Blues Vinyl 186 Items

Still sealed with hype sticker. Stuffed corners. Limited edition Multi Coloured vinyl. US reissue from 2018.

Antibalas’ new studio album, Where The Gods Are In Peace, is an epic Afro-Western Trilogy searching for solace from American political opportunism, greed and vengeance. Through its battle cry of resistance against exploitation and displacement, ANTIBALAS’ long-form compositions investigate oppression in 1800s America that eerily mirror the current state of the country. Three explosive original arrangements cultivate an urgent call to heal a broken system. Ultimately, the sonic excursion lands on an island where love is our first instinct. A new ideology is born opening our hearts to the possibilities of living as one unified people, where all gods are equal and together we prevail.

True to traditional form, Where The Gods Are In Peace pays respect to the forefathers of Afrobeat with compositions spanning nine to 15 minutes in length. With a blessing from the Fela Kuti legacy early in the band’s career, ANTIBALAS has long been revered for re-popularizing the classic Afrobeat sound while adding their distinct New York City grit to the mix. Influences of punk rock, free jazz, and hip-hop seep into their expansive works to define a truly 21st century translation of the Afrobeat genre and beyond.

Includes two bonus tracks.

Bassekou Kouyaté is a musician from Mali. His new album is about love, friendship, family and true values in times of crisis. Miri means dream or contemplation in bamana. Miri is a very personal album. It talks about his mother Yakare that passed away. The album also pays hommage to two great Malian singers that have blessed quite a number of Bassekous albums: the one and only Zoumana Tereta & the golden voice of Mali Kassemady Diabate. May they rest in peace. They live on in their music.

Clear vinyl!

180 gram vinyl!

Vinyl with foxing. Blue vinyl

Like so many other Delta blues musicians of the 1930s and 40s, rock music owes a debt of gratitude to the works of Blind Willie McTell. Considered one of the finest guitarists and vocalists of the era, noteworthy for his then unheard of usage of a 12-string guitar, artists and bands from The Allman Brothers to The White Stripes to Taj Mahal have listed the blind bluesman as a key influence. From the start of his career in 1927, McTell cut numerous singles for Victor Records, and maintained a noteworthy level of popularity in his home of Atlanta, but like many of his contemporaries, his career skidded to a halt during World War II. McTell left music during the 1950s and later passed of a brain hemmorage in 1959. Not long after his passing would come the British blues explosion, which would not only make household names of Eric Clapton and John Mayall, but spark a renewed interest in the material of classic bluesmen like McTell. It wasn't long before innumerable collections of such material came into being. 1927-1935 is one such collection, covering the beginning years of McTell's career, pre-World War II. Many of McTell's earliest recordings for Victor Records are present here, many of which were recorded with his future wife Ruth Day providing duet vocals. Songs such as "Cold Winter Day", "Razor Ball", and "Ticket Agent Blues", which famously would be covered by The White Stripes decades later.

2013 reissue. With insert. 180gr vinyl.

Not known for his acoustic work, Buddy Guy unplugs for a rare album-length excursion into folk blues. The guitarist gets down and dirty with 12 tracks that sound like they were recorded after hours in his living room or on his back porch.

Limited edition for Record Store Day 2015!

Limited edition for Record Store Day 2015!

Still in shrink, but opened, with hype sticker

High Quality pressing in vintage silk screen sleeve. Surfing on the shores of Java and Casablanca! 2 un-expected tales from the Beat generation.Tony Turpijn and his Evergreens fulfill the dream of every pantropical music lover with a silky instrumental rhythm ’n blues take on the Sundanese love song “Es Lilin” (Ice Lolly). Link Wray meets Mulatu Astatke meets Oslan Husein in Rotterdam, 1965.

Record Store Day edition 2011.

Red vinyl in PVC sleeve. Limited edition.

Green vinyl seems unplayed. Still in shrink but opened with hype sticker. Numbered Limited edition. With insert

Vinyl with a couple of light scuffs, close to VG+

One of the earliest blues performers of the pre-war era, and an offspring of a family of freed slaves, Henry "Ragtime Texas" Thomas was one of the most influential, but also one of the most enigmatic practitioners of the blues genre. Much of Thomas' life was un-chronicled by historians (The exact date of his death is still a point of contention) except to say that much of his life he lived as a drifter, making his living by performing on street corners and for railway employees. Though his personal life is still shrouded in mystery, his music remains significant, so many decades later. Thomas stood out from his peers primarily by the way he strummed his guitar; as one would strum a banjo. His songs emphasized dance rhythm over complex picking, and often utilized instruments unorthodox to blues music, such as the Deep South folk instrument the quills. This sound proved to be instrumental in the development of the Texas blues sound, and would be his trademark across the 24 sides that he recorded for Vocalion Records, of which only 23 would be released commercially.

After years mentoring under Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf & Sonny Boy Williamson,
James Cotton developed a reputation as one of the greatest blues players to pick
up a harmonica. By 1967 Cotton was primed to make it on his own. Featuring
fleet-fingered guitarist Luther Tucker and hard-hitting drummer Sam Lay,
Late Night Blues – Live at The New Penelope Cafe showcases a now legendary blues
band at the beginning of their artistic prime.

Ivory Coast isn’t known for country music. But Jess Sah Bi & Peter One’s 1985 recording Our Garden Needs Its Flowers, a massive-selling regional hit, brought a burgeoning interest in folk and Americana into the mainstream and carried two young men to international prominence, culminating in stadium-filling concerts and performances for the first lady of Cote d’Ivoire and dignitaries.

The album was made following a chance introduction via Jess’s nephew, who heard Peter playing for fun around his university dormitory. At the time, Jess Sah Bi (Die Sah Bi) was Ivory Coast’s first political cartoonist, having already published in dozens of magazines and newspapers across West Africa and France. Meanwhile Peter One (Pierre-Evrard Tra) was a university student and soon-to-be high school history teacher. Both musicians had spent time singing and playing guitar and composing songs on their own until they came together to record their independently-released opus.

The music contrasted starkly with the popular sounds of the time, ranging from fast-paced regional dance music genres to ziglibithy to soukous to straight-up funk played by Abidjan’s plethora of bands. Country music and folk-rock weren’t very popular with the general public. But interest was bubbling up within the growing student population, who connected with the protest sentiments expressed by many English and American artists of the era. “It’s very nice music, with very nice harmonies, and it’s different from what you hear every day,” Peter says. “The language was a big barrier though. You had to learn English to understand the songs, and the students were the ones learning English.” Having access to education along with their awareness of social and political inequality and injustice made students the perfect audience for folk music in Ivory Coast.

Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton and Don Williams’ music could be heard on some radio programs around Ivory Coast’s major cities, and some younger people were getting hip to Simon & Garfunkel, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cat Stevens and Crosby Stills & Nash. The stage was set for Jess Sah Bi & Peter One’s homegrown country music to make a mark on Ivorians’ consciousness. Complete with slide guitar, soaring vocals and anthemic, politically-conscious lyrics in three languages, the recording became ubiquitous across French-speaking West Africa. “We expected the album to be a big success, but we could not have imagined how far it would go,” Peter says.

After Our Garden Needs Its Flowers release, Jess and Peter’s profile lifted rapidly, leading to stadium performances in Togo, Burkina Faso and elsewhere. Their ascent was accompanied by critical acclaim from the local press and television programs, appearances at galas organized by Marie-Thérèse Houphouët-Boigny, the wife of the late Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the first president of the Ivory Coast and even a performance during the 1988 ECOWAS (Economic Coalition of West African States) summit in Yamoussoukro at President Houphouët-Boigny’s request. Jess and Peter’s run lasted until the early 1990s, capped off with the BBC using their song African Chant as theme music the day Nelson Mandela was released from prison.

Jess and Peter now live in San Francisco and Nashville, respectively, and continue to make music on their own. Plans for shows reuniting the duo are in the works for later this year.

Still in shrink, but opened, with hype sticker. Original inner sleeve with seam splits

Record is close to NM.

Copy close to NM. Cover signed on the back.