Sunset Blvd. Records has released live recordings of Texas song stylist Mance Lipscomb. Called “Navasota,” Mance was born just outside there on April 9, 1895. He played blues classics throughout his life, and was the first singing, in June 1960 by the Legendary Roots music label Arhoolie Records. This was also the first recorded music from Mance, who was celebrating his 65th year when they signed him.
Mance Lipscomb represented one of the last remnants of the 19th century songster tradition, which predated the development of the blues. Though songsters might incorporate blues into their repertoires, as did Lipscomb, they performed a wide variety of material in diverse styles, much of it common to both black and white traditions in the South, including ballads, rags, dance pieces (breakdowns, waltzes, one and two steps, slow drags, reels, ballin’ the jack, the buzzard lope, hop scop, buck and wing, heel and toe polka), and popular, sacred, and secular songs.
Mance Lipscomb himself insisted that he was a songster, not a guitarist or “blues singer,” since he played “all kinds of music.” His eclectic repertoire has been reported to have contained 350 pieces spanning two centuries.
This album represents 3 previously unreleased performances from 1963, ’64 and ’72.
Album notes by Bill Dahl for Sunset Blvd, noted that Mance’s performances included “finger-picked guitar technique provided vivid and irresistible accompaniment for his supremely atmospheric vocals” of repertoire than encompassed Tin Pan Alley ditties….., along with slide-soaked gospel pieces, reels, breakdowns, patriotic themes—each and every one rendered in his own inimitable style” which was rooted in blues.
$1.00 From
Each Album Sold Will Be Donated To Knowledge-First.org, Houston, Texas
Disc 1 1972
Harvard University
Texas Blues
Alabama
Jubilee
See See
Rider
I Want To
Do
Baby
Please Don’t Go
Going Down
Slow
Rock Me
Baby
Keep on
Truckin’
Key To The
Highway
You’ve Got
To See Your Mama Every Night
Shine on
Harvest Moon
All Night
Long
True
Religion
When The
Saints Go Marching In
Disc 2
Texas ’63/’64
Night Time
is the Right Time
Trouble in
Mind
Mama Don’t
Allow
Going Down
Slow
Careless
Love
Rag in F
Diddy Wah
Diddy
Boogie
Chillen
Willy Poor
Boy
Rock Me
Mama
So
Different Blues
Blues in G
The Titanic
Alabama
Bound
Ain’t It
Hard
Johnny
Take A One on Me
One Thin
Dime
Motherless
Children
