Amos Milburn - Let's Have A Party

Side A
1. Chicken Shack Boogie
2. Trouble In Mind
3. I Know You Love Me
4. Good Good Whiskey
5. Rocky Mountain
6. Let's Rock Awhile
7. Down The Road Apiece

Side B
1. Bewildered
2. One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer
3. Let's Have A Party
4. I'm Still A Fool For You
5. Bad Bad Whiskey
6. My Happiness Depends On You
7. All Is Well

This is a revamped post from the original blog with all-new scans of the LP cover and some labelshots of the disc itself.

This is one of 5 (I think) Amos Milburn LPs released on the French Pathe Marconi label in the 1980s. It’s a terrific album, mostly in fantastic sound quality (in fact superior to that on a 3CD Milburn set I bought during the 1990s), with the exception of “Let’s Rock Awhile” which is marred slightly by some feedback or microphone hum. Like the previous post of “13 Unreleased Masters” this is a career spanning collection, although this time round there’s rather more emphasis on the early 1950s with a goodly sample of Amos’s booze anthems and some cracking early rock and roll in “Let’s Have A Party” and “Rocky Mountain.”

Amos Milburn is perhaps my favourite artist of the golden era of rhythm and blues. His voice can evoke a semi deserted after hours joint in the wee wee hours when he tackles blues or ballads (try “Bewildered” or “Trouble in Mind”) or equally he can bring a picture of a packed dance hall to the mind’s eye when he pounds out that boogie woogie and rockin’ R&B (often accompanied by the legendary Maxwell Davis on tenor sax.)

The first track on this LP is perhaps the hardest rocking track he ever recorded – the 1956 remake of “Chicken Shack Boogie.” The LP sleeve wrongly lists track one as the original 1947 recording of “Chicken Shack Boogie” which became Amos’s biggest hit in 1949, helping to make him the top selling R&B artist of that year. In fact the track on this LP is from the session Amos recorded in New Orleans in September 1956 with Lee Allen and Alvin “Red” Tyler on tenor and baritone saxes. By this stage in his career the hits had long dried up for Amos, and this version of “Chicken Shack Boogie” got nowhere near the charts, but nevertheless it is one of the most stonkingly brilliant rock and roll records ever committed to wax.

The atmospherically sleazy LP cover is a straight copy of the 1957 Score LP “Let’s Have A Party” which has different tracks from the 1983 Pathe Marconi release.

Some day I might write a lengthier post on Amos Milburn, but I fear that I would only end up subconsciously regurgitating Nick Tosches’ great chapter on the man himself in “Unsung Heroes of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Get a hold of that book, turn to chapter 9 (“Amos Milburn: the chicken shack factor”), read and weep. And listen to “Let’s Have A Party” while you’re doing it.

Ripped from vinyl at 320 kbps.

Download from here:

http://www86.zippyshare.com/v/tVbavymT/file.html

Recommended purchases:

There are several Amos Milburn comps available, including an Amazon mp3 download of the old Capitol Blues Collection 3 CD set “Blues, Barrelhouse & Boogie Woogie.” Last time I looked, Amazon Marketplace had the CD at an eye watering £60 or so.

If you prefer CDs to mp3s (and what sensible person doesn’t?) then you could do worse than buy the Revola CD (29 tracks) with the same title as the LP on this post – “Let’s Have A Party! (Amos Milburn in the 50s)”