Description
Release Date: 1956 (Original)
Label: Cook/Smithsonian Folkways
Track List
1. Memphis Blues
2. Can’t Help Lovin That Man Of Mine
3. I Ain’t Gonna Give You Any Of My Jelly Roll
4. There’ll Be Some Changes Made
5. Louisiana
6. Sugar Blues
7. Lazy River
8. Goin’ Away To Wear You Off My Mind
9. Mama’s Lonesome For You
10. I Never Knew What The Blues Were
11. Papa Won’t You Tell Me What You Want Done To Me
12. Basin Street
13. Animal Ball
14. Plain Ol’ Blues
15. When You’re A Long Long Way From Home
Notes
Blues doesn’t get more New Orleans sweet-an’-sour than when it’s done by Creole Songbird Lizzie Miles. Sweet she appreciates: “I ain’t gonna give you none of my jelly-roll…not to save your soul.” But the sour is always in balance: “Because I’ve been mistreated, I feel that I could die…I’m goin’ away, just to get you off my mind.” This legendary herald of the blues is joined by pianist Red Camp and Tony Almerico’s All Stars band at the Bourbon Street Mardi Gras Lounge.
Lizzie Miles was a fine classic blues singer from the 1920s who survived to have a full comeback in the 1950s. She started out singing in New Orleans during 1909-1911 with such musicians as King Oliver, Kid Ory, and Bunk Johnson. Miles spent several years touring the South in minstrel shows and playing in theaters. She was in Chicago during 1918-1920 and then moved to New York in 1921, making her recording debut the following year. Her recordings from the 1922-1930 period mostly used lesser-known players, but Louis Metcalf and King Oliver were on two songs apiece and she recorded a pair of duets with Jelly Roll Morton in 1929. Miles sang with A.J. Piron and Sam Wooding, toured Europe during 1924-1925, and was active in New York during 1926-1931. Illness knocked her out of action for a period, but by 1935, she was performing with Paul Barbarin, she sang with Fats Waller in 1938, and recorded a session in 1939. Lizzie Miles spent 1943-1949 outside of music, but in 1950 began a comeback, often performing with Bob Scobey or George Lewis during her final decade.
