West Side Blues Singers LP

A good session band has been chosen: former WOLF recording artists Johnny B. Moore and John Primer on guitars, Willie Kent on bass and Eddie Taylor’s young son, Timothy Taylor on drums, featuring Fred Laster on tenor sax. Born in Bunkie, Louisiana in 1931, BONNIE LEE BOMBSHELL moved to the Windy City in her teens. She soon got acquainted with local Blues musicians. In her hometown she often listened to her parents’ old records, all above to the ones of Bessie Smith. After getting familiar with Chicago’s local Blues scene, she soon recorded for the Ebony label, “My Mama Rocks Me With One Steady Roll”. A short stint with Sunnyland Slim and his band produced “I Got AThing Going On” on Slim’s own Airway label. She’s got a fast moving and swinging style of Blues singing, reminisc of Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, who arranged a date with the Gatemouth Brown Band in the 50s for her. A resident of Chicago, Bonnie lives with her son Earl, a junior who plays running back for the Crane High School football team. “A lot of older singers made it possible for us to get out and keep things goin”, Bonnie says. “If it wasn’t for Koko (Taylor), we wouldn’t be here today. She’s hel ed all the ladies by giving us a good name.” MARY LANE was born in Clarendon, Arkansas on November 23, 1935. As a child she used to sing in various local church choirs. In Chicago she started singing the Blues by encouragement of numerous musicians of the Windy City scene: Jr. Wells, Eddie Shaw, Morris Pejoe (whose “Hurt My Feelings” she performs on this album), Howling Wolf and many more. These are her first recordings. BARKIN’ BILL claims “to have travelled many places in and around the United States: Alaska, New York, Canada and a lot more, because Blues is something everyone have”, he explains. Born in Cleveland, Mississippi in 1928, he first started singing with the Glory Bound Quintette in Ruleville, Mississippi. Later he met famous bluesmen like Elmore James, Memphis Slim, Big Joe Williams and Homesick James and soon moved to Chicago, where he lives today. LARRYTAYLOR, son of the late Eddie Taylor, had been “laid Blues into the cradle”, when the crème de la crème of Chicago Blues gathered at his father’s house to rehearse: Jimmy Rogers, Homesick James, Morris Pejoe, Johnny Jones, Floyd Jones and many more. Born on the West Side of Chicago in 1955, his father gave him his start in music. Eddie played his son the records of Jimmy Reed, where Larry has learnt his Earl Phillips-styled drumming, as can be heard on WOLF 120.711. On this album, Larry is presented as a singer and pays tribute to his father on the classic “Bad Boy”.