Come on baby, rub my head. Rub my head, while I lay down in my bed

We just got a ton of Mississippi Records stuff. Get in now, because the records really, truly go fast, and they're so limited once they're out, that's it.






True Story of Abner Jay" LP by Abner Jay
Compilation culled from Abners' self released LPs & 7"s featuring hits such as 'I'm So Depressed,' 'Cocaine', 'Vietnam,' & 'The Reason Young People Do Drugs.' Abner Jay was a one-man band singer/songwriter deserving of a wider listening audience than he received in his day. This is the first vinyl release of his material since the 1970s. Great soulful folk & R&B music. Family has the special copies of the LP that include a press photo of Abner, transcriptions of his spoken word pieces, a reproduction of an informative pamphlet about Abner & a press statement penned by Abner himself.

"The approach here was to focus on the songs, and cut out the monologs which normally take up a bunch of space on an Abner Jay record (though actually the spoken intros are transcribed & included as an insert to this LP). [...] Still there’s enough of the Abner Jay banter to get the flavor, and the monologs are sort of intrinsic in several songs. There a few cuts shared between this and the Subliminal Sounds CD comp of a few years back (the only other Abner Jay album you’ll be likely to find), but mostly different tracks. A couple tracks with a full band -- still pretty minimal, but more than the one-man band setup normal for Abner Jay. These tracks are a little surprising -- old school country ballads sounding almost in the vein of like Eddy Arnold or Marty Robbins. But mostly it’s Abner on his six string electric banjo (sonically, its basically a guitar with a nice, sharp attack) with vox & harmonica, kicking out time on a bass drum & high hat, in a style maybe closer to something like Leadbelly -- not exactly blues, typically --I guess technically these would be considered folk ballads, but coming out of a dark, rural funk - deep, deep south. Drugs, depression, women, fishing, Vietnam -- Abner Jay tends to weigh in on themes like these. Jay loved to go off on his background, playing & singing since he was a kid sharecropping on Georgia plantations (c. 1930s), and this stuff is ancient, in form if not content, but I guess most of these tracks were recorded in the ‘60s or ‘70’s, while Jay was an entertainer in Atlanta bars. This stuff is the real deal, & as I’ve said before, one of a kind. No less than four inserts: a bio -- repro of Abner Jay’s self penned onesheet, looks like -- a nice looking promo photo, a little pamphlet advert from when Abner was playing the Steven Foster Museum Center in White Springs, FL, and the aforementioned transcription of the excised monologs. Incredible stuff - you know this wont be around for long." - from Exiled Records






*MR-018 (same number as Orchestre Regional De Kayes) - Armchair Boogie (LP), by Michael Hurley & Pals. Released March 2009. Originally recorded 1969 and produced by J.C. Young "in Snock's bedroom Brookline Massachusetts." Remastered by Tim Stollenwerk. Personnel: Michael Hurley (vocals, guitar, piano, mock trumpet); Maggie Hurley (vocals); Robin Remaily (fiddle, mandolin, vocals); Michael Kane (bass, coronet [sic], vocals); Jeff Myer (drums); Scott Lawrence (piano); Jesse C. Young (bass, guitar); Earthquake Anderson (harmonica).




Ntsamina (LP), by Spiritual Singers. Released 2009. No catalog number and no indications on cover or label that this is a Mississippi Records release, however "MR032" appears in the dead wax. Obscure Congolese pop-Gospel, ca. 1970-1980. "Loose-knit, almost ‘Shaggs-like’ rhythms. Accompanied by male and female vocals. From slow dirges reminiscent of Beatles pop melodies to fast African rockers inspired by American '50s R&B. A truly unique record."



I Woke Up One Morning In May (LP), by Various Artists. Released 2009. Mastered by Tim Stollenwerk. Selected pre-war blues recorded between 1927-1934. In the same vein as Last Kind Words (MR-005) compilation.



Intermittent Signals (LP), by The Rats. Released April 2009. Includes insert: reproduced flyer advertising a $2.00 show featuring The Rats and The Fastbacks back in the day. "Intermittent Signals offers up more of the same synth-laced punk rock garage rock stomp found on their s/t debut, maybe a wee bit tighter and more polished, but still heavy and snotty and snarly and swaggery -- a definite old AC/DC vibe happening too, killer riffing, tons of hooks, wild drumming, Fred's drawled punk rock vox, Toody's more frenetic yelp, all crammed into short sharp blasts of hooky catchy punk rock power pop genius. Original drummer Rod Rat guests on a couple tracks. He ended up committing suicide not long afterwards. Drummer Sam Henry would go on to drum for The Wipers as well as Napalm Beach. Another essential slice of PDX punk rock history" (from Aquarius Records blurb).




This one will be in next week:
In Times Like These.... (LP), by Bishop Perry Tillis. Released April 2009. Raw, lo-fi recordings culled from 62 hours of cassette tapes recorded on a boombox in the home of Bishop Tillis of Samson (Sampson), Alabama. Electric guitar-based gospel played and sung by either Bishop Tillis, an "angel in presence" (a different voice or personality channeled by Tillis), or a combination of the two. Tillis's duets are "two or three track performances he would record through a system of boomboxes. One boombox would be employed as an overdubbing device while he preformed along with it into yet another" (from insert, p.3). Produced by Amos Harvey and engineered and mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk. Insert notes by Amos Harvey. Cover photos by Axel Küstner, with insert photos by Amos Harvey and Katie Burkart. Insert includes conversations with Tillis about his life and recordings through the channeled voices of his guardian angels and deceased family members.

I DON'T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE
J. Spaceman on the Strange and Beautiful Canon of Mississippi Records

BY J. SPACEMAN

I’ve always had this belief that if you produce something beautiful, and it’s packaged beautifully and has had some love and attention invested in it, then somebody will want it.

Unfortunately, the record industry is the opposite of that. It’s all about “How cheaply can we put this together?” And “How efficiently can we knock ’em out to make the biggest buck?”

From the late 80s on, the record industry made huge amounts of money reselling the same stuff on CD they’d already sold to everybody. They sold the Rolling Stones catalog again, Neil Young again, everybody AGAIN in a different format.

Even people who had the original vinyl bought the new CDs, so their profits went up a thousandfold. Now, because they’re not making the same kind of profits, there’s this fear about the future of music. I just think: “How much do you want to make?”

For me, music and art have got to be about more than making money.

I think the business of putting out records should revolve around being passionate about them, and that’s why I’m such a big fan of the Mississippi Records label.

It’s a label with offices in Portland and Montreal, run by two guys, Warren Hill and Eric Isaacson, who willfully avoid things like the internet or any kind of self-promotion.

They release interesting records of old, obscure, and unbelievably beautiful music. The original releases were available in quantities of 500 to 1,000 and on the back it said something like: “We’re sorry, we can’t do more than this, but if you want to make copies for your friends on any format, do it.”

The records sell for $10 apiece so it’s obvious that they’re coming from a place that has a deep love of music, not profit. I guess they’re barely scraping their money back.

For the rest of the article (J's picks)