Bman's Blues Report

I just received the newest release, Blues, Blues Christmas Volume 4 1925~1962 from Document Records and it covers a lot of area. Opening disc one is Charles Brown 's R&B classic, Please Come Home For Christmas . Roy Milton And His Solid Senders put up a bluesy, Christmas Time Blues and The Drifters a swinging R&B cover of White Christmas . One of my favorites is Arthur Guitar Boogie Smith's Sensational Trio on Guitar Jingle Bells . Classic blues from Peetie Wheatstraw is as solid as it gets on Santa Claus Blues . Clarence Williams' Blue Five covers the same track but in 40's swing/big band style. Bob Wills does an easy country swing, Santa Is On His Way . With a Latin twist big band Sam Manning with the Melodettes dances into Looking For Me Santa Claus . The Qualities do an unusual arrangement of It's Christmas Time and Freddie King lays down some hot riffs on I Hear Jingle Bells . Champion Jack DuPree is hot on the keys and great vocal deliv...

Peetie Wheatstraw (December 21, 1902 – December 21, 1941) was the name adopted by the singer William Bunch, an influential figure among 1930s blues singers. Although the only known photograph of Bunch shows him holding a National brand tricone resonator guitar, he played the piano on most of his recordings Wheatstraw is assumed to have been born in Ripley, Tennessee, but was widely believed to have come from Arkansas. His body was shipped to Cotton Plant, Arkansas for burial, and fellow musician Big Joe Williams stated that this was his home town. The earliest biographical facts are those of fellow musicians such as Henry Townsend and Teddy Darby who remember Wheatstraw moving to St Louis, Missouri in the late 1920s. He was already a proficient guitarist, but a limited pianist. By the time Sunnyland Slim moved to St Louis in the early 1930s, Wheatstraw was one of the most popular singers with an admired idiosyncratic piano style. Wheatstraw began recording in 1930 and was so popul...