Delmark Records artist: Arthur Big Boy Crudup - Sunny Road - New Release review

I just received the latest release, Sunny Road, by Arthur Big Boy Crudup and it's a smash! This is an unreleased studio release from 1969 and what a gem. This is real blues at it's finest, opening with title track, Sunny Road, a stripped down no frills blues track and Crudup on vocal and guitar sounding just like you'd want a real bluesman to sound and Willie Big Eye's Smith on drums. On Please Don't Leave Me With The Blues, Mike Thompson joins on guitar and Mark Thompson on bass. Crudup holds the spotlight but is backed by Jimmy Dawkins and the complement of Dawkins guitar riffs with Crudup's vocal timbre with his phrasing is killer. Trying To Take Me For A Ride has the sound that real rock came from. This is nicely composed without adornment but just showing the man and his band. On She Gives Me A Thrill, Dawkins takes another distinctive guitar solo and creates cool guitar filler throughout this track but really it's Crudup's delivery that really makes this track. His delivery is impeccable. Mistake I Made In LA is a really cool track with a bit of a lope to it. Crudup starts off with the real cool guitar sound of his guitar through a Leslie giving it a real shimmery organ like quality. Crudup's vocals are real and life like making all the difference in the world when listening to his delivery. This is really something that you need to experience. Not something that I can explain to you. Again, having his own sense of time is a great feature of his delivery as with John Lee Hooker in his early work. The One That I Love is a great slow blues track and possibly one of my favorite tracks on the release. This is a very uniform release in that every track is great and it all flows well but each track has it's own character. I Have Called China is another slower track and this time featuring Dawkins again on guitar. Crudup captures all of the essence of the original delta style but delivers it in a more modern full band style, just shy (not in talent but in polish) of where Morganfield went. This is a brilliant new discovery for blues enthusiasts. I'm Leavin' Town really shows the roughness with which the execution of the track has been managed but in my own listening, I believe it adds to the warmth of the release compared to a perfect production recording of today. Finishing up with All I Got Is Gone, this is one of the best new (old) releases that I have heard. I have a real soft spot for more primitive style blues and this is just lightly buffed....not polished  and very strong. This will definitely be on Bman's Best Releases of the year!!  

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This track is not from the release.

 

Delmark update - Eddie C. Campbell / Arthur Big Boy Crudup

• Eddie C. Campbell suffers stroke and heart attack. Sad news about our dear friend Eddie C. Campbell from our friend Dick Shurman: "Send your kind thoughts and prayers to Chicago bluesman Eddie C. Campbell, who suffered a stroke and heart attack in Germany last weekend. He's improving, but it's going to be a hard road back. His wife Barbara is doing a good job from afar of staying on top of things but any support, if only in thought, is appreciated."

We know it will be a long road to full recovery, but we also know Eddie C. Campbell is a very strong man, inside and out, physically and mentally, and a very positive, beautiful, and determined man who will triumph over this unfortunate health setback. 

Eddie C. will go visit that "Spider Eatin Preacher" to alleviate his "Mind Trouble" and say "That's When I Know" his "Hopes and Dreams" will come to fruition, and everything "Gonna Be Alright" and he will return again to "Tear This World Up" and be the "Baddest Cat on the Block" and regain his throne as the "King of the Jungle!" So, let him grab his Purple Fender JazzMaster and 'Let's Pick It!" again!

• Unreleased Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup 1969 session forthcoming on Delmark! How grand that Delmark Records has announced the late February issue of a previously unreleased 1969 studio session from the legendary Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. The CD is titled "Sunny Road" and features backing from Jimmy Dawkins and the late Willie “Big Eyes” Smith. This much anticipated session also has Crudup’s guitar amped through the rotating Leslie speaker, Ala Buddy Guy 
If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! -  ”LIKE”

My Baby Left Me - Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup (August 24, 1905 – March 28, 1974) was an American Delta blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known outside blues circles for writing songs such as "That's All Right" (1946), "My Baby Left Me" and "So Glad You're Mine", later covered by Elvis Presley and dozens of other artists.
Arthur Crudup was born in Forest, Mississippi, United States. For a time he lived and worked throughout the South and Midwest as a migrant worker. He and his family returned to Mississippi in 1926. He sang gospel, then began his career as a blues singer around Clarksdale, Mississippi. As a member of the Harmonizing Four he visited Chicago in 1939. Crudup stayed in Chicago to work as a solo musician, but barely made a living as a street singer. Record producer Lester Melrose allegedly found him while he was living in a packing crate, introduced him to Tampa Red and signed him to a recording contract with RCA Victor's Bluebird label.
There was some confusion as to his actual date of death because of his use of several names, including those of his siblings. He died of a heart attack in the Nassawadox hospital in Northampton County, Virginia in March 1974
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