Gonna be Some Changes - Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup Album Review
Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup
Album Review
Rock'n'Roll template maker's best work.
Mississippian Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup aka 'Pop' Crudup is considered the Father of Rock 'n' Roll. His song That's Alright Mama recorded in 1946 was covered in an early Elvis Presley Sun Records audition session in 1954. Then truck driver Elvis was a huge fan. Sam Phillips eventually nailed the song after Elvis was messing around with it in the studio. It became Elvis' first single. Shortly afterwards he cut My Baby Left Me Too, both included here. Phillips said it was the song and the sound he'd been looking for. It was aired on July 8 1954 by DJ Dewey Phillips, later becoming a hit in the South. The rest is history for The King. Paul Jones of The Blues Band is also a fan, often doing covers of his songs in gigs, which is where I first heard of him.
Crudup, a delta blues singer-songwriter-guitarist, took up the guitar late on. He was 32 when he started, learning the blues from local hero 'Papa Harvey'. His music is lean and sparse with his guitar sourly tuned, either for effect or lack of knowledge. Whatever the reason, he made a great impact with his rudimentary rhythmic style, but primitive by today's standards. His musical journey began in the late 1930s but it was a decade later before he got a recording contract. He stopped recording in the late 1950s due to issues over royalty payments, but returned in the early '60s. He was already a legend with tuned-in fans in the 50s, so his 'retirement' and elusiveness only served to enhance his mystique. His earning weren't that good so he often laboured to supplement his musical career. This fantastic collection is in fact the blue-print for rock'n'roll. The simplicity of his music, using bassist Ransom Knowling and drummer Lawrence 'Judge' Riley, for most of his career, proved enough of an appeal in the studio and on stage. By definition, this collection is a compilation drawn from various recording sessions for RCA Victor, Trumpet and Groove.
The album confusingly doesn't follow the period of actual dated sessions, so they're mixed up in non-chronological order. Nevertheless is doesn't hamper the listening pleasure of standards like She's Like Caledonia a shuffling Blues rambler, bopping dance tune That's All Right, and pulsating Star Bootlegger (he was moonshiner himself).
The tracks that seems to sum up the Delta blues more than any, is the type you'd see on some jeans of whisky advert, with guitarist playing away on the log cabin front, are Never No More and Second Man Blues. One day, someone will lift it, with great success. Crudup also worked as Elmer James with other musicians, namely the great Sonny Boy Williamson (harmonica), Joe Willie Wilkins and 'Sam' on bass for the August 28 1952 sessions of Gonna Find My Baby and Make a Little With Me using a more expansive sound. In 1953 and 1954 he recorded as Big Boy Crudup for The War Is Over and fun-filled She's Got No Hair.
Crudup died of a stroke in Nassawadox hospital Northampton County, Virginia on March 28 1976, aged 71.
File under : Supreme collection - a must have.
