This is an enjoyable trip into the lesser-known recesses of pre-World War II blues, covering artists who didn't record enough to justify separate CDs of their own. Opening with a pair of tracks by Virginia-born Seth Richard, including his kazoo-highlighted signature tune "Skoodeldum-Doo," it leads us to four extraordinarily dexterous solo guitar, songster-type numbers by Memphis-based, Texas-born Charlie Kyle, to the sole known song by the mystery-shrouded guitarist/singer "Freezone." Most of this material is fairly primitive, having been recorded in the late 1920s, but the sound is anything but -- Document has given us a pretty clean account of most of the early stuff, a match for any company's reissues of material from this era; only Freezone's side (from Paramount, of course) is somewhat substandard.
Willie Harris's four numbers may have been done in Chicago, and feature a prominent piano (likely played by Charles Avery), but his style shows off his Mississippi roots, especially the slide playing. Leola Manning's six songs present religious lyrics in a blues setting, sung in a style resembling
Memphis Minnie's, and anticipating the kind of hybrid performing that bluesmen-turned-ministers
Gary Davis and others turned toward in the 1960s. Jazzbo Tommy Settlers' eight songs, dating from 1937, are the most acquired taste here -- the first four are Paramount titles and suffer from abysmal sound, coupled with the fact that they are dominated by the kazoo, while the second four, issued by ARC, are of significantly better quality and feature a full band, with piano and guitar. The latter are the choice parts of Settlers' output. ~ Bruce Eder