SMOKY BABE/ Complete Recordings

           

Born Robert Brown on July, 31st 1927 in Itta Bena (Ms), Smoky Babe has been one of the very best discovery from the Blues Revival era. A sharecropper helping his family at an early age and during years around Itta Bena, Smoky Babe has taken the guitar and the blues under the strong influence of Robert Petway and Tommy McClennan, seeing them performing and listening to their records. He developed the same rhythmic guitar style, full of a furious energy, the similar passionate singing and, if one adds a great ability to compose autobiographic blues and to make every standard his own, you sure have with him a major bluesman!

            During the late 1940's and maybe at his mother's death, Smoky Babe leaves the miserable sharecropping to work in a factory in Alabama, then in New Orleans where he works as a longshoreman while playing sometimes in local clubs. Around 1953, he marries and the couple settles in Baton Rouge, buying a little farm and finding a good job as a car mechanic in a garage. He anyway plays here and there, mostly at friends' parties. It's like that and only by chance that Harry Oster discovers him in February 1960 during a party at Robert Pete Williams' house (his neighbor) where there are other Robert Pete's neighbors, Lazy Lester, Clyde Causey or William and Sally Dotson! Oster is stunned by Smoky's talents and then records him substantially during the following days. Those wonderful records when issued on several albums and anthologies stir interest in the then small coterie of blues buffs in the USA and Europe. But Smoky, quite suspicious, would turn down any offer to appear at colleges or festivals during the early 1960's, liking better to catch his steady work at his garage and his farm than trying his chance on a musical career.

            He is reported to have died in Scottlandville around May 1973.

            We have gathered here all his known recordings in chronological order. That still leaves at least 20 unissued tracks that are probably by now at the Smithsonian and that we certainly would be eager to be able to listen to!

                                                                       Gérard HERZHAFT

SMOKY BABE

Complete Recordings

Smoky Babe (Robert Brown), vcl/g. Scotlandville, La, 6 february 1960

01. Shake, shake Mattie

Smoky Babe, vcl/g. Scotlandville, La, 10 february 1960

02. Long way from home

03. I’m goin’ back to Mississippi

04. I'm goin' away

Smoky Babe, vcl/g; Sally Dotson, vcl. Scotlandville, La. 25 february 1960

05. Rabbit blues n°1

06. Rabbit blues n°2

07. Ghost blues

Smoky Babe, vcl/g; William Dotson, vcls. Scotlandville, 25 february 1960

08. Two wings

Smoky Babe, vcl/g. Scotlandville, La, 27 february 1960

09. Bad luck and trouble

10. Now your man done gone

11. I’m broke and I’m hungry

12. Bad whiskey

13. Going back home

14. Goin' home blues

15. Melvanie blues

16. Ocean blues

17. Boogie woogie rag

Smoky Babe, vcl/g; Lazy Lester, hca. Scotlandville, La. 27 february 1960

18. Mississippi River

19. Too many women n°1

20. Too many women n°2

21. My baby she told me

22. My baby put me down

Smoky Babe, vcl/g; Clyde Causey, hca. Scotlandville, La. 27 february 1960

23. Ain’t got no rabbit dog

24. Black gal

25. Locomotive blues

Smoky Babe, g. Scotlandville, La. 6 march 1960

26. Boogy

27. Boogie gal

28. If I had listened what my mama say

29. I'm goin' home on the morning train

Smoky Babe, vcl/g; Sally Dotson, vcls; Hilary Blunt, g. Scotlandville, La. 14 april 1960

30. Your dice won’t pass

31. Black ghost

Smoky Babe, vcl/g. Scotlandville, La. 3 november 1960

32. Talkin' baby

33. Backyard boogie

Smoky Babe, vcl/g; Sally Dotson, vcls on *; Lazy Lester, hca. Scotlandville, La. 10 february 1961

34. Chicago bound

35. Somethin’ wrong with my machine*

Smoky Babe, vcl/g. Scotlandville, La. 27 march 1961

36. Insect blues

37. Boss man blues

38. Way back in the country blues

Smoky Babe, vcl/g. Scotlandville, La. 1 april 1961

39. I went down 61 Highway

40. Hottest brand goin’

41. Regular blues

42. Arkansas blues

43. What's wrong with you

44. Working on Mr Walter's farm

Smoky Babe, vcl/g. Scotlandville, La. 14 june 1961

45. Cold, cold snow

46. Diggin' my potatoes

47. I'm wild about you black gal

Smoky Babe, vcl/g. Vance, Ms, 11 august 1961

48. Terraplane blues

Going Downtown Boogie (14-4-60) on Country Negro Jam for Arhoolie CD372
Cotton Field Blues (10-08-61) on the same Arhoolie CD372 (Thanks to Adrian Florès)