Big Dog 92-7 Music Guide

Collection

RELEASE
October 14, 2003
LABEL
Spectrum Music
GENRES
Blues, Memphis Blues, Early R&B, Urban Blues, Electric Memphis Blues, Regional Blues, Soul-Blues

Album Review

After giving rockabilly fans something to talk about forever with his 1953 Sun Records single "Mystery Train" b/w "Love My Baby," Junior Parker moved on to Duke Records, his home for the next dozen or so years. This compilation is drawn from that period, and it contains some of Parker's best efforts, including fine reworkings of a pair of Roosevelt Sykes tunes, "Sweet Home Chicago" and "Driving Wheel," which was a huge R&B hit in 1961. With his smooth and whiskey-tinged tenor, a scratchy, edgy, harp style, and fronting a band with horns, Parker injected the Chicago blues sound with a healthy dose of Memphis cool, prefiguring in many ways the later hard soul sound of Stax Records. Other highlights here include "Yonder's Wall" and a spirited version of Percy Mayfield's "Strange Things Happening."
Steve Leggett, Rovi

Track Listing

  1. Next Time You See Me
  2. Sweet Home Chicago
  3. Five Long Years
  4. Driving Wheel
  5. Annie Get Your Yo-Yo
  6. These Kind of Blues, Pt. 1
  7. Yonder's Wall
  8. Tin Pan Alley
  9. Barefoot Rock
  10. Strange Things Happening
  11. Wish Me Well
  12. Cracked Up Over You
  13. Baby, Please
  14. Sometimes I Wonder
  15. Country Girl
  16. If I Had Your Love
  17. Hurtin' Inside