VA - Blue Muse

Size: 168,1 MB
Time: 71:40
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2019
Styles: Acoustic/Electric Blues, Blues Folk
Art: Front

01 The Grotto Sessions - La Collegiale (3:27)
02 Taj Mahal - Spike Driver Blues (4:24)
03 Captain Luke - Old Black Buck (3:29)
04 Eddie Tigner - Route 66 (4:45)
05 Alabama Slim - I Got The Blues (4:39)
06 Robert Finley - Age Don't Mean A Thing (4:27)
07 Dom Flemons - Polly Put The Kettle On (2:14)
08 John Dee Holeman - Hambone (2:18)
09 Algia Mae Hinton - Snap Your Fingers (3:40)
10 Willie Farmer - I Am The Lightnin' (3:20)
11 Dave McGrew - D.O.C. Man (3:43)
12 Martha Spencer & Kelley Breiding - Sweet Valentine (2:24)
13 Dom Flemons - I Wanna Boogie (1:43)
14 Eric & Tim - Mississippi Blues (3:46)
15 Guitar Gabriel - Landlord Blues (2:54)
16 Drink Small - Widow Woman (4:15)
17 Sam Frazier Jr. - Cabbage Man (2:27)
18 Cary Morin - Sing It Louder (2:59)
19 Ironing Board Sam - Loose Diamonds (4:12)
20 The Branchettes - I Know I've Been Changed (3:35)
21 Theotis Taylor - Something Within Me (2:49)

Blue Muse

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Various - We Are The Music Makers! (2-Disc Set)

Founded in 1984, the North Carolina-based Music Maker Relief Foundation – led by Tim and Denise Duffy – is utterly pragmatic in its goals: preserving traditional southern music by presenting it on disc and on stage and also by helping needy players through finding them gigs, providing them with decent instruments and even repairing their homes. Among its 150-plus CDs thus far, the primary focus is on performers age 55 or older with incomes below $18,000 per year.

The 44-track We Are the Music Makers!: Preserving the Soul of America’s Music commemorates the non-profit’s 20th anniversary with acts ranging from the obscure to a few big names like Carolina Chocolate Drops (whose recording career began on the label) and Taj Mahal (who plays backup banjo, guitar and ham bone on a few cuts). Musical styles run the gamut from Etta Baker’s graceful Piedmont blues picking to Pura Fe’s Native American chants from her Tuscarora tribe. Classically trained Leyla McCalla, former cellist in the Chocolate Drops, draws on her Haitian heritage in “Manman Mwen.” Among the religious tracks, country singer Carl Rutherford hauls out “Old Rugged Cross.” As for childhood memories, Big Boy Henry’s “Old Bill” tells of his pet rooster, which his mother killed to feed a lecherous minister his father thoroughly distrusted. Jerry “Boogie” McCain’s “My New Next Door Neighbor” ends with screams and gun shot sounds. On “Peter Rumpkin,” Willa Mae Buckner (a snake charmer, say the notes) falls back on a gimmick many of us can recall from childhood: raising expectations that a verse’s rhyme will end with a dirty word but then closing it with something innocent.

The news is fodder for the blues. (Remember Blind Willie Johnson’s “God Moved on the Water” in the wake of the Titanic’s sinking and, from World War II, the harmonizing Golden Gate Quartet’s “Stalin Wasn’t Stallin’.”) Whooping, Bible-referencing guitarist Drink Small’s “President Clinton’s Blues” points out, “The man did the same thing that Adam did to Eve. … The Bible says, ‘He who has not sinned cast the first stone.’ … She didn’t rape him. And he sure ‘nough didn’t rape her.” Anti-gay sentiment appears in the song. Political correctness is oft an unknown concern in the blues, Ironing Board Sam’s disco-like offering has one basic, repeated line: “I can’t think of nothing but your butt.” High-pitched Algia Mae Hnton advises “Cook Corn Bread for Your Husband, Biscuits for Your Outside Man.” Prison being a well-known topic in the blues, a title such as Adolphus Bell’s “Child Support Blues” speaks for itself. Is Bell ad libbing? And a bluesman’s listening habits aren’t limited to the blues, either. Eddie Tigner, who toured with the Ink Spots for 35 years, scats and improvises his way through “Route 66.”

A genre that traveled from Africa to America, the praise song can have various motives – showing appreciation or currying favor, for example. Just think back to Leadbelly’s “Governor Pat Neff” for the Library of Congress and Folkways not to mention, from Memphis’s Sun Studios, the Prisonaires’ “What about Frank Clement (a Mighty Man)” for governors of Texas and Tennessee, respectively. Side 1 of this Music Maker package ends with a quiet but quite specific praise song, Captain Luke & Cool John Ferguson’s leisurely “Tim Duffy Is a Good Ol’ Guy”: “As good a guy as he could be / He got me a gig across the sea. / When he tell you something, he really mean it. / He got me a gig in Argentina.” In the world of downhome music, the Duffys are bringing home the bacon. ~ Bruce Sylvester

Album: We Are The Music Makers! (Disc 1)
Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 68:12
Size: 156.2 MB
Styles: Blues/Soul/R&B/Jazz
Year: 2014
Art: Front

[0:57] 1. Captain Luke - Freight Train Boogie
[1:18] 2. Guitar Gabriel - A Living Past
[2:37] 3. Etta Baker - Railroad Bill
[4:23] 4. John Lee Zeigler - Going Away
[4:08] 5. Cootie Stark - High Yellow
[2:15] 6. John Dee Holeman - Chapel Hill Boogie
[5:28] 7. Neal Pattman - Shortnin' Bread
[2:52] 8. Carl Rutherford - Old Rugged Cross
[3:24] 9. Cool John Ferguson - No Hidin' Place
[3:28] 10. Essie Mae Brooks - Feel Like My Time Ain't Long
[4:06] 11. Elder James Goins - Old Time Religion
[3:09] 12. Elder Anderson Johnson - My Lord And I
[1:55] 13. Mr. Q - Cocktail Boogie
[1:47] 14. Albert Smith - Big Bell Mamma
[2:10] 15. Precious Bryant - If You Don't Love Me, Would You Fool Me Good
[4:35] 16. Big Boy Henry - Old Bill
[4:45] 17. Drink Small - President Clinton Blues
[2:40] 18. J.W. Warren - Looking For My Woman
[5:44] 19. Dr. Burt - What Can An Old Man Do (But Sing The Blues)
[3:02] 20. George Higgs - Greasy Greens
[0:28] 21. Whistlin' Britches - Clickin'
[2:52] 22. Captain Luke - Tim Duffy Is A Good Ol' Guy

We Are The Music Makers! (Disc 1) mc
We Are The Music Makers! (Disc 1) zippy

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Album: We Are The Music Makers! (Disc 2)
Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 71:36
Size: 163.9 MB
Styles: Blues/Soul/R&B/Jazz
Year: 2014
Art: Front

[2:34] 1. Samuel Turner Stevens - Railroadin' & Gamblin
[1:16] 2. Pura Fe - Pigeon Dance
[2:25] 3. Clyde Langford - High Steppin' Mamma
[3:37] 4. James Davis - Fred, You Ought To Be Dead
[4:47] 5. Beverly Guitar Watkins - Back In Business
[3:22] 6. The Carolina Chocolate Drops - Sourwood Mountain
[2:44] 7. Nyles Jones - Ain't Gonna Let No Women
[3:32] 8. Macavine Hayes - Snatch That Thing
[1:21] 9. Algia Mae Hinton - Cook Cornbread For Your Husband
[1:15] 10. Willa Mae Buckner - Peter Rumpkin
[3:38] 11. Adolphus Bell - Child Support Blues
[3:55] 12. Ironing Board Sam - Nothing But Your Butt
[4:36] 13. Benton Flippen - Benton's Dream
[4:43] 14. Eddie Tigner - Route 66
[3:19] 15. Jerry 'Boogie' McCain - My New Next Door Neighbor
[1:57] 16. Carl Hodges - Flossie
[5:37] 17. Boo Hanks - Home On The Range
[4:05] 18. Boo Hanks - Keep On Truckin'
[3:26] 19. Captain Luke - Old Black Buck
[3:14] 20. Leyla McCalla - Manman Mwen
[3:05] 21. Cora Fluker - Amazing Grace
[2:58] 22. Cary Morin - Sing It Louder

We Are The Music Makers! (Disc 2) mc
We Are The Music Makers! (Disc 2) zippy

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Ironing Board Sam - Super Spirit

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 35:05
Size: 80.3 MB
Styles: Delta blues
Year: 2015
Art: Front

[3:55] 1. Baby You Got It
[3:42] 2. Hold On
[3:24] 3. I Still Love You
[2:12] 4. I Can't Take It
[2:37] 5. Honey Baby
[4:12] 6. Loose Diamonds
[3:47] 7. I'm Gone
[2:46] 8. I Wanna Be There
[4:09] 9. I'm Lookin' For A Woman
[4:17] 10. Super Spirit

“Legendary” soul man Ironing Board Sam—long lost for a time—has completed a comeback to the music world. A flamboyant dresser, an eccentric inventor, a philosopher, and a musical showman, Sam also became the spokesman for the Faultless Starch brand in a national ad campaign this year. Living Blues Magazine named him Comeback Artist of the Year in 2012 and Musician of the Year (Keyboard) the following year. He toured Australia in 2013 and France in 2014. The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) said of his Australian tour, “Ironing Board Sam, 73 years young, sang like his pants were on fire and attacked his keyboard as if it had sinned.”

Sam earned his nickname by mounting his keyboard on an ironing board with a strap that allowed him to walk the stage while playing, much as he did at Lincoln Center in 2014, where fellow Music Maker Relief Foundation artists Dom Flemons, Beverly “Guitar” Watkins, and Albert White joined him on stage.

For ‘Super Spirit,’ Ironing Board Sam traveled to Producer Bruce Watson’s Dial Back Studio in Water Valley, Mississippi to record with guitarist and co-producer Jimbo Mathus, drummer Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees), bassist Stu Cole (Squirrel Nut Zippers). Using Sam’s ‘60s and ‘70s singles as inspiration, Watson chose songs from the repertoires of Ann Peebles, The Gories, Jimbo Mathus, Jack Oblivian, Roy Hawkins and more.

Super Spirit mc
Super Spirit zippy

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Ironing Board Sam - Going Up

Size: 103,5 MB
Time: 45:12
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2011
Styles: Piano Blues
Art: Full

01. Life Is Like A Seesaw (2:38)
02. (Come On) Let's Boogie (2:23)
03. Why I Sing The Blues (4:16)
04. Somewhere Over The Rainbow (3:33)
05. Don't Worry About Me (2:50)
06. Cherry Pie (3:53)
07. Skinny Woman (3:38)
08. Self Rising Flour (5:31)
09. Come To Mardi Gras (3:33)
10. Heaven, Please Send Me (4:25)
11. Tallahassee Bridge (Billy Joe) (6:04)
12. In The Mood For Love (2:22)

In his heyday, Ironing Board Sam was nearly a total obscurity — working primarily in local scenes around the South with only minimal touring, and recording sporadic singles, all for different labels and none approaching hitdom. But those who got to see him, whether in person or on the R&B television program Night Train, remember him well, for Sam could put on a show.

Born Samuel Moore in Rock Hill, South Carolina, in 1939, he began gigging locally on piano and organ at age 14. By the late ’50s he was on the scene in Miami where, lacking a stand for his electric organ, he mounted it on an ironing board. When he moved to Memphis around 1959, his instrument earned Sammy Moore the new moniker Ironing Board Sam, which he resented (whoever gave him that handle proved prescient, however, as the ultra-hot Sam & Dave soon emerged from Memphis, and the former’s surname was Moore; the who’s-who confusion caused by having two Sam Moores in the same music scene would likely have killed Ironing Board Sam’s already-meager career). By the mid ’60s, Sam was based in Nashville — I picture him down on Jefferson Street showing the young, unknown Jimi Hendrix what showmanship was all about.

Because make no mistake, Sam was already a showman — a slightly mellower Little Richard crossed with a slightly saner Screaming Jay Hawkins and a slightly less churchy Ray Charles — as he moved back to Memphis, then to Chicago, Iowa, Los Angeles, Memphis once more. Somewhere in there — history is woefully imprecise — Sam invented his “button board,” which was actually two keyboards. The main one looked like a Hammond B3 but underneath the keys were guitar strings that were fed through a wah-wah pedal and into an amp. Not only could he make it sound something like a B3, he could also make it sound like a piano, a guitar and all three combined. The lower keyboard, which provided bass, consisted of 60 upholstery tacks connected to electronic sensors. Under his coat sleeve, a wire ran down Sam’s arm to his fingers, conducting electricity to the buttons. It was just one of his many inventions — among other he claims to have built a machine with just five moving parts that could provide electricity to an entire apartment complex at no cost — and Sam never had to worry about anyone else playing his ax; nobody else could figure out how it worked.

In the mid ’70s Sam moved to New Orleans, where he was in residence, billed as “The Eighth Wonder of the World” and backed only by drummer Kerry Brown, at Mason’s VIP Lounge on South Clairborne. There, he’d lift his keyboard off its stand and strap it onto his shoulder as he strolled the club and sidewalk playing his late-night, lowdown blues; Brown played with the tips of his drumsticks on fire, and sometimes ended the set by burning the whole damn kit. When Sam got booked into Jazzfest in 1979, he did his entire show underwater in a 1500-gallon aquarium. Later, he busked on the streets backed by a wind-up monkey toy that kept time, as it were, on drums. When Sam concluded from the disco trend that audiences would now only listen to jukeboxes or deejays, he built an eight-foot high wooden jukebox, put himself and his keyboard inside it, and played that on French Quarter sidewalks; it had a coin slot that you fed money if you wanted him to take your request. In 1991, playing a vintage Wurlitzer piano, he cut demos for a local Orleans Records album called Human Touch; though unavailable on eMusic, it was finally released in 1996.

And then Sam’s button keyboard was vanquished. Before going on the road, he gave it to an electronics tech to have it transistorized and the guy found the whole project so ludicrous he up and threw it out. Sam claims he’s simply never had time to build a new one. Some of his aura consequently faded in New Orleans and he’d been retired for some time when Katrina savaged the city in 2005. He moved back to his South Carolina birthplace and began gigging again; eventually rediscovered by the Music Maker Relief Foundation, a charitable group that helps get Southern roots musicians back on their feet, he recorded and released the solo piano album Going Up. [His other album,] Ninth Wonder is the Ironing Board Sam album you simply can’t miss, because it was originally recorded in the late ’60s/early ’70s as part of a promo packet to get Sam gigs; only 100 were pressed and sent to agencies, and none were released. –John Morthland

Going Up

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Ironing Board Sam - Ironing Board Sam & The Sticks

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 65:12
Size: 149.3 MB
Styles: Electric blues
Year: 2014
Art: Front

[4:23] 1. Ain't Nobody's Business
[4:24] 2. Hot Or Not
[6:11] 3. The Creature
[4:35] 4. Cc Rider
[4:48] 5. Music Maker
[5:30] 6. Tell Me
[3:23] 7. Maced In The Face
[3:03] 8. Hello Sunshine
[4:29] 9. Don't Let Your Love Make You Blind
[5:24] 10. Good Neighbors
[7:20] 11. Summertime
[4:42] 12. Sally
[6:54] 13. I Believe

Ironing Board Sam has had a legendary sixty years: Jimi Hendrix briefly played in his band, he's played shows under water, he's shared a club residency with the Jackson 5, he's played inside human-sized jukeboxes. And you've almost certainly never heard of him.

I hadn't either, until about two months ago, when I was drinking in Nashville, seated at America's greatest dive bar, the Springwater. I struck up a conversation with Slick (it might have been Slim -- sincerest apologies for a saturated, fuzzy memory) and Jerry, who spun tales of rock and roll long past. The stories of Ironing Board Sam stuck out quite far from the rest.

He's returned with a new record, Ironing Board Sam & The Sticks with a new band, Ironing Board Sam & The Sticks. Hailed as a "jamming" record, it certainly sounds like it.

Ironing Board Sam & The Sticks mc
Ironing Board Sam & The Sticks zippy

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