Juke Joints 3

• Track Listing

Juke Joints. Dark and noisy rooms bursting with loud music, drunken revelry and an air of imminent violence. A reality which few of us have experienced. Many then present held their lives cheap and carried guns and knives that were used to redress a momentary disagreement or a long-held grudge. Eddie Burns reckoned, 'Mississippi was a rough place. I've seen them gamble and everybody would lay their guns up on the table in the lamplight. There wasn't no electricity back then. So everybody get to shooting in there and the lights go out 'cause the lamplight got a tendency to don't stay lit. A lamp don't when they're shooting in a house.' The music seems to perfectly match the times. Tough, loud and raucous, it was intended to command the attention of people with plenty of distractions. Titles like Alley Special, Locked In Jail Blues and Broke And Hungry tell it like it was. But that's not the only story - songs like Ride My New Car With Me, You'll Always Have A Home and I'm Gonna Love You suggest it wasn't all misery. Here by popular demand is a further collection of sides that might otherwise have been forgotten. So compelling are they that we might - for an incautious second or two - wish ourselves back in those dives. Selection and notes are by Neil Slaven, so you know you're in safe hands.