Fishin' In My Pond (Chicago Blues Bands)

Side A:
01) Sit And Cry - Buddy Guy And His Band
02) Try To Quit You Baby - Buddy Guy And His Band
03) Meet Me Half Way - Arbee Stidham
04) Fishin' In My Pond - Lee Jackson
05) You Don't Treat Me Right - Guitar Shorty
06) Don't Leave Me - Clarence Jolly
07) Maybe Blues - Morris Pejoe

Side B:
01) You Sure Can't Do - Buddy Guy And His Band
02) This Is The End - Buddy Guy And His Band
03) Screaming And Crying - Morris Pejoe
04) I'll Just Keep Walkin' - Lee Jackson
05) Please Let It Be Me - Arbee Stidham
06) Changing Love - Clarence Jolly
07) Irma Lee - Guitar Shorty

Fishin' In My Pond (Mega)

Fishin' In My Pond (Zippy)

Another great blues LP from contributor Charlie B. The Buddy Guy sides are quite polished but the rest, thank goodness, is rollicking roughhouse blues which is the way it should be. Despite the prominence of the Cobra label on the front cover, not all of the featured sides were released on that label. The Arbee Stidham and Morris Pejoe sides were released on Abco which was a short lived predecessor label of Cobra.

Abco was owned jointly by Joe Brown of JOB Records and Elias Toscano. The label's recording sessions lasted only a few months from January to July in 1956. The partnership split shortly afterwards with Brown returning to JOB and Toscano starting a new label called Cobra. The July sides which had been recorded for Abco by Otish Rush, Shakey Horton, The Calvaes and The Clouds, were released on Cobra in September. One of the Rush sides, "I Can't Quit You Baby", became a national R&B hit, giving the label the basis for a somewhat longer life than its predecessor.

Cobra was reasonably successful for a couple of years with a strong roster which included Rush, Magic Sam, Buddy Guy, Harold Burrage and Betty Everett. The Buddy Guy sides were released on a subsidiary label, Artistic.

The full story of the label, which went out of business in 1959, can be found on The Red Saunders Research Foundation, the go to website for Chicago blues and R&B. The Abco article can be found here - Abco and click on: Cobra and Artistic for the longer story of those labels.

Release Details

Arbee Stidham - I''ll Always Remember You / Meet Me Half Way - Abco G100 - February 1956

Morris Pejoe - Screaming And Crying / Maybe Blues - Abco G106 - June 1956

Arbee Stidham - When I Find My Baby / Please Let It Be Me - Abco G107 - June 1956

Lee Jackson - Fishin' In My Pond / I'll Just Keep Walkin' - Cobra 5007 - February 1957

Clarence Jolly - Changing Love / Don't Leave Me - Cobra 5016 - July 1957

Guitar Shorty - You Don't Treat Me Right / Irma Lee - Cobra 5017 - July 1957

Buddy Guy - Sit And Cry (The Blues) / Try To Quit You Baby - Artistic 1501 - September 1958

Buddy Guy - You Sure Can't Do / This Is The End - Artistic 1503 - March 1959

With thanks to Charlie B.