Butternut's Top 100 Albums

[Tommy!]

I know it's your list and you can put whatever the fuck you want on it but isn't putting a "best of" album on a top albums list a bit dodgy?

 

What's your favourite Beatles album?

 

It's a tough one but I'd have to say "The best of the Beatles".

[Chilly McFreeze]

 

 

I'm not much of a Reggae fan, but I love Marley's early work with Lee Perry, and I especially adore Mr Brown.

[Mr Butternut Squash]

88

Various Artists - Southern Prison Blues

1965

Blues

Fave Tracks; Guitar Welch - 'Bad Luck Blues', Hogman Maxey - 'Duckin' and Dodgin', Cool Cats - 'Goin' Home', Otis Webster - 'Standing At the Greyhound Station', Joe Henry Jackson - 'Tell Me Pretty Baby'.

 

The tracks on this lovely little collection were captured by American musicologist Harry Oster during a visit to the Louisiana Sate Penitentiary.

 

There will be a few blues LP appearing on this list but this may be my favourite 'pure' blues record. I mean, Robert Johnson's King of the Delta Blues Singers is excellent and could have easily been on here instead. Hell, I might even find that I enjoy it more than Southern Prison Blues if I listened to it right now. But that's music. It's not football. It's not judged by trophies and league standings. There's no winners or losers. Sometimes the drug you've just taken or the girl you've just met or the temperature of the room you're in or that extra hour of sleep this morning can make the difference between the greatest album you've ever heard and just another mp3 pulled from fuck knows which blog taking up space on your hard drive. That's why I had to force myself to find an order for this list and stick with it no matter how tempted I may be to reshuffle stuff around, because, outside of the top four, nothing is concrete. It's more about capturing moments in time than anything. Southern Prison Blues caught me at a time when I was pretty apathetic about music, and the world in general. But the harmonica on Jesse Butcher's 'They'll Miss me When I'm Gone' reminded me of how the sound of some con blowing into a piece of metal in the 1950's can feel like the most vital thing in the world right now. Guitar Welch's masterful finger picking reminded me of how I've always wanted to learn how to play the blues (properly), and how the guitar can be such a joyful instrument in the right hands. Otis Webster's voice crackling through the speakers with the line "why should I cry, the bus is going that same old way" filled my head with half memories of being drunk too early, drifting around town, lost, going nowhere and anywhere, anywhere but home. Then Hogman Maxeys beatific 12 string guitar chords brought sunshine. The smoky closing time fumble of 'Goin' Home' brought the sexy back too. Listening to this that day made me feel hugely optimistic. And a blues LP recorded in the nick shouldn't make me feel that way, at least not on paper. But that's music.

 

Guitar Welch - Bad Luck Blues

 

Joe Henry Jackson - Tell Me Pretty Baby

[FLips]

No offence but the speed of this is rendering it borderline pointless.

[Mr Butternut Squash]

I know, I've been slow for too long. I'm making a concious effort into putting more focus on this now though

[Chest Rockwell]

No offence but the speed of this is rendering it borderline pointless.

 

I dunno... It's kinda like "Kendall's Jukebox" but finite. I think it's still worthwhile even at a glacial pace. Other lists where everyone has voted and input, you want some pace as people hav esomething invested and there's a bit mroe discussion.. I don't think this is really hurt by being stop-start.