Everything around Honey should look shiny and new. I fixed the RSS feed (for real this time) and fixed the donor’s pages and upgraded the backbone of all of this…AT THE SAME TIME. It was pretty exciting, I’ll tell you that.

Today we are featuring the new Ryan Adams album, a more country excursion than Cold Roses, but he pulls it off well. September is a hauntingly beautiful song, one of his best in ages. The other track The Hardest Part he lets the band get loose a little bit and rocks out. He really captures he spirit of mid-60s country music pretty well, but it still feels very much like a Ryan Adams record.

Ryan Adams and His Cardinals – September
Ryan Adams and His Cardinals – The Hardest Part

After spending almost four and a half hours at the local Volkswagen place, I’ve come to realize that everyone was right about car dealerships. Listening to “September” really loud all the way home help to fix my mood, though. Radio Show tonight (promise!) 9-11pm. est. wuag.net

Happy Birthday to my partner in life and crime, Megan. I really only have that one sweet blues song and that other birthday song, so I’m dedicating two songs to her, by two of her favorite artists. The first track is by Billie Holiday who recorded it for Decca and 1946 – one of our favorite songs “Don’t Explain.” The second track is a Cole Porter song sung by Ella Fitzgerald which every time I play it it always reminds me of Megan. Happy Birthday!

Billie Holliday – Don’t Explain
Ella Fitzgerald – Night And Day

The new Ryan Adams’ album is out today, and I mean it’s great (and cheap) and has the best cover I’ve seen all year. Tracks will be up on Friday for it – just think Ryan Adams meets Bill Anderson, and you’ve got it. Also the Dylan documentary, No Direction Home, was premiered (of sorts) on PBS last night and it’s really amazing. Not only does it have some really great live footage of Dylan, it has some really good footage of the rest of the folk revivalists making a damn fool of themselves covering Sippie Wallace songs and blowing into jugs.

Today we have two really awesome and fun instrumental tracks from Lonnie Johnson as part of Blind Willie Dunn’s Gin Bottle Four. The group was a supergroup of sorts featuring: Lonnie Johnson and Eddie Lang (Willie Dunn) on guitar, King Oliver on cornet, J.C Johnson on piano and Hoagy Carmichael (did he do any solo work?) on misc percussion. The group recorded two very lively blues instrumental sides, features unusual percussion work from Carmichael and some really great guitar work from Lang and Johnson. Some parts from the songs sound like typical blues fare, but at the same time the solos and the percussion give it an almost otherworldly feel to the sides – as they play the lines between blues and jazz.

Blind Willie Dunn’s Gin Bottle Four – Jet Black Blues
Blind Willie Dunn’s Gin Bottle Four – Blue Blood Blues

I’ve been so busy recently that my posts have been falling by the wayside, but I’m working on a few things to make sure that it doesn’t happen as much as it did this week anymore. Charles Buckley has a new blog up and it has a lot of promise. Basically he’s making mix tapes or posting old mix tapes from many years ago. The first one is a collection of Lead Belly songs and it’s a fine selections. Check Him out at Workbook.

Jimmy Murphy had a minor hit in the mid-50s, but his blend of of blues, country and rock-a-billy was already out of fashion by the time he hit the scene. But here at Honey, music never goes out of style. Electricity, is still the song that he’s most known for. I also really like Big Mama Blues, a blues throwback track that has some pretty funny lyrics and a great guitar track.

Jimmy Murphy – Electricity
Jimmy Murhpy – Big Mama Blues

The end of summer has turned the city of Greensboro into a humidity factory. Y’all don’t even want to see my hair right now. I’m working on getting Monday posting back again either through writing the posts on Sunday or getting a guest writer to fill on Monday, If any of ya’ll are intersted in posting a few songs (of your choosing) and writing a little bit for a few Monday’s let me know. Email at – pkpatnaik @ prewarblues.org. Thanks!

Today’s track is coming from Memphis, one of the great blues cities, but a city that also has a great gospel tradition. Brother Williams’ Memphis Sanctified Singers only professionally recorded two sides in 1930, but they are both great. Other than Brother Williams leading the song and possibly Will Shade on guitar the group is made up unknown members of Brother Williams’ church. The song has a great almost dancing beat to it – very lively and uplifting, it’s easy to see in this song and others like Graves’ I’ll Be Rested how the deep soul sound came out of the area two decades later.

Brother Williams’ Memphis Sanctified Singers – I Will Meet You At The Station

It’s pretty early here in Greensboro, but I didn’t want ya’ll to go without some smooth county sounds taking you into the weekend. So he’s a side from Freddie Hart. Hart was a minor hit in the 1970s, his great country voice and wonderful lyrics really put him ahead of the countrypolitan crowd. This cut is from 1968 and I think is one of Hart’s better efforts and reminds me a lot of Robbie Fulks is doing nowadays. Have a great weekend!

Freddie Hart – Jack To A King

For real this time. Wuag.net from 9 to 11 p.m. EST. It streams live and is quite nice to sit on the porch and drink tea to, or so I’ve been told. The radio show follows the same format as the site, so stay up late and listen to the blues live.

Willard “Ramblin” Thomas is one of the more under appreciated bottleneck slide guitar players in pre-war blues. He has a very clean style that reminds me a lot of Lonnie Johnson and a deliver that Robert Johnson had to been influenced by. The first track is a Texas Blues version of a typical Piedmont Blues style party song – Shake It Gal, which basically means it’s slowed down a whole lot a trend that seems to exist today with Houston’s chopped and screwed remix scene. The next track Groundhog Blues shows off Thomas’ guitar playing skills more and features a more typical lyrical approach to the Texas Blues than Shake It Gal.

Ramblin’ Thomas – Shake It Gal
Ramblin’ Thomas – Groundhog Blues

When I was a kid, I had a dub of a dub of a dub of a Clarence Gatemouth Brown album. I’m not really sure which one it was, but I thought it was awesome that this guy’s nickname was “Gatormouth.”I learned later that it was Gatemouth which didn’t seem as cool, but I still loved that tape. Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown died this past weekend at the age of 81. He wasn’t just a great blues guitar player, he was an all around entertainer as skilled on the guitar as the harmonica as the violin. He touched every aspect of American music and pulled it all off.

Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown – Hurry Back Good News

*drum roll*

1. Precious Bryant – You Don’t Want Me No More
2. Ozella Jones – I Been A Bad Bad Girl Prisoner Blues
3. Bumble Bee Slim – If Blues Was Whiskey
4. Precious Bryant – Baby, Please Come Home To Me
5. Trixie Smith – You Gotta Beat Me To Keep Me
6.Etta Baker and Cora Phillips – Going Down The Road Feeling Bad
7.Frank Stokes – Chicken You Can Roost Behind The Moon
8.Peetie Wheatstraw – No Good Woman (Fighting Blues)
9. Etta Baker and Cora Phillips – Broken Hearted Blues
10.Mamie Smith – The Road Is Rocky

a couple of surprises on the the list. the Skip James and Son House tracks, while beening download more than anything I’ve ever posted in the first week they were up, died of fairly quickly – they swept up the 11-15 ranks. The Music Maker Foundation recordings did really well which puts a smile on my face.

From 9-11 p.m i’ll be spinning the best pre-war blues and gospel has to offer. It is all streaming live at wuag.net. I missed my last show because of some car issues, but the other two shows this year have both been really solid.

Elzadie Robinson has had one previous mention on Honey in regards to a Christmas flavored blues song, this time we are looking at one of her best songs. And one that features some great piano work by the amazing Will Ezell. Going South, recorded in late 1928 at the second to last session Robinson would recorded at, reminds me a lot of Lonnie Johnson’s Southland Is All Right With Me. Both songs features people escaping the North (and trifling’ women and men) for the comforts of the South.

Elzadie Robinson – Going South