Eisenhower Blues CD

A compilation of postwar urban blues sides originally released by Chicago DJ Al Benson's Parrot and Blue Lake record labels during the presidency of Dwight D, Eisenhower (1952-1960), an era made more than interesting by the Cold War, the atom bomb, the increased growth of the civil rights movement, and a prolonged crisis in Korea, Eisenhower Blues isn't, however, a predominantly topical album. With the exception of J.B. Lenoir's classic title track, little here is particularly political, although the pressure and uncertainty of the times form a backdrop to these ragged and edgy performances, which pretty much go about discussing the problems of loving and living that the blues has always taken as its central theme. There aren't many big names here, although Albert King gets a track, as does Sunnyland Slim, and Lenoir is certainly known to genre fans as one of the blues' most challenging and intelligent songwriters, but most of these names will ring only a faint bell, if any at all. This is hardly a problem, though, since it allows a genuine sense of discovery when encountering such wonderfully obscure and swampy sides as Little Sam Davis' tight-as-a-wire "1958 Blues" or the gritty, no-nonsense "Tough Times" by John Brim. Catching the blues after it had transformed itself into a raw and powerful urban music, but with its country blues roots still readily apparent, Eisenhower Blues is a wonderful set of archival recordings that reminds listeners that the blues is an amazingly resilient musical form, and the fact that these sides were released during an eight-year Republican presidency when the whole world seemed to be edging toward the proverbial brink only reinforces that resiliency. The next decade would proceed to up the ante even more. ~ Steve Leggett