Modern country music lost one of its most distinctive voices when Texan Frankie Miller died on August 29th, in his 96th year. Miller began recording for the Gilt-Edge label shortly before being drafted for the Korean War in 1952. When he came home in 1954, Miller signed a contract with Columbia Records and recorded a dozen sides for the label before taking a well-earned break.
It was during this period that Frankie Miller made a career-changing decision. In 1956, he and his musician-brother Norman recorded a song that Frankie had recently written called Blackland Farmer. Despite having no label affiliation at that point, Frankie was sure he could interest someone in his catchy new composition. He was right, but it took a few years. In 1959, Frankie signed a recording contract with Nashville-based independent Starday Records, who promptly released Blackland Farmer, thus beginning a long-term association that benefited both parties.

To: Friends, family, customers & contributors
From: Richard Weize
 
This is a letter I have not wanted to write. In fact, I have put off writing it for several years.
 
Ever since I founded BEAR FAMILY RECORDS in 1975, I have focused on producing quality releases – first on LPs and later on CDs and box sets. I have worked with the finest engineers and music researchers and writers to create the highest quality product.

There were numerous parallels between country and blues during the 1940s and ‘50s, including a shared love for often-hilarious double-entendre-loaded material. That’s precisely what this series is about. Raunchy couplets abound throughout ‘I Want A Man (Who’s Gonna Do It Right),’ loaded with risqué postwar R&B houserockers by jump blues shouters Wynonie Harris, Roy Brown (his outrageous account of jailbird Butcher Pete has to be heard to be believed), Bull Moose Jackson, and seductive Dinah Washington. There are also vocal group hijinks from The Swallows and Dominoes, and it’s unlikely Dirty Red’s no-holds-barred Mother Fuyer could grace contemporary airwaves any more than it could in 1947.

There were countless small independent record labels specializing in sizzling rock and roll and rockabilly spread across the American south during the 1950s and ‘60s. These seven collections offer some truly sparkling examples of those companies’ output. Houston-based Spade Records unleashed its share of rip-snorting rockabilly by Royce Porter and Vern Pullens, while Wild Hog Hop spotlights an insane vocal by label co-owner Bennie Hess. Yucca Records was located way out in Alamogordo, New Mexico, yet owner Calvin Boles had no problem attracting top-notch talent—among these two volumes from its catalog are blues guitar great Long John Hunter, whose El Paso Rock stirred up a lot of desert dust, and Bobby Fuller long before he ever fought the law.

BIBI JOHNS
HOW HIGH THE MOON
1949 - 1950
mit Bonus Track aus 1948
 
BIBI JOHNS
MUSIC, MUSIC, MUSIC
1950 - 1951
 
Mit diesen beiden Streaming-Sets eröffnet ….AND MORE BEARS eine musikalische Reise durch die außergewöhnliche und vielseitige Karriere von Bibi Johns, die mit den frühen Jahren von 1948 bis 1951 beginnt. Weitere Veröffentlichungen werden folgen.