# 6 CD review: Blues Like Showers Of Rain – A Compendium Of The Finest British Country Blues Artists – 2023: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2023/10/26/6-cd-review-blues-like-showers-of-rain-a-compendium-of-the-finest-british-country-blues-artists-2023-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2023-10-26T00:04:44+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**For lovers of British Country Blues this extensive collection will be like Christmas
morning squared. It is all presented in pristine sound.**

The 12th and final set of 6CDs in this monumental 72 CD celebration of African/American
blues and gospel music concludes with British blues from the blues boom years of
the 1960s and ‘70s. All the original Matchbox Blues albums were released as vinyl
LPs in the early years of Saydisc and the first album to be released on the dedicated
Matchbox Blues label was in 1968.

This album was ‘Blues Like Showers Of Rain’ and featured the best of British blues
artists at that time. It was a groundbreaking release and was taken up by John Peel
and leading music journalists and created quite a stir at the time. A Vol 2 followed
and further albums by Dave Peabody, Mike Cooper, Ian A Anderson, Tight Like That
and other British blues artists.

The kicker is that it isn’t all just country blues. There are acoustic blues guitar
guys, jug bands, piano players, rags, a bit of hokum and a few surprises to boot.
I am familiar with some of the names and musical reputations here, but I have heard
little of their music until now. I have heard of Jo-Ann and Dave Kelly, Bob Hall
and Ian A. Anderson (Not the Jethro Tull guy, the other one).

Going in one may think this is a collection of boring guitar folkies, but you would
be wrong. These are talented artists all. From skilled guitar finger-pickers to 
goofy jug bands to energy-charged piano masters. I found myself tapping the occasional
toe. This music draws you in. There are covers and variations on classic blues, 
as well as original songs. A few nice surprises as well. There are some instrumentals
to give variety to the proceedings.

The most represented country blues purveyors here are Dave Peabody, Ian A. Anderson,
Mike Cooper and Simon and Steve. That is not to downplay the quality of those with
fewer tracks. Many of the songs are collaborations of various musicians. Steve Rye
of Simon and Steve pops up all over to lend his harmonica expertise to various musicians,
as well contributing one vocal-harmonica piece on his own. Covers of the blues innovators
include the ubiquitous Robert Johnson, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Tampa Red, Blind
Willie McTell, Blind Boy Fuller, Skip James and Blind Blake. Some of the titles 
are altered, such as “Write Me A Few Of Your Lines” becomes “A Few Short Lines”.
Occasionally you witness the lyrical inbreeding that was a usual practice among 
the old-time innovators.

It is needless to say that I won’t be commenting on every one of the over one hundred
songs. Here are some of my personal favorites of the more traditional country blues
performances. Dave Kelly and Mike Cooper offer great versions of “A Few Short Lines”.
Dave’s sister Jo-Ann Kelly, one of the few female country blues singers of this 
era, does a good turn on Memphis Minnie’s “Nothin’ In Ramblin’”. She also does an
unaccompanied and dark “Black Mary”. The only other female included in this collection
is Frances McGillivray. She was a vocalist and is accompanied on guitars here by
Mick Burke & Mikel Kooper. Her hearty vocal energizes “It Hurts Me Too” and “Rambling
Man”.

Mike Cooper and Ian A. Anderson were among the most well-known artists of the era.
Ian’s vocals and guitar shine on “Rowdy Blues”, “Big Road Blues”, “Little Queen 
Of Spades” and “Beedle Um Bum”, among others. He is joined by Elliot Jackson on 
harmonica on a few tunes. Al Jones shares vocals and guitar on the latter. There
is also an uncredited person playing kazoo. Mike Cooper’s approach is similar to
that of Ian A. Anderson. His finger-picked guitar skills and vocals are well represented
on Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Black Snake Moan”, “One Time Blues”, “The Way I Feel”,
among others. His original guitar instrumental puts his guitar skills out there.
Another of his instrumental numbers “The Inverted World” also has Ian A. Anderson
on guitar and Chris Turner on harmonica.

Singer, guitarist, harmonica player and songwriter Dave Peabody also has quite a
presence here. His performances include “Death Letter”, “Love In Vain”, and Big 
Maceo’s “Worried Life Blues”. Two curious inclusions by him that are not usually
associated with the blues are Tommy Tucker’s “Hi-Heeled Sneakers” and Rufus Thomas’s“
Walking The Dog”.

The Panama Limited Jug Band and Tight Like That honor the jug band tradition with
their collection of feel good tunes featuring kazoos, washboard, jug and all manor
of percussion. Songs like “Wildcat Squall” and “Muskrat Ramble”. One song by Tight
Like That jumped out at me-“If I Had A Talking Picture Of You”. It was done by many
acts in the twenties, but the first time I heard it was by The New Vaudeville Band.

Piano players also make a great impression too with the likes of Bob Hall, Diz Watson
and Quentin Williams. They do solo instrumentals and/or accompany others. Damn, 
these guys can play!

A variety of instruments show up all over the place: violin, saxophone, harmonica,
mandolin, banjo and assorted percussion instruments.

I barely scratched the surface of the treats in store here. Everything here is well
worthy of a listen. Here are a few: Al Jones, Little Brother Steve, Simon & Steve,
Pigsty Hill Light Orchestra…on and on. Pick out your own favorites. Not a lemon 
in the bunch! Saydisc has done a real “bang up” job with this compilation.

“This, the twelfth (and concluding) 6-CD set of Matchbox reissues, documents not
the original US blues recordings of the 1920s and 1930s but the British music scene
which they inspired. **Ian Anderson** (later editor of _Folk Roots_, but in the 
late 1960s a sparkplug firing up the country blues scene in Bristol and beyond with
his own performances and indefatigable promotional activities) introduces the set
with a characteristically enthusiastic and highly informative essay. “Suddenly in
1968 the blues and folk worlds found that they had produced a number of artists 
singing the country blues of the 1920s and ’30s perfectly in the idiom, but with
a quality and personal involvement which lifted them far above the level of mere
copyists,” is how he remembers this heady time, and (the best of) the passionate,
committed music caught on these six CDs of British blues and associated music goes
some way towards vindicating his claim. The British Blues Revival is justly celebrated
for its respectful and spirited championing of a cruelly neglected artform (and 
for its spawning of rock behemoths such as the Rolling Stones and Cream), but on
the evidence provided by these CDs, its major achievement was in sending a whole
generation of listeners back to the originals of Robert Johnson, Bukka White, Sonny
Boy Williamson et al.”  **London Jazz News, Chris Parker**

“To say that the **Matchbox Bluesmaster **series is special would not even come 
close in describing their importance: these twelve sets have made up one of the 
finest (and historically important) packages of original blues ever released. To
any blues fan, these sets are surely simply the Golden Nuggets of the blues! Every
one of these discs contains absolute blues gems – diamonds to any blues lover of
course, but also to those yet unaware of the impact the blues has had on so many
areas of modern music… Years ahead of what was to develop into what we now term 
blues-rock, the artists featured throughout this set brought a standard like never
before to the British and European blues scenes. Throughout, the recorded sound 
is of the very highest standard, and this is not so much a history of British blues
of the I 960s, it’s a set that truly demonstrates what put British blues on the 
map: not so much where it began, but when British blues really did equal the best
of blues, anywhere… Totally unmissable, it’s thanks to our friends at Saydisc for
releasing every one of these sets, because this is the blues and how!” **Blues In
Britain**, **Pete Clack**

“I wasn’t too familiar with the British “country blues” scene of the 1960s and early
1970s, and based on its American counterpart I didn’t expect much.  Thus I was very
pleasantly surprised at how generally good the music was, much better than most 
of its white American counterpart.  There were a lot fewer of the annoying mannerisms
of so many of the American artists and a lot less superficiality.  The British performers
really made an effort to get into the spirit and style of the original music and
largely succeeded.  Of course, there were some exceptions, but on the whole this
is very enjoyable both from a musical and historical standpoint.  And you are the
star of the show!  I didn’t realize you had recorded so much way back then.  Excellent
notes too by you and Ian A. Anderson.  I hope this set gets some recognition and
awards.  I liked the jug band tracks too, with a serious blues sound rather than
the corny hokum approach of so many American revivalist jug bands.” **David Evans,
Professor of Music Emeritus, The University of Memphis ****and author of _Big Road
Blues_**

“This, the twelfth (and concluding) 6-CD set of Matchbox reissues, documents not
the original US blues recordings of the 1920s and 1930s but the British music scene
which they inspired. Ian Anderson (later editor of _Folk Roots_, but in the late
1960s a sparkplug firing up the country blues scene in Bristol and beyond with his
own performances and indefatigable promotional activities) introduces the set with
a characteristically enthusiastic and highly informative essay. “Suddenly in 1968
the blues and folk worlds found that they had produced a number of artists singing
the country blues of the 1920s and ’30s perfectly in the idiom, but with a quality
and personal involvement which lifted them far above the level of mere copyists,”
is how he remembers this heady time, and (the best of) the passionate, committed
music caught on these six CDs of British blues and associated music goes some way
towards vindicating his claim. The first two CDs stand head and shoulders above 
the last four. They are taken from two Matchbox albums, _Blues Like Showers of Rain_,
recorded in Frenchay on the outskirts of Bristol in 1968. Singer/guitarist **Jo-
Ann Kelly** is pictured on the album sleeve, but it is her brother, **Dave Kelly**,
who kicks the first volume’s proceedings off with a spirited visit to Eli Green’s“
A Few Short Lines”, setting his wailing vocals against driving bottleneck guitar.
Jo-Ann Kelly interprets her chief inspiration Memphis Minnie’s “Nothin’ in Ramblin’”
with great panache and does an unaccompanied version of “Black Mary”…

The third CD features Cooper and Anderson picking their way through a selection 
of familiar country blues numbers (anomalously attributed on the original album 
not to individual blues composers but “trad.”). Cooper’s guitar playing, as ever,
is simply faultless throughout…

CD 6 is mostly Peabody (highlights: neat rags with great mandolin playing from Dave
Griffiths), but is notable chiefly for containing four cuts by the eccentric but
adept ragtime pianist Quentin Williams, whose intriguing originals are as quirky
as his suggestion that they are played with “plyers and a molewrench”.

Various Artists, “Blues Like Showers of Rain” (Saydisc) – The final offering in 
Saydisc’s excellent Matchbox Bluesmaster series is a 6 CD anthology focussing attention
on some of the British country blues performers who were playing their trade on 
vinyl between the years of 1966 and 1976. The great Jo-Ann Kelly and her brother
Dave of Blues Band fame set the ball rolling in fine style with their impassioned
renditions of Memphis Minnie’s “Nothin’ in Ramblin” and Eli Green’s “A Few Short
Lines” respectively, and this beautifully packaged collection also boasts excellent
contributions from long forgotten figures such as The Panama Limited Jug Band, bottleneck
guitarist Mike cooper and eccentric Bristol pianist Quentin Williams.

**Disc 1: Blues Like Showers Of Rain (Vol.1)**
 **Disc 2: Blues Like Showers Of 
Rain (Vol.2)** **Disc 3: The Inverted Word** **Disc 4: Blues Miscellany: Searchin’
The Desert For The Blues** **Disc 5: Hokum Miscellany: Selling That Stuff** **Disc
6: Ragtime And Miscellaneous: The Nailbreaker**

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