Jazz Me Blues - The Best of Jimmy Witherspoon

Jimmy Witherspoon brought hardcore rhythm and blues to the masses by reworking rough-and- tumble standards like “Good Rockin’ Tonight” and “Bad, Bad Whiskey” into restrained jazz ballads with the help of some of the finest jazz session men of the ‘50s. This is not to say that Witherspoon traded in a watered down brand of blues, his slow burning vocal style demanded sophisticated accompaniment, and Witherspoon was entirely capable of lending a bit of grit to the dreamiest ballad with his trademark leer. Jazz Me Blues collects some of the finest sides that Witherspoon cut for Prestige Records between 1956 and 1966 onto one easily consumable disc. These recordings feature luminaries like Coleman Hawkins, Pepper Adams and Kenny Burrell, and the arrangements they devise for numbers like the sinuous “Trouble In Mind” are so effortlessly smooth as to defy belief. Though listeners are likely to associate tunes like “C.C. Rider” and “Money’s Gettin’ Cheaper” with the advent of rock ‘n’ roll, Witherspoon sings them as though they were forerunners of the smooth soul style later perfected by Al Green and Bobby Womack.