Blind Blake & The Royal Victoria Hotel Calypsos - Bahamian Songs

Old-time funky Nassau

Not the Jacksonville, Florida bluesman, but the Bahamian calypso-ist, this Blind Blake proved no less influential on America’s 60s folk revival than his better-known namesake.

As the former Blake died in the mid-30s (as far as we know), our man Alphonso Blake Higgs was only just getting started and, in the early 50s, he recorded a slew of tracks that have since become standards. While the likes of Delia Gone are now murder ballad classics, check out Jones (Oh Jones), bursting with vitiriolic vengeance as Blake recounts the lovers he’s lost to the titular villain. Once the singer’s best friend, Jones’ future looks bleak as Blake threatens to chop him into pieces just big enough for stew, kill him “dead and burial”, then dig his carcass up for the buzzards. Grizzly anger.

The Beach Boys might have famously updated John B Sail (Wreck Of The John B), while Dylan overhauled Eighteen Hundred & Ninety One’s boastful refusal to work for a tale of his own drinkin’n’wimmen scrapes on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’s I Shall Be Free. Blake’s own versatility, however, is what makes this so appealing. King Edward VIII canoodling with Wallis Simpson gets a controversial recount, while Yes, Yes, Yes’ quickfire punchlines prove Blake a master of the giggle too.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Megaphone | CDMEGA 22

Reviewed by Jason Draper
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