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LAVERN BAKER Four Classic Albums
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AVID AMSC 1258 [69:47 + 70:38]
This twofer includes Lavern Baker’s earliest LPs. She started with LaVern Baker – Rock ‘n’ Roll, which gives an indication of the market audience, following it up with the eponymous LaVern (having thus established who she was with some big hits from that first LP, namely Jim Dandy, Tweedle Dee and That’s All I Need). She then moved on to broaden her listening base with the Bessie Smith and Blues ballads albums. So, the two discs, recorded between 1956 and 1959 offer a valuable perspective on her earliest days in the studios.
Her first LP is solidly based in R ‘n’ B vernacular with doo-dah backings, yackety-yak tenor sax outings, and rudimentary arrangements. The hits still hit home, though it’s the Mahalia Jackson, Gospel influence that now seems most valuable in her early recordings, transcending, for a time at least, the more cursory elements of the genre. It just so happens that I find her second album very limited in scope and ambition. The throaty honking tenor sax accompaniments – reeking of King Curtis - and the vibes shimmer offer mild distraction, and so does the brief and very occasional electric guitar solo but the soaring backing singer effects and the metronomic nature of the bare-bones arrangements makes these sides sound predictable – more predictable than, perhaps, they seemed at the time.
In January 1958 she recorded a Bessie Smith album and fortunately had with her some elite sidemen, rather than the anonymous backing musicians from her first two albums. Buck Clayton, Vic Dickenson, Paul Quinichette, Sahib Shihab, Nat Pierce, Danny Baker and Wendell Marshall led a contingent though Jimmy Cleveland, Urbie Green, and Jerome Richardson also solo to fine effect. Fortunately, Baker made no attempt to copy Smith’s delivery –she knew that would be pointless – and her own approach is throaty, occasionally unsubtle but always lively and vivid. Obbligato solos from the brass men, in particular, are highly effective, whilst Quinichette and Richardson turn in telling contributions. Nat Pierce is somewhat under-recorded. I’m not sure why Young Woman’s Blues sounds so muffled; it’s like listening under water.
The Blues Ballad album rather reverts to the yackety-doo wop elements of the earliest discs though the Gospel infusion once again broadens its stylistic reach and gives it a greater sense of depth. Fortunately, for every bad choice – no one will ever want to listen twice to Humpty Dumpty Heart – there are witty additions from the stables of Berry Gordy and Sedaka and Greenfield: up to the minute and classy. It’s a shame that the shuffle rhythm rather does for St Louis Blues, a tune that, by rights, could have graced the Bessie Smith album.
These four LPs have their ups and also their downs. A lot of sifting is required but perseverance is a virtue given Baker’s commanding expression, her Gospel affiliations, her rootedness in jazz and her absorption of Rock and her leading role in Rhythm ‘n’ Blues.
Jonathan Woolf
LaVern
Lots And Lots Of Love
Of Course I Do
You’ll Be Crying
Miracles
I’m In A Crying Mood
Mine All Mine
Harbor Lights
I’ll Never Be Free
Romance In The Dark
Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool
How Long Will It Be
Fool That I Am
LaVern Baker
Jim Dandy
Tra La La
I Can’t Love You Enough
Get Up, Get Up (You Sleepy Head)
That’s All I Need
Bop-Ting-A-Ling
Tweedle Dee
Still
Play It Fair
Tomorrow Night
That Lucky Old Sun
Soul On Fire
My Happiness Forever
How Can You Leave A Man Like This?
LaVern Baker sings Bessie Smith
Gimme A Pigfoot
Baby Doll
On Revival Day
Money Blues
I Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle
Back Water Blues
Empty Bed Blues
There’ll Be A Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight
Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out
After You’ve Gone
After You’ve Gone
Preaching The Blues
Blues Ballads
I Cried A Tear
If You Love Me
You’re Teasing Me
Love Me Right
Dix-A-Billy
So High, So Low
I Waited Too Long
Why Baby Why
Humpty Dumpty Heart
It’s So Fine
Whipper Snapper
St. Louis Blues
LaVern Baker (vocals) with various personnel, recorded 1956-59