Stony Plain Records Celebrates Its 40th Anniversary with Special 3-CD Set of Music Including Rarities and Previously Unreleased Tracks on June 3rd

Stony Plain Records Celebrates Its 40th Anniversary with Special 3-CD Set of Music Including Rarities and Previously Unreleased Tracks on June 3rd

EDMONTON, AB – Stony Plain Records, Canada’s premier roots music label, announces a June 3rd release date for a special 3-CD set, 40 Years of Stony Plain, which includes cuts from its illustrious history of albums, as well as a complete disc of rarities and previously unreleased tracks.

“Celebrating Stony Plain’s 40^th Anniversary by putting together this specially priced three CD set has been a joy,” writes label founder/president Holger Petersen in the album package. “Not only going back over those years and selecting some of our favorite tracks, but to also dig deeper to find rare and previously unreleased material by old friends Eric Bibb, Duke Robillard, Maria Muldaur, David Wilcox, the late Bob Carpenter, Walter ‘Shakey’ Horton and the legendary Sam Chatmon and His Barbeque Boys from 1979. With extensive notes and packaging, this stunning collection of 47 songs will be a joyful surprise for true music fans everywhere.”

Long-time label friend and celebrated Canadian publicist Richard Flohil contributes an insightful timeline to Stony Plain’s history and contributions to the music industry in his liner notes. 

“As I write, I realize that this is the seventh time that I’ve written this opening sleeve note for a collection of music tracks for a Stony Plain Records compilation,” states Flohil. “What’s ‘new’ in the history of this unique Canadian roots music label? Answer: Not much — except, amazingly, that Stony Plain’s still here, still releasing new music. And that it’s the oldest independent record company (in Canada) that’s persevered for four decades with the same ownership.

“Every five years, starting with the label’s 10^th anniversary, Stony Plain has released a compilation of new and old material from the vaults. And every five years, an opening sleeve note introduces (or re-introduces) the Stony Plain story to the people who are listening to the music.”

Recognized worldwide for its consistent quality roots and blues releases, one of Stony Plains early fans was legendary Atlantic Records music producer and label executive Jerry Wexler, who singled out the independent label for praise. 

“The Independent Label is the soul of the record biz; on one hand the fount and nurturer of the new and untested, the eschewer of the Commercial Compromise,” said Wexler. “On the other, it is the Enunciator of the Gospel of Low Overhead. Behold the Stony Plain catalogue, not large but lapidary, and wonder how (Holger Petersen) has done it with such small staff. And he always returns my phone calls. He has a wonderful label, he presents wonderful music, and I congratulate him.”

Stony Plain Records has earned 6 Grammy nominations and a shelf full of Canadian accolades, including 11 Juno Awards, some 20 Maple Blues Awards, and Canadian Country Music Association awards as well. The Blues Foundation named Stony Plain as the 2014 label of the year, and Holger Petersen as broadcaster of the year in 2008. This year, he marks his 30^th year as the host of Saturday Night Blues, nationally broadcast every week on CBC Radio; he also continues to host Natch’l Blues each week on CKUA after 47 years.

“Since 1976, Stony Plain has reflected its owners’ eclectic tastes, survived, and continues to release vibrant, substantive music,” Richard Flohil writes. “The label’s genesis goes back a little further than that — Petersen has been a music addict since he was a little kid, and his enthusiasms have led him (often simultaneously) in a variety of different directions.

“Petersen’s also earned two honorary doctorate degrees from Athabasca University and the University of Alberta, and — most important of all — was inducted into the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civil honor, for his services to Canadian culture in 2003.

“Having released more than 400 albums since the label began at the kitchen table of a suburban Edmonton house, Stony Plain continues to flourish. Amid dire predictions of recorded music’s demise over the years, Stony Plain is still here, thanks to the determination and enthusiasm of the people that founded the label and those who work there. And Holger Petersen, at 66, is still having fun and still finding artists and music and songs that turn him on and which he thinks will appeal to people who care about the roots of popular music.”

For A Tour of the Stony Plain Offices: Produced by The Image Works, Connie Edwards and Doug Cole.

www.stonyplainrecords.com

40 Years of Stony Plain Complete Track Listing

CD1 SINGERS, SONGWRITERS, AND MUCH MORE

1. Colin Linden - No More Cheap Wine (4:43)

2. Spirit Of The West - The Crawl (4:03)

3. Corb Lund - I Wanna Be In The Cavalry (3:10)

4. Doug Sahm - Louis Riel (3:50)

5. Harry Manx & Kevin Breit - Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep (5:29)

6. Emmylou Harris - Where Will I Be (4:22)

7. James Burton, Albert Lee, Amos Garrett, David Wilcox - That's All Right (Mama) (5:18)

8. New Guitar Summit - Flying Home (4:12)

9. Rodney Crowell - Funky And The Farm-boy (4:06)

10. Valdy & Gary Fjellgaard - VLT (2:30)

11. Jr. Gone Wild - Poet's Highway (4:16)

12. Tim Hus - Wild Rose Waltz (5:32)

13. Ian Tyson - Cottonwood Canyon (3:19)

14. Jennifer Warnes - Blue Mountains Of Mexico (3:16)

15. Steve Earle - Rivers Of Babylon (3:02)

16. Eric Bibb - Needed Time (feat. Taj Mahal, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Ruthie Foster) (6:28)

CD2 BLUES, R&B, GOSPEL, SWING, JAZZ AND EVEN MORE

1. Kenny 'Blues Boss' Wayne - Bankrupted Blues (3:09)

2. Joe Louis Walker - Eyes Like A Cat (3:49)

3. Rosco Gordon - Sit Right Here (4:38)

4. Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters - It Takes Time (4:55)

5. Maria Muldaur - Soul Of A Man (feat. Taj Mahal) (2:52)

6. Long John Baldry - Midnight Special (3:24)

7. Paul Reddick - Mourning Dove (4:55)

8. MonkeyJunk - Mother's Crying (4:36)

9. Jay McShann - Goin' to Chicago (4:32)

10. Jeff Healey - Hong Kong Blues (3:12)

11. Billy Boy Arnold - Bad Luck Blues (3:16)

12. Rory Block - Candy Man (3:42)

13. Big Dave McLean - Atlanta Moan (4:12)

14. Ruthie Foster - Keep Your Big Mouth Closed (3:15)

15. Sonny Rhodes - Meet Me At The 10th Street Inn (3:18)

16. Jim Byrnes - Wrapped Up, Tied Up (3:30)

17. Amos Garrett - Lost Love (4:10)

18. Ellen McIlwaine - All To You (4:01)

19. King Biscuit Boy - Blue Light Boogie (5:00)

CD3 RARITIES AND PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED MATERIAL

1. Duke Robillard - Ain't Gonna Do It (3:31)

2. Duke Robillard - Rehab (5:21)

3. Eric Bibb - Shingle By Shingle (4:06)

4. Eric Bibb - Wayfaring Stranger (6:19)

5. Maria Muldaur - In My Girlish Days (2:28)

6. Maria Muldaur - I Belong To The Band (4:30)

7. David Wilcox - Uptown Bump (3:47)

8. Sam Chatmon and His Barbeque Boys - I Hate That Train (feat. Colin Linden, Doc MacLean) (3:51)

9. Sam Chatmon and His Barbeque Boys - All Night Long (feat. Colin Linden, Doc MacLean) (2:51)

10. Bob Carpenter - Satan's Golden Chain (4:02)

11. Bob Carpenter - Mister Blue (2:45)

12. Walter 'Shakey' Horton with Hot Cottage - Shakey's Edmonton Blues (3:02)

Allstar Boogie - Big Walter Horton

Walter Horton, better known as Big Walter Horton or Walter "Shakey" Horton, (April 6, 1917 – December 8, 1981) was an American blues harmonica player. A quiet, unassuming and essentially shy man, Horton is remembered as one of the premier harmonica players in the history of blues. Willie Dixon once called Horton "the best harmonica player I ever heard."
Born Walter Horton in Horn Lake, Mississippi, he was playing a harmonica by the time he was five years old. In his early teens, he lived in Memphis, Tennessee and claimed that his earliest recordings were done there in the late 1920s with the Memphis Jug Band, although there is no documentation of it, and some blues researchers have stated that this story was most likely fabricated by Horton. (He also claimed to have taught some harmonica to Little Walter and the original Sonny Boy Williamson, although these claims are unsubstantiated, and in the case of the older Williamson, somewhat suspect).

As with many of his peers, he spent much of his career existing on a meager income and living with constant discrimination in a segregated United States of America. In the 1930s he played with various blues performers across the Mississippi delta region. It is generally accepted that his first recordings were made in Memphis backing guitarist Little Buddy Doyle on Doyle's recordings for the Okeh and Vocalion labels in 1939. These recordings were in the acoustic duo format popularized by Sleepy John Estes with his harmonicist Hammie Nixon, among others. On these recordings, Horton's style is not yet fully realized, but there are clear hints of what is to come. He eventually stopped playing the harp for a living due to poor health, and worked mainly outside of the music industry in the 1940s. By the early 1950s, he was playing music again, and was among the first to record for Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis, who would later record Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash. The early Big Walter recordings from Sun include performances from a young Phineas Newborn, Jr. on piano, who later gained fame as a jazz pianist. His instrumental track recorded around this time, "Easy", was based on Ivory Joe Hunter's "I Almost Lost My Mind".

During the early 1950s he first appeared on the Chicago blues scene, where he frequently played with fellow Memphis and Delta musicians who had also moved north, including guitarists Eddie Taylor and Johnny Shines. When Junior Wells left the Muddy Waters band at the end of 1952, Horton replaced him for long enough to play on one session with Waters in January 1953. Horton's style had by then fully matured, and he was playing in the heavily amplified style that became one of the trademarks of the Chicago blues sound. He also made great use of techniques such as tongue-blocking. He made an outstanding single as a leader for States in 1954. Horton's solo on Jimmy Rogers' 1956 Chess recording "Walking By Myself" is considered by many to be one of the high points of his career, and of Chicago Blues of the 1950s.

Also known as "Mumbles", and "Shakey" because of his head motion while playing the harmonica, Horton was active on the Chicago blues scene during the 1960s as blues music gained popularity with white audiences. From the early 1960s onward, he recorded and appeared frequently as a sideman with Eddie Taylor, Johnny Shines, Johnny Young, Sunnyland Slim, Willie Dixon and many others. He toured extensively, usually as a backing musician, and in the 1970s he performed at blues and folk music festivals in the U.S. and Europe, frequently with Willie Dixon's Chicago Blues All-Stars. He has also appeared as a guest on recordings by blues and rock stars such as Fleetwood Mac and Johnny Winter.

In October 1968, while touring the United Kingdom, he recorded the album Southern Comfort with the former Savoy Brown and future Mighty Baby guitarist Martin Stone. In the late 1970s he toured the U.S. with Homesick James Williamson, Guido Sinclair, Eddie Taylor, Richard Molina, Bradley Pierce Smith and Paul Nebenzahl, and appeared on National Public Radio broadcasts. Two of the best compilation albums of his own work are Mouth-Harp Maestro and Fine Cuts. Also notable is the Big Walter Horton and Carey Bell album, released by Alligator Records in 1972.

He became a mainstay on the festival circuit, and often played at the open-air market on Chicago's Maxwell Street. In 1977, he joined Johnny Winter and Muddy Waters on Winter's album I'm Ready, and during the same period recorded some material for Blind Pig Records. Horton appeared in the Maxwell Street scene in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, accompanying John Lee Hooker.[1] His final recordings were made in 1980.

Horton died from heart failure in Chicago in 1981 at the age of 64,[1] and was buried in Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.

Down Home Shakedown - Big Mama Thornton, John Lee Hooker, Big Walter Horton & Dr Ross

Big Mama Thornton, John Lee Hooker, Shakey Horton & Dr Ross each playing the harmonica
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Allstar Boogie

With Shakey Horton, lafitte Leak and Willie Dixon what else would you call it?

Walter Horton, better known as Big Walter Horton or Walter "Shakey" Horton, (April 6, 1917 – December 8, 1981) was an American blues harmonica player. A quiet, unassuming and essentially shy man, Horton is remembered as one of the premier harmonica players in the history of blues. Willie Dixon once called Horton "the best harmonica player I ever heard."