Gabe's Dirty Blues

“When I bought the Shamrock Tavern in Seattle, the seamen and street people didn't cotton up to me at first. It took 6 months for me and my crazy music to win them over - and then it was standing room only for years. You see we started with blues and never changed except for jazz. That was it for 17 years. Jazz and blues - you never had it so good …

… The tunes in this album were basically the tunes I played on a juke box at the original Shamrock and later 'Gabe's' a downtown Seattle joint in the 1950s and 1960s.

Now we had an old juke box with one speaker and we would turn it up as loud as we could. The customers were mostly seamen and street people - pimps, hustling broads and chippies - gamblers and boozers - pinball mechanics (some of the most loveable bastards of all) - pill-heads and addicts.

It was a rough joint and we only had one light in the place - the juke box. Constant fights - the seamen were mean. But it was exciting too. Seamen and street people are something else and we never knew what the hell would happen any given moment.

Wow, did seamen love to fight - drink - screw and listen to jazz and the blues…”- from Gabe McManus’s liner notes to “Gabe’s Dirty Blues

And if the above quotes don’t get you all of a quiver to download and listen to this 1978 collection of King / Federal R&B pounders then you may well be dead. If you ain’t already droolin’ then you certainly ain’t no bebop wino and you are definitely on the wrong blog. Maybe you should go hang around “too-square-to-bop.com” or some such.

We must thank “Issaquah” for this superb 2 LP set. So let the man himself give the lowdown on just what’s cookin’ here:

Gabe McManus had a passion for R&B music and owned a couple of bars in Seattle in the 40's, 50's & 60's. He wanted everyone to get a flavor of some of the music that wasn't too popular with the main stream at the time, so he compiled a 2-album compilation of some great old R&B music.

It took me months to track down a true vinyl copy of the album (circa 1978), which I eventually found through a wanted ad on Craigslist! The album & cover were in super-good condition and I had them ripped, scanned the covers and finally compiled GABE'S DIRTY BLUES in 100% digital format!

The complete 2-album set has 30 tracks totalling 78:05 minutes, so it can be burned in CDA format onto 1 CD! I did compress the entire set, forcing everyone to download, and then seed, the complete 30 song album. This helps preserve the entire torrent and prevents "cherry picking" of favorite songs. It is compressed with 7-Zip format (Windows). WINRAR & WINZIP will both decompress this file. Don't waste time complaining, just enjoy.
I've included the following in the archive:
* All 30 songs in MP3 format (320)
* All 30 songs in WAV format (original RIP from vinyl to WAV)
* Album cover (front & back) Scans in high res
* Album center scans
* Both MP3 & WAV files have ID3 tags + cover art embedded
* PDF file with play list & details

Thank you, “Issaquah”. As you can all appreciate, the inclusion of WAV files makes for a rather large download – seven downloads in fact. Out of consideration for non-premium account holders, there are TWO versions of this album available for download from rapidshare and megaupload. The DELUXE version is as detailed above by “Issaquah”. The BASIC version does not include the WAV files, but does have everything else.

Ripped from vinyl at 320 kbps. Password on all downloads = greaseyspoon

DELUXE download currently unavailable

The Basic Version (mp3 only) can be downloaded from here:

http://www10.zippyshare.com/v/28020718/file.html


1. Fever / Little Willie John
2. Walkin' The Blues / Champion Jack Dupree
3. Sick & Tired / Lula Reed
4. Shake 'em Up, Baby / Roy Brown
5. Work With Me Annie / Hank Ballard & The Midnighters
6. Cherry Wine / Little Esther Phillips
7. 60-Minute Man / Billy Ward & The Dominoes
8. Ride, Jockey, Ride / The Lamplighters
9. Keep On Churnin' / Wynonie Harris
10. Rocket 69 / Todd Rhodes
11. 10-Inch Record / Bull Moose Jackson
12. Black Diamond / Roy Brown
13. Jealous Love / Lula Reed
14. Bloodshot Eyes / Wynonie Harris
15. Sexy Ways / Hank Ballard & The Midnighters
16. Salty Dog / The Lamplighters
17. Monkey, Hips and Rice / The “5” Royales
18. T-99 / Tiny Bradshaw
19. Rock Love / Lula Reed
20. Wasn't That Good / Wynonie Harris
21. Annie Had A Baby / Hank Ballard & The Midnighters
22. Girl From Kokomo / Roy Brown
23. All Around the World / Little Willie John
24. I Want a Bow-Legged Woman / Bull Moose Jackson
25. Quiet Whiskey / Wynonie Harris
26. Use What You Got / Freddy King
27. Queen Of Diamonds / Roy Brown
28. Loving Machine / Wynonie Harris
29. Shake That Thing / Wynonie Harris
30. Adam Come Get Your Rib / Wynonie Harris

Thank you Issaquah!