Various Artists - Paramount Blues: Lock and Key Blues

2007 release

The Paramount record label of the 1920s and '30s started out as an a side venture of the Paramount Furniture Company in Grafton, WI, a way to sell the company's line of phonograph players by featuring a line of cheaply made 78s to play on them.

Luckily, the Southern blues musicians the company recorded at the time just happened to be pretty vital, and such country-blues legends as Charley Patton, Skip James, Blind Blake, and Blind Lemon Jefferson all recorded classic sides for Paramount, as did dozens of lesser known and obscure figures, many of whose recordings are collected here on this 20-track compilation.

There aren't any big country-blues names here, but there are plenty of little gems, including Geeshie Wiley's stark and haunting "Last Kind Words Blues" from 1930, Ramblin' Thomas' poignant "So Lonesome" from 1928, Walter "Buddy Boy" Hawkins' "Shaggy Dog Blues" from 1927, and Freddie Spruell's "Tom Cat Blues" from 1928.

AllMusic Review by Steve Leggett