Kansas Joe McCoy - One In A Hundred (1999)

01. When The Levee Breaks
02. I'm Wild About My Stuff
03. My Mary Blues
04. Cherry ball Blues
05. Botherin' That Thing
06. Pile Drivin' Blues
07. Preacher Blues
08. Snake Mattie
09. My wash Woman's Gone
10. I'm Going Crazy
11. Dresser Drawer Blues
12. Someday I'll Be In The Clay
13. Evil Devil Woman Blues
14. Going Back Home Blues
15. Meat Cutter Blues
16. Please Baby
17. One In A Hundred
18. One More Greasing
19. What's The Matter With You
20. My Babe My Babe
21. Look Who's Coming Down The Road
22. The World Is A Hard Place To Live In
23. Well Well
24. You Done Tore Your Pants With Me
25. I Love You Baby...

Kansas Joe McCoy – guitar, vocals
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Memphis Minnie - guitar, vocals
Charlie McCoy - guitar, mandolin
Jimmie Gordon - piano
"Bill" Wilber - vocals [uncredited], guitar [uncredited]
Odell Rand - clarinet
John Lindsay - double bass
Herb Morand - trumpet
Palooka Washboard Band
Ransom Knowling - bass
Lee McCoy - harmonica
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Violin – Unknown Artist
Bass – Unknown Artist
Washboard - Unknown Artist

Joe McCoy was such a prolific recording artist that it comes as something of a shock to realise that this is the first time a complete album has been devoted to his work. Mississippi born singer/guitarist Joe was allegedly the first musician in that state to own and play a National steel guitar. But he is perhaps best known as the first husband of Memphis Minnie, with whom, under the name of Kansas Joe, he recorded hundreds of songs in the early 1930s. The first ten numbers on this CD represent a typical selection of their work from this period, with their twin guitars complementing each other beautifully to provide a distinctive, driving sound, the first track ('When the Levee Breaks') even inspiring a hugely successful cover version some forty years later by the British band Led Zeppelin, and in 2006 by Bob Dylan. Joe and Minnie sometimes sang together, sometimes separately, the tracks featuring just Joe's voice mainly being the ones selected here.

Joe also recorded with his brother Charlie, another fine guitarist and mandolin player, and several of their couplings are included here, including 'Going Back Home Blues', 'Meat Cutter Blues', and the superb 'Evil Devil Woman Blues', the latter apparently influenced by Skip James's recording of a few years earlier. (The two artists also had another song in common with when Skip recorded a version of Joe's 'Cherry Ball Blues'.) Joined by brother Charlie, Joe recorded under the name of 'The Mississippi Mudder', and other of his pseudonyms included 'The Georgia Pine Boy', 'Hallelujah Joe' (on religious renderings), and 'Big Joe' (with a washboard band, as heard on 'I Love You Baby').

The booklet's discographical notes draw a complete blank on the two songs 'My Babe, My Babe' and 'You Done Tore Your Pants With Me', but I can reveal that they were most probably recorded by Joe under yet further noms de disque as 'Bill Wilber' and 'The Palooka Washboard Band', respectively.

A very welcome first solo release by a versatile though neglected artist. --- Pitoucat, amazon.com

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