Smokey Babe Hottest Brand Goin? Prestige Bluesville OBC-595
Smokey Babe, born Robert Brown, is certainly one of the most enigmatic blues artists to record during the folk blues revival of the ?60s. His recorded output, all great stuff, is limited to this disc and a fine Arhoolie disc, Louisiana Blues, which combines two lps he waxed for the Folk Lyric label. We know that he worked on a plantation near Clarksdale, MS, the epicenter of Delta blues, and hoboed around the South doing manual labor in the cities before settling down in rural Louisiana as a mechanic where Harry Oster, a mobile folklorist a la John and Alan Lomax, met him during an impromptu jam session at the home of Robert Pete Williams? sister. Oster described him as being good-natured and having a radiant smile despite the weight of the life he?d led. Oster also reported that he was well liked.
Prestige has done the blues world a great service by reissuing these excellent, long unavailable sides. Brown sets down a mighty groove on most songs using his thumb Texas style on the bass strings like Mance Lipscomb and Big Bill Brooonzy to create a steady, rocking beat. You?ll hear echoes of John Lee Hooker, Big Joe Williams and Tommy McClennan, too. Brown?s blues are a definite precursor of the best of R.L. Burnsides?s and Jr. Kimbrough?s trance blues. Fans looking for a fine album by their early contemporary will be well rewarded if they seek this out. In addition to his originals which includes the great, improvisatory title cut about working in the filling station, he reworks Baby Please Don?t Go, Boll Weevil, K.C. Moan and ?Coon Hunt.
He never recorded after these sessions. He disappeared and even his death is unconfirmed.
