Time: 4:48:05
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2019
Styles: Blues, R&B, Soul, Gospel
Art: Full
CD 1:
01. Cadillac Baby - Welcome To Cadillac Baby's Show Lounge ( 3:39)
02. Eddie Boyd - I'm Commin' Home ( 2:37)
03. Eddie Boyd - Thank You Baby ( 2:06)
04. L.C. McKinley - Nit Wit ( 1:58)
05. L.C. McKinley - Sharpest Man In Town ( 2:24)
06. The Daylighters - Mad House Jump ( 1:59)
07. The Daylighters - You're Breaking My Heart ( 2:21)
08. Faith Taylor &The Sweet Teens - INeed Him To Love Me ( 2:25)
09. Faith Taylor & The Sweet Teens - I Love You Darling ( 2:31)
10. Bobby Saxton - Trying To Make A Living ( 2:47)
11. Earl Hooker - Dynamite ( 2:22)
12. Cadillac Baby - The Legend Of Cadillac Baby (14:57)
13. Eddie Boyd - Blue Monday Blues ( 2:33)
14. Eddie Boyd - The Blues Is Here To Stay ( 2:45)
15. Eddie Boyd - Come Home! ( 2:40)
16. Eddie Boyd - You Got To Reap! ( 2:47)
17. Little Mac - Times Are Getting Tougher ( 2:24)
18. Little Mac - Don't Come Back ( 2:21)
19. T. Valentine - Little Lu-Lu Frog ( 2:13)
20. T. Valentine - Teen-Age Jump ( 2:16)
21. Cadillac Baby - How Detroit Junior Got Famous ( 4:02)
22. Detroit Junior - Money Tree ( 2:12)
23. Detroit Junior - So Unhappy ( 2:46)
24. Eddie Boyd & The Daylighters - Come On Home ( 2:35)
25. Eddie Boyd & The Daylighters - Reap What You Sow ( 2:38)
CD 2:
01. Hound Dog Taylor - My Baby Is Coming Home (2:41)
02. Hound Dog Taylor - Take Five (2:08)
03. St. Louis Mac - You Mistreated Me (3:02)
04. St. Louis Mac - Broken Heart (2:29)
05. Phil Sampson - It's So Hard (2:29)
06. Singing Sam Feat. Phil Sampson - Sampson (2:34)
07. Singing Sampson - My Story (2:36)
08. Singing Sam - Calvins Reserve (2:35)
09. Sunnyland Slim - Worried About My Baby (2:49)
10. Sunnyland Slim - Drinking And Clowning (3:05)
11. Eddie Boyd - All The Way (3:02)
12. Eddie Boyd - Where You Belong (2:46)
13. Cadillac Baby - Cadillac Baby Gets Into The Record Business (3:03)
14. Lee Jackson - Please Baby (2:44)
15. Lee Jackson - Juanita (2:59)
16. Andre Williams - Please Give Me A Chance (3:14)
17. Andre Williams - I Still Love You (2:49)
18. Little Mac - I'm Your Fool (2:13)
19. Little Mac - Let Hootenanny Blues (Out Of Jail) (2:02)
20. James Cotton - One More Mile (3:06)
21. James Cotton - There Must Be A Panic On (1:47)
22. Kirk Taylor & The Velvets - Your Love (2:15)
23. Kirk Taylor & The Velvets - This World (2:40)
24. Tall Paul Hankins & The Hudson Brothers - Joe's House Rent Party Part 1 (2:35)
25. Tall Paul Hankins & The Hudson Brothers - Joe's House Rent Party Part 2 (2:29)
26. Willie Hudson Feat. Tall Paul Hankins - It's You I'm Going To Miss (2:48)
27. Willie Hudson Feat. Tall Paul Hankins - Red Lips (2:34)
CD 3:
01. Lee Jackson & The Cadillac Baby Specials - The Christmas Song (2:34)
02. Clyde Lasley & The Cadillac Baby Specials - Santa Came Home Drunk (2:58)
03. The Chances, Darla-Moira-Sharonne - One More Chance (2:44)
04. The Chance, Darla-Moira-Sharonne - It Takes More Than Love Alone (2:20)
05. Little Mack & The Hipps - Mother-In-Law Blues (2:18)
06. Little Mack & The Hipps - Woman, Help Me (2:46)
07. Little Mack Simmons - The Sky Is Crying (3:35)
08. Little Mack Simmons - I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man (3:42)
09. Little Mack Simmons - Trouble No More (2:08)
10. Little Mack Simmons - I'm Tore Down (2:59)
11. Arelean Brown - I Love My Man (3:19)
12. Arelean Brown - Hullo Baby (2:35)
13. Sunnyland Slim - House Rock (2:43)
14. Sunnyland Slim - She Got That Jive (2:33)
15. Sunnyland Slim - Little Girl (3:26)
16. Sunnyland Slim - Too Late To Pray (3:47)
17. Sunnyland Slim - I Done You Wrong (3:28)
18. Homesick James - My Baby's Gone (3:08)
19. Homesick James - My Kind Of Woman (3:21)
20. Homesick James - Homesick Sunnyland Special (3:15)
21. Andrew 'Blueblood' McMahon - Lost In The Jungle (3:39)
22. Andrew 'Blueblood' McMahon - Special Agent (2:49)
23. Andrew 'Blueblood' McMahon - Worried All The Time (2:30)
24. Andrew 'Blueblood' McMahon - Potato Diggin' Man (3:23)
CD 4:
01. Willie Williams - Somebody Changed The Lock (2:20)
02. Willie Williams - 38 Woman Blues (3:36)
03. Unknown Blues Band - Raise Your Window Baby (2:42)
04. Unknown Blues Band - Jump This Morning (2:03)
05. 3D - 7402 (5:07)
06. 3D - Here We Go Chi-Town (3:00)
07. Clyde Lasley - Just In Case That You Got A Case (0:20)
08. Clyde Lasley & Unknown Actors - I Bet I Don't Die Tired (1:46)
09. Clyde Lasley & Unknown Actors - The Preacher, A Deacon & A Razor (4:30)
10. Sleepy John Estes & Hammie Nixon - Cadillac Baby Passed So Fast (4:08)
11. Sleepy John Estes & Hammie Nixon - Worry My Mind (2:41)
12. Sleepy John Estes & Hammie Nixon - Spirit Don't Leave Me (3:08)
13. Sleepy John Estes & Hammie Nixon - Lay My Burdon Down (2:26)
14. Cadillac Baby - I Did A Lot Of Spiritual Records (1:28)
15. The Gloryaires - Search Me Lord (3:36)
16. The Gloryaires - Now Lord Don't Drive Me Away (3:20)
17. Eddie Dean & The Biblical Aires - Holy Place (2:27)
18. Eddie Dean & The Biblical Aires - God Has Prepared (3:04)
19. The Norfolk Singers - He's A God (2:19)
20. The Norfolk Singers - Testimonial (2:35)
21. The Pilgrim Harmonizers - Witness There Too (2:43)
22. The Pilgrim Harmonizers - Over The Hill (2:38)
23. Rev. Samuel Patterson - Climbing High Mountains (3:26)
24. Rev. Samuel Patterson - Judgement Day (3:30)
25. Cadillac Baby - Blues Is My Soul (2:05)
Cadillac Baby ran a record label but a better way to think of him is as a hustler -- somebody who figured out how to make a buck by running nightclubs, store fronts and, eventually, a record label. That label, Bea & Baby -- which Narvel Eatmon named after himself and his wife, who was never crazy about her husband's designs on the record business -- launched in 1959, right when his hometown of Chicago was teeming with a bunch of terrific blues and R&B labels, including Chess, Vee-Jay and Delmark. Bea & Baby is never mentioned in the same breath as those imprints, probably because it essentially imploded in 1961, after Cadillac Baby ran afoul of the local musicians' union. He turned his attention to his store, recording the occasional session, then experiencing an unexpected revival in 1971, when Living Blues ran a long interview with Cadillac Baby conducted by Jim O'Neal. That was enough to stir some new interest in the label, so he dressed up some old 45s in the guise of a fake live album -- the only LP the label or its Ronald, Miss, Key, and Keyhole subsidiaries released -- and started to record new acts intermittently from that point until his death in 1991.
Once Cadillac Baby was gone, the legacy of Bea & Baby faded, with only Clyde Lasley's "Santa Come Home Drunk" appearing on a stateside various-artists collection. Earwig Music Company's Michael Frank administered that license, a task that led him to acquire the Bea & Baby catalog from Cadillac's widow. He embarked on the decade-plus mission to assemble Cadillac Baby's Bea & Baby Records: The Definitive Collection, a four-disc set that contains (with just a handful of justifiable exceptions) everything the label and its subsidiaries released, accompanied by a thorough history by O'Neal along with artist-by-artist biographies from Bill Dahl and, for the gospel acts, Robert M. Marovich.
The fact that there is a significant number of gospel tracks on this four-disc set underscores how Cadillac Baby recorded a bit of everything: vocal groups, uptown R&B, even rap in his waning years. Still, his bread and butter was the blues, music that he knew from his birth state of Mississippi and from the clubs he ran. He made deep connections, so he could get Eddie Boyd, Earl Hooker, Sunnyland Slim, James Cotton, and Andre Williams to cut records for his label (reportedly, Muddy Waters thought about jumping ship from Chess to Bea & Baby for a brief moment in 1959). He had a good ear, so he knew to cut Hound Dog Taylor as soon he heard him, waxing "My Baby Is Coming Home" over a decade before the guitarist's epochal debut for Alligator. Cadillac was also a bad businessman and treated artists cavalierly; in the case of Detroit Junior and St. Louis Mac -- both monikers handed to them by Cadillac without the artist's consent -- it could almost qualify as contempt. Despite all this, Bea & Baby and its sister subsidiaries not only recorded some terrific music, but they had a distinct identity. From the outset, Cadillac, his producers, and engineers and musicians recorded things quick and dirty, so the records still seem electrifying; they're greasy and gritty, music made with passion but with hopes of scoring a quick buck. Everybody involved with Bea & Baby was plying their trade, either as musicians or a hustler, and while the results may not always be perfect, that rawness is also why the set is so invigorating. This is down-and-dirty music recorded on the cheap, so it retains its excitement. It's a blessing that Cadillac Baby's Bea & Baby Records: The Definitive Collection has finally arrived, as its existence helps paint a fuller, richer portrait of Chicago's blues & R&B scene of the '50s, '60s, and '70s. ~Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Once Cadillac Baby was gone, the legacy of Bea & Baby faded, with only Clyde Lasley's "Santa Come Home Drunk" appearing on a stateside various-artists collection. Earwig Music Company's Michael Frank administered that license, a task that led him to acquire the Bea & Baby catalog from Cadillac's widow. He embarked on the decade-plus mission to assemble Cadillac Baby's Bea & Baby Records: The Definitive Collection, a four-disc set that contains (with just a handful of justifiable exceptions) everything the label and its subsidiaries released, accompanied by a thorough history by O'Neal along with artist-by-artist biographies from Bill Dahl and, for the gospel acts, Robert M. Marovich.
The fact that there is a significant number of gospel tracks on this four-disc set underscores how Cadillac Baby recorded a bit of everything: vocal groups, uptown R&B, even rap in his waning years. Still, his bread and butter was the blues, music that he knew from his birth state of Mississippi and from the clubs he ran. He made deep connections, so he could get Eddie Boyd, Earl Hooker, Sunnyland Slim, James Cotton, and Andre Williams to cut records for his label (reportedly, Muddy Waters thought about jumping ship from Chess to Bea & Baby for a brief moment in 1959). He had a good ear, so he knew to cut Hound Dog Taylor as soon he heard him, waxing "My Baby Is Coming Home" over a decade before the guitarist's epochal debut for Alligator. Cadillac was also a bad businessman and treated artists cavalierly; in the case of Detroit Junior and St. Louis Mac -- both monikers handed to them by Cadillac without the artist's consent -- it could almost qualify as contempt. Despite all this, Bea & Baby and its sister subsidiaries not only recorded some terrific music, but they had a distinct identity. From the outset, Cadillac, his producers, and engineers and musicians recorded things quick and dirty, so the records still seem electrifying; they're greasy and gritty, music made with passion but with hopes of scoring a quick buck. Everybody involved with Bea & Baby was plying their trade, either as musicians or a hustler, and while the results may not always be perfect, that rawness is also why the set is so invigorating. This is down-and-dirty music recorded on the cheap, so it retains its excitement. It's a blessing that Cadillac Baby's Bea & Baby Records: The Definitive Collection has finally arrived, as its existence helps paint a fuller, richer portrait of Chicago's blues & R&B scene of the '50s, '60s, and '70s. ~Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Cadillac Baby's Bea & Baby Records Part 1
Cadillac Baby's Bea & Baby Records Part 2