Well, finally, I got all the CDs. UBT suggested I comment on them. This is a little difficult in that I have virtually no musical knowledge and less skill. On my good days I flatter myself that I might be a passable wordsmith and so tend to emphasize lyrics in my appreciation of stuff. Anyway, here goes.
To begin with Pokey. This is roisterous, heel kicking stuff that swamps you - or doesn't - from the first listening. One track on his first album "Bad Times Come and Go (So I'm Told)" could be an anthem for our age but here's lots of other good stuff on both of them.
CW is a more difficult proposition. I found I had to spend a lot of time getting into the first album "King Hokum" (and waiting 6 weeks until the second one arrived). My immediate favourites were "Dodo Blues" and "Handyman Blues" but I couldn't say I know what either them are about. I am uncomfortable about white people singing lyrics like "Don't go dancin' down the Darktown Strutter's Ball" but I guess that's my problem not CW's. The second album, "Jungle Blues", I found much easier/quicker to enjoy. There are a lot of really good tracks on here with bags of both style and wit. "Talking Lion Blues" is a great example of CW's humour in which he is mining in Africa when attacked by a talking lion. CW lays him out with a mighty punch and takes him into town to show his talking lion to the crowds. The lion tells them: "This man punched me and blackened my eye". CW is taken to court and sentenced to 25 years in prison, and he resolves not to mess with talking lions again. There is other good stuff here - "Jungle Blues", "Jungle Lullaby", "I Heard the Marchin of the Band" and the unexpectedly feminist "Housebound Blues". Lots of different musical styles in here too. And some more thoughtful pieces amongst the fun tracks.
Perhaps by the time I got the second CD I had tuned in to Stoneking's style, but I had also found out something about "Hokum" - in the title on the first track and also CW's own record label. I discovered that "hokum" was a quite popular form of entertainment in early 20th century America based on tall tales and nonsense and later came to be applied to blues based on sexual innuendo. My source of this information [see below] says "as far as I can make out, C.W. Stoneking eschews sexual innuendo in favour of hokum in the sense of tall tales". Well he can't have listened very closely to the two "Willy" tracks on the first album. But the last track on the second album "The Greatest Liar" - a talking piece orchestrated with creative heckling - is grand hokum in the earlier sense where CW tells what he has learned:
"
through years of investigation ...
misinformation ...
and inebriation"I think that may be a phrase I will recycle.
Overall, the whole CD is great fun.
CW Stonebridge and his Primitive Horn Orchestra reminds me in some ways of Spike Jones and his City Slickers. Which I have also ordered and should arrive tomorrow.
http://flyinshoes.ning.com/profiles/blogs/cw-stoneking-jungle-blues