Rating: 5/5
Review:
very enjoyable
This is an album of very good barrelhouse, boogie and blues
from the 20s and 30s. It is also a
collection of unmitigated filth, which I find very amusing and enjoyable.
Given the premise of the collection, it is worth emphasising
that the music is generally of a very high standard. There's some excellent piano work, the rhythm
sections are good and some of the singing is terrific, so it's an enjoyable
collection musically. The lyrical
content is thinly disguised (and in one case undisguised) descriptions of sex. There's a wide range of metaphors including
pencils, hot dogs, warm ovens and so on, none of which takes a PhD in Freudian
psychology to decode, and part of the fun of this album is in wondering how on
earth some of these songs got past the moral censors of their day. Not all did, and the unreleased version of
Shave 'Em Dry is about as explicit and unsubtle as you can get, but most are
little gems of subversive inventiveness.
In short, this is an excellent compilation of fine music and
very amusing lyrics. Very warmly
recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment