Barrelhouse Blues & Boogie Woogie Vol. 3

By the mid-to-late 1950s work for pianists in the domestic blues front was becoming increasingly scarce. Around the same time, however, a new professional avenue was opening with the stirrings of a “blues revival” in European folk and traditional jazz scenes. While this market wasn’t of a grand scale, its attractions – both financial and social – are perhaps best illustrated by the fact that many great pianists chose to stay in Europe, among the three we find in this CD series – Champion Jack Dupree, Memphis Slim and Eddie Boyd. Copenhagen’s Storyville label documenting in 1956 a visit by Big Bill Broonzy (STCD 8016 & 8017) – gained a reputation among bluesmen as a place where they could make some extra cash while touring in Europe. The many sessions here, stretching from 1959-1973, suggest the breadth of the label’s activity during this time when visits by the great bluesmen were regular occurrences. This last CD in the series of three (vol. 1, STCD 8030 and vol. 2, STCD 8044) ends fittingly with Champion Jack, the most prolific of the label’s artists, who takes us back to his hometown’s Gravier Street, a mind’s journey from one Storyville to the other