Jimmy Witherspoon - Jimmy Witherspoon

This 1958 LP was just a random -- and short -- roundup of ten tracks from 1949-1951 singles Jimmy Witherspoon had done for Modern. With four national R&B hits ("Ain't Nobody's Business," "No Rollin' Blues," "Big Fine Girl," and "Once There Lived a Fool"), it does supply a fragmentary overview of Witherspoon's early career, in which he -- like so many R&B singers -- was purveying a brand of West Coast blues that could both swing and croon. It's not up there with the singer's best recordings, as it doesn't have the most forceful of the jazz-blues fusions he'd make. Read More