Published on Jul 16, 2001
Once again, Vanguard Records continues its efforts to increase
historical awareness among music fans with their latest
Newport Folk Festival collection. For this, if nothing else,
this recording should be commended for documenting historic musical
performances. But let’s go a little deeper than that.
The Newport Folk Festival’s short history is best remembered for
its folk performances, including the historic performance in 1965
when Bob Dylan “went electric”. However, Newport caused another
revolution, albeit a smaller one, by resuscitating the careers of
several twenties and thirties bluesmen who had, after their brief
time of fame recording “race records”, sunk back into day to day
existence.
Many of those artists were assumed dead; considerable detective
work went into finding them. Mississippi John Hurt, perhaps the
greatest blues songwriter of his day, was found only because he had
recorded a song in 1928 that named his hometown as Avalon,
Mississippi. Bukka White was found the same way, based on a 1940
recording of “Aberdeen Mississippi Blues”. Skip James, who had to
relearn his own songs as he hadn’t played them in thirty years, was
located in a hospital in Mississippi; Son House was found in
Rochester, New York. A small group of dedicated festival advisors
and blues fanatics found these men and brought them to Newport;
many of them were signed by record labels on the spot and started
new careers, among them Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker.
As with the first volume in this set we reviewed, these are
recordings of live blues performances at Newport during its first
incarnation, before the festival was closed in 1969 (to be reborn
in the mid-eighties). Unlike the bluegrass volume, these are
divided by type of blues: disc one is Delta Blues, disc two is
Country Blues, and disc three is Urban Blues, and each needs
reviewed separately.
Disc One, “Delta Blues,” is excellent and accessible. The
magnificent Mississippi John Hurt kicks the disc off with seven
tracks, and other artists represented include Muddy Waters, Son
House, and Mississippi Fred McDowell. The only odd note is Skip
James, and that’s a stylistic one; James’ eerie falsetto combined
with blues is unsettling and takes time to get used to, but is
oddly beautiful in its own way.
Disc Two, “Country Blues,” is the hardest of the three to like,
and that may be me as much as the music. The rough twang and wail
of the music on this disc is very, very hard for me, at least, to
appreciate, but there are some powerful performances on here,
including two tracks from Reverend Gary Davis and the tracks from
Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, especially “My Baby Done Changed
The Lock On The Door”.
Disc Three has both the highest and lowest point in the
three-disc collection. The highest is the magnificent, magnificent
John Lee Hooker, including four never-before-released performances.
The infectious “Boom Boom” is the best of a really, really great
lot. Performances by Lightnin’ Hopkins, Memphis Slim, and Muddy
Waters and Otis Spann are also great. However, I question the
inclusion of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band; the tracks are weak,
the performance weak, and if I wanted to hear Butterfield Blues
Band I can go dust off my
Woodstock CDs.
All in all, however,
Newport Folk Festival: Best Of The Blues 1959-68 is a must
for blues fans and an enjoying listen through musical history for
everyone else. (As a recent convert, I tell you that if you haven’t
heard Mississippi John Hurt, you haven’t heard music. Take this to
heart.) Vanguard Records should be commended.