Blues Revisited

Arriving only a year or so late, we have this new two disc Leroy Carr compilation not in time for last year’s Congress-designated Year of the Blues. But since Bush is still president this year and stands on the cusp of winning four more, this year might be the truer spade no matter what we called the last one.

And if the Year of the Blues (whichever one you deem that to be) does nothing, at least it gives listeners a chance to examine previously overlooked artists like Leroy Carr. The liner notes are actually hyperbole-free when they note that, within their overlapping careers, Carr “was as well known, or better-known” than Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, Charley Patton, and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Moreover, “his influence was subtle and long-lasting.” They’re within their rights, too, when they add that “he was one of the best and most distinctive blues singers who ever lived.”

After all, in 1981, when Muddy Waters picked his top ten blues songs of all time (for The Book of Lists #2), Carr was only one of three artists who had two songs on Waters’s list (“How Long - How Long Blues” and “Prison Bound Blues”) (The other two artists were Robert Johnson and, ahem, Waters himself).

So why don’t more people speak Carr’s name in the same breath with Johnson or Waters? After all, Carr was certainly more popular and influential than Johnson during their lifetimes.

Ironically, Carr’s success among his contemporaries would work against him during the (largely white) blues revival of the ‘60s. What made him accessible to his fans—his pop smarts, his smoothly intimate voice, his clear diction—also made him less attractive to later generations who idealized blues as myth rather than popular entertainment. Sure, Carr sang about unfaithful women, assmen, and murder, but he didn’t have the fevered intensity of Son House or the garbled willfulness of Charlie Patton. And though Robert Johnson took a lot both musically and lyrically from Carr, including his high “ooh” at the end of lines, Johnson also had, on songs like “Hellhound on My Trail”, an ethereal falsetto that Carr never quite managed or even tried to hit. And despite Johnson’s lyrical smarts in borrowing from the likewise lyrically smart Carr, Johnson also infused those borrowing with his own fatalistic surrealism (sinking down at the crossroads, for instance).

Which isn’t to say that Carr was just a clever tunesmith. But his blues were, like Waters’s own but without Waters’s or Howlin’ Wolf’s ferocity, usually grounded in the tangible (though Carr, famously, also sang, “Today has been a such a long old lonesome day / I’ve been sitting here thinking, with my mind a million miles away”), without the spiritual struggles of House, Johnson, or Skip James. Without the mythic bluesman’s struggle for his soul and low on animal ferocity, Carr the entertainer was passed over by white audiences for those others who better matched their romantic notions of another world.

And, truth be told, this hasn’t been the sort of shocking rediscovery that Carr’s now-undervalued historical importance might suggest it would be. But forget the template of the Delta “deep blues” and you’ll discover an understated singer somewhere between Nat King Cole and Sonny Boy Williamson II, a smooth talker on dark subjects (“Papa’s on the House Top” notwithstanding) who uses his warmth to get the listener on his side. Sure, I’d pick either Robert Johnson’s or Elmore James’s “Dust My Broom” reworkings to Carr’s “I Believe I’ll Make a Change” original, but, the more attention I give to the original, the happier I am that I know it.

Worth noting is how good everything here sounds. Maybe because he was recording for bigger labels than Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress or because the new remasterers really know their business, everything is about as pristinely clear as can be possibly expected. Considering these songs range from 1928 to 1935 recording dates, static and hiss are kept to a startling minimum. For audiophiles, this is definitely the Leroy Carr compilation to get.

For non-audiophiles, too; unlike too many compilations of blues artists outside—usually before—the Chess-Chicago canon, this one actually strives to be definitive for a non-fetishist listener. The two discs aren’t crowded with newly unearthed obscurities and alternate takes. This isn’t the first volume of his complete recordings (which, of course, Sony would also be glad to sell you). Even though the liner notes mention that Carr recorded at least five reworkings of his first big hit, “How Long - How Long Blues”, with different lyrics, the compilers included none of them. Instead, during the 39 songs after that first hit, they opt for quality, chart positions, and historical importance.

If you have the time and mood to sit with 40 songs over two discs, go for this set: the more time invested, the more you’ll notice and appreciate the nuances of piano-guitar interplay, vocal intimacy, and lyrical turns that—instead of hitting like a ton of bricks (or Elmore James tracks)—still make this a smart investment. And if you’re a blues fan, this could be worth it for educational purposes alone.