Sleepy John Estes - Goin' to Brownsville

File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Source: LL (from CD)
Released: 1962/1998
Styles: Blues
Time: 73:28
Size: 169,4 MB
Covers: Full

( 2:19) 1. Run Around
( 2:56) 2. Lost My Eyesight
( 2:32) 3. It Was a Dream
( 3:09) 4. Try Him and See
( 2:35) 5. Try Him and See
( 1:55) 6. Divin' Duck Blues
( 2:21) 7. Street Car Blues
( 2:24) 8. Sloppy Drunk Blues
( 3:53) 9. I'm Goin' Home
( 3:15) 10. Floating Bridge
( 2:19) 11. Rats in My Kitchen
( 2:45) 12. Vernita Blues
( 3:06) 13. Someday Baby Blues
( 1:30) 14. Freedom Loan
( 2:44) 15. Bye and Bye (When the Morning Comes)
( 2:33) 16. Working Man Blues
( 2:38) 17. Bring Me My .38 Pistol
( 2:36) 18. Married Woman Blues
( 1:53) 19. Sweet Sugar Mama
( 2:43) 20. Stop That Thing
( 3:00) 21. In My Father's House
(18:12) 22. Goin' to Brownsville

Sleepy John Estes never really changed or altered his style during the 50-year period he recorded. The records he made for Victor in the 1920s didn't sound much different than the ones he made in the late 1960s and 1970s for various collector's labels. Estes lived in poverty in a sharecropper's shack on the outskirts of Brownsville when he was rediscovered by film maker David Blumenthal (who was making a documentary in the South). This legendary bluesman sang in an intense and totally idiosyncratic style that spoke to his listeners as truth. In spite of the bleak situation and the raw emotion in his singing, there was not so much self pity there as a vein of wry humor. In April 1962 Pete Welding recorded these previously unissued performances of Sleepy John Estes in Chicago. The material is a mixture of songs he had recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. Estes is in fine form throughout. In the 18-minute interview that closes this disc, Estes discusses making records for Decca, Victor and other labels, coming to Chicago and losing his eyesight. Compelling music and even more compelling conversation, all of it loaded with realism and ambience galore. A few weeks later Estes was touring Europe with his friend and music associate Hammie Nixon.

Goin' to Brownsville

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