Blues Masters: Jimmy Witherspoon

This 1958 LP was just a random — and short — roundup of ten tracks from 1949-1951 singles Jimmy Witherspoon had done for Modern. With four national R&B hits ("Ain't Nobody's Business," "No Rollin' Blues," "Big Fine Girl," and "Once There Lived a Fool"), it does supply a fragmentary overview of Witherspoon's early career, in which he — like so many R&B singers — was purveying a brand of West Coast blues that could both swing and croon. It's not up there with the singer's best recordings, as it doesn't have the most forceful of the jazz-blues fusions he'd make. It's respectable early R&B, however, with a bunch of sides recorded in concert (including "Ain't Nobody's Business," "No Rollin' Blues," and "Big Fine Girl") with a spontaneous rawness unusual even by the standards of this earlier, more rudimentary era. "Jump Children" (aka "Good Jumpin'") is a pretty transparent imitation of "Good Rockin' Tonight," however. The CD reissue on Ace adds a lot of value, tacking on eight bonus tracks from other 1948-1951 singles, as well as lengthy historical liner notes.