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Block And Tackle Blues

Blythe & Burton

Buddy Burton , Jimmy Blythe

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This duet was recorded in Chicago on April 1st 1928 featuring Jimmy Blythe piano & vocals, and W E "Buddy" Burton piano & vocals.

*"Block And Tackle Blues" was composed by W.E. Burton and Jimmy Blythe.

Jimmy Blythe and W.E. Burton were pianists and contemporaries active on Chicago's notorious South Side in the '20's and early '30's. Having arrived in the city separately five years apart coincidentally both men originally hailed from Kentucky. The two were friends and appeared on record together on numerous occasions, with Burton playing washboard & kazoo on many of Blythe's "State Street Ramblers'" sides cut between 1927 and 1931.

On this exhilarating piano duet the two highly skilled musicians demonstrate their improvisation and storytelling skills with an immersive tale surrounding an epic Chitlin Function "over at Sam and Sue's house" with some of that good old moonshine they call "Block and Tackle". And when the police decide to raid the party its time for fleeing guests to implement yet another use of the term "block and tackle"!