For A Woman
2- Piano Red – Rockin’ With Red
3- The Adventurers – Another Bachelor
4- The Radio Four – How Much I Owe You
5- Ronnie Jones And The Classmates – Teenage Rock
6- “Little George” Smith – Oopin Doopin Doopin
7- James Cotton – Hold Me In Your Arms
8- Big Joe Williams – I’m Getting Wild About Her

Volume 4
Side A:
1- Slim Harpo – Bobby Sox Baby
2- Jimmy McCracklin – I Know
3- Wynona Carr – Touch And Go
4- Click-Claks – Pretty Little Pearly
5- Elmore James – Cry For Me Baby
6- Muddy Waters – Got My Mojo Working
7- Doctor Ross – The Boogie Disease
8- Piano Red – Wild Fire
Side B:
1- Ray Scott – Lily White Mama, Jet Black Papa
2- Cousin Leroy – Goin’ Back Home
3- Memphis Slim & The House Rockers Rockin’ The House
4- Teddy Humphries – Guitar Pickin’Fool
5- The Nighriders – Lookin’ For My Baby
6- Eddie Ware And His Band – Lima Beans
7- Sugar Boy Williams – Little Girl
8- Lightnin’ Hopkins – Big Mama Jump

Volume 5
Side A:
1- Robert Nighthawks – Kansas City Blues
2- Tarheel Slim – Wilcat Tamer
3- Don And Dewey – Jungle Hop
4- Al Simmons – Old Folks Boogie
5- Sonny Boy Williams – Polly Put Your Kettle On
6- Brownie McGee And His Jook House Rockers – I’m 10.00 Years Old
7- Johnny Fuller – All Night Long
8- Earl Palmer – Raunchy
Side B:
1- Lousiana Red – Ride In Red, Ride On
2- Sister Rosetta Tharpe With The Sam Price Trio – This Train
3- Jo Jo Williams – Rock’n’Roll Boogie
4- The Gospelaires – You Can’t Make Me Doubt
5- Leroy Dallas – Jump Little Children
6- Don & Bob – Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
7- The Cues – Crackerjack
8- Memphis Minnie – Frankie Jean (That Trottin’ Fool)