sweartotellthetruth

Additional info after our Gotham label special

It’s not our role to publicize record companies or vendors but we’ll sometimes let you know about stuff that is newly available or going out of distribution. We gave out some misinformation on the air in our April 2nd program devoted to the Gotham Record Company of Philadelphia.  The company that has the Gotham reissue series is oldies.com. There is a company by the name we mentioned on the air but it is not the right company.

The Gotham reissue series consisted of straight reissues of the original Krazy Kat LPs from Interstate Music in the U.K. The CDs were issued around 1990. There are 14 to 16 tracks on each and the Collectables label  issued all of the 35 or so original LPs, including a couple of rockabilly compilations and another called White Gospel. They all appear to be out of print but all may still be available from oldies.com @ $2.98 apiece. Be forewarned that U.S. I.S.A.P. postage rates have recently been increased.

Our recommendations of the best albums in the series are

Gotham House Party – like an introductory compilation of Gotham R&B

Jimmy Preston, Vol. 1 & 2

Brown Gal – Camille Howard, Lil Armstrong, Dorothy Donegan

Dan Pickett – 1949 Blues

East Coast Blues – Pickett, Sonny Terry, Ralph Willis, Doug Quattlebaum

Amazing Grace – Davis Sisters, Harmonizing Four, Edna Gallmon Cooke, etc.

Frank Motley, Dual Trumpeter – early recordings of future Toronto R&B bandleader

Any of the 35 or so CDs are worthwhile, depending how deeply you want to go into the music. Tiny Grimes, Harry Crafton  and T.N.T. Tribble are among the other artists. Original liner notes from the LPs are included but the print size on some is a challenge.

We don’t necessarily recommend oldies.com but they also have cutout CDs from the Fuel 2000 label blues and soul series, including Introduction to Chicago  Soul, Introduction to Robert Pete Williams, Introduction to Snooky Pryor, Introduction to Johnny Adams, etc., mostly @$4.98.

cmc