V.A. - Mistakes Were Made - Five Years Of Raw Blues ... (2 CDs)

Styles : Country Blues, Delta Blues, Hill Country Blues
Released : 2011
Lable : Broke & Hungry

Disc 1

01 - Train I Ride
02 - Six Little Puppies
03 - The Wolves Are Howling
04 - Pretty Baby
05 - Woke Up This Morning
06 - Everything's Gonna Be Alright
07 - Taking Chances
08 - It's Over
09 - The Mississippi Diddley
10 - Ain't It Alright
11 - All Night Long
12 - Bean's Boogie
13 - Big Road Blues
14 - Beefsteak Blues

15 - Cooter Mae

Disc 2

01 - Meet Me In The Bottom
02 - I'd Rather Be The Devil
03 - Laundromat Blues
04 - Rosalee
05 - Incarcerated Blues
06 - Waterboy, Waterboy
07 - Boogie Chillen
08 - Eyesight To The Blind
09 - Hill Funk
10 - No Hard Time (Get You Off My Mind)
11 - Hi Heel Sneakers
12 - Rainbow At Midnight
13 - Evil
14 - Who's Gonna Be Your Sweet Man When I'm Gone
15 - Take A Trip

In 2005 St. Louis resident Jeff Konkel decided to make a life altering decision. He started a new record label called Broke & Hungry and released a raw-sounding disc titled Back to Bentonia by a Mississippi blues artist little known outside of his home town by the name of Jimmy “Duck” Holmes. Five years have since passed and though the label has not become a house-hold name or made a ton of money, they have recorded and released an impressive seven albums by musicians who would’ve been lost in obscurity forever otherwise, as well as being partnered with Roger Stolle from Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Art in Clarksdale and Mudpuppy Recordings in the filming of the award-winning M For Mississippi.

Field recordings may have changed significantly since the days of John Hammond, Sr, John Work or John Lomax, with the use of much more impressive equipment. But it is the locating of the musicians that truly matters. To find those who’ve been overlooked and still perform in the truest, pure sense of the blues as handed down from their forebears. Broke & Hungry has brought us exceptional material from artists such as the aforementioned Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, plus Terry “Harmonica” Bean, Odell Harris, The Mississippi Marvel, Pat Thomas, Terry “Big T” Williams, L.C. Ulmer, T-Model Ford, Bill Abel and R.L. Boyce. The only one of the bunch with somewhat prior recognition being T-Model Ford for his releases on the Fat Possum label. But unless you’ve come across them playing on the street in Clarksdale, or in a juke joint in Bentonia, or just for their neighbors, their names were most likely completely foreign to you. But each of their recordings were awe-inspiring and natural in a sense that this is a sound that could’ve easily been played in these same locations some fifty-sixty years back sounding just as they do today.

To celebrate the fact that the label has endured for five years, Broke & Hungry has released a retrospective of tracks from those seven albums that shows their progress. There are thirty tracks in all, but only sixteen have been previously released, meaning there are fourteen new tunes making this 2-CD compilation indispensible if you love blues on edge, maybe a little out of tune and completely from the musicians’ hearts.

original CD from sussex