The soundtrack to the
Louie Bluie
film has
Howard Armstrong
(aka
) in informal settings with various musicians including
Ted Bogan
,
Ikey Robinson
Yank Rachell
, and
Tom Armstrong
. The selection of material gives a good indication of the breadth of the songster's repertoire, with ragtime, songs in German and Polish, blues, and a bawdy version of "Darktown Strutter's Ball" with much explicit profanity. If you're a casual blues fan and want a representative disc of the songster genre, you could do a lot worse than this, especially as the clear fidelity is far superior to what's possible from remastered 78s. And if you need some of those remastered 78s, the disc isn't a total loss either, as it has the 1934 single he issued under the name "Louie Bluie," "Ted's Stomp"/"State Street Rag," which has some expert, speedy violin (on "Ted's Stomp") and mandolin (on "State Street Rag") by
Armstrong
. The CD reissue adds four songs from 1929-1938 not on the original
Arhoolie
LP: "Vine Street Drag" by
the Tennessee Chocolate Drops
, two sides by
Sleepy John Estes
with
(including the famous "Milk Cow Blues"), and a 1938 single by
. ~ Richie Unterberger