Blind Blake is the best guitar player I've ever heard. That's bold statement to make for a guy who last cut a session in 1932, but pick up a collection of his solo recordings and you'll be blown away by the dexterity and suppleness this mysterious character possesses. A guitarist playing with all ten fingers who not only has complete command over the entire fret board, but knows how to show restraint when it's called for. Most instrumental prodigies wind up putting their technical skills ahead of musical sensitivity, but Blake realizes that dexterity does not translate to emotion. The majority of the tracks are in the ragtime style: ridiculously fast, clean finger-picking songs so rhythmically complex that they sound like two interlocking guitarists. But he was also a first-class accompanist, backing some of the biggest names of the day, and on the small-band cuts on this collection he pulls back so as not to overwhelm the other instruments while still managing to punctuate the songs with inventive little licks.
Blake also has one of the most versatile voices within the African-American folk tradition, with a range spanning from sensitive to boisterous. There are playful songs like "Skeedie Loo Doo Blues," ambiguously dirty songs like "Too Tight Blues #2" and "Come On Boys Let's Do That Messin' Around," and some unintentionally funny moments, like in "Rope Stretching Blues" when he opens with "I caught a stranger in my house and I busted his head with a club." Nevertheless, he delivers each performance with exactly the emotional tone appropriate for it, and over 23 tracks you come to appreciate the depth of Blake's musical sensitivity.
Some people may find it hard to relate to music that's seemingly so far removed from our modern way of life, but listening to these songs you begin to realize that the popular music of Black America was not all that different 75 years ago from what it is now. Blake brags about being a "Hard Pushing Papa," and his songs are filled with gamblers, hustlers, and even transvestites ("Met a funny fellow he didn't like girls / painted his face, wore his hair up in curls / He's righteous"). Of course there are plenty of others with that old-timey charm that makes pre-war music so appealing.
Blake cut most of his solo records for Paramount, which was notorious for poor quality pressings, and many of the records are in pretty rough shape. If you're into the charm of thick crackles and surface hiss there's plenty of charm here, yet Blake's warm, heartfelt playing and singing still manage to cut through it all.
1. Diddie Wa Diddie
2. Come On Boys Let's Do That Messin' Around
3. Southern Rag
4. Police Dog Blues
5. C.C. Pill Blues
6. Hard Pushing Papa
7. Rope Stretching Blues
8. Skeedie Loo Doo Blues
9. Chump Man Blues
10. Hastings Street
11. Georgia Bound
12. Righteous Blues
13. Too Tight Blues #2
14. Blind Arthur's Breakdown
15. One Time Blues
16. Playing Policy Blues
17. You Gonna Quit Me Blues
18. Bad Feeling Blues
19. Hey Hey Daddy Blues
20. Black Dog Blues
21. Seaboard Stomp
22. Sweet Papa Low Down
23. Sweet Jivin' Mama
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