Tampa Red
Don't Jive Me (Original Blues Classics 549)

Hudson Whittaker a/k/a Tampa Red turns out a charmer of an album that hovers between boring and non-boring, manifesting every single available blues cliché while somehow seeming fresh because Tampa puts the material across with such humor and sincerity.

On this 1960 session (engineered by robot overlord Rudy Van Gelder) Mr. Red plays solo electric guitar and sings, accompanied occasionally by his own kazoo playing. It's a totally unpretentious album, and overall pretty great, although it doesn't really stick with you once it's left the CD changer and you're onto Animalize by Kiss.

The opener, "How Long," is the best cut, pure blues and no augmentation. The sort of thing Clapton would be able to do if he weren't white, British, and the father of a dead boy. Typical lyrics about "How long has that midnight train been gone" and "You know I love you baby/You know it's true," but still one of the best blues performances I've heard. Tampa sings with a tremendous amount of humor, elevating the performances beyond the mediocre, putting across lines like:

"She got little bitty legs and a Popeye chin/
She can drink more liquor than a thousand men."

The Beastie Boys couldn't top that one if they tried.

Most of the songs deal with lyin', cheatin', and jelly whippin', and it gets a bit wearisome after awhile, especially when Tampa starts getting all "You be true to me, or I will be false to you."

There's not a great deal of scope, in other words—pretty much every song can be boiled down to Tampa not wanting his woman to jive him, Tampa not wanting other people to dog his woman, Tampa thinking about leaving his woman, and Tampa suggesting that if his woman don't like his jelly, then he can bring his jelly somewhere else. I'm paraphrasing, of course.

The guitar playing throughout is solid and well-performed, but pretty much any album with voice and solo guitar is going to be a bit samey. This seems to be one of the better releases on Prestige's Original Blues Classics imprint, although those new to the blues might want to try something with a beat first.

Real, down-home blues, the real deal, and all that. Good, but non-essential in the long run. Sorry, Tampa, but at least I didn't dog your woman, even though she look like a monkey on circus time. 🤷

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Review by The Big Ouch