Let's Have a Party (The Aladdin Recordings)

Performer: Amos Milburn
Producer: Dave Penny; Joe Foster
Distributor: Infinity Entertainment Gr

Notes: Personnel: Amos Milburn (vocals, piano); McHouston "Mickey" Baker, Johnny Brown, Gene Phillips, Irving Ashby, Jack Marshall, Johnny Lee Moore, Al Hendrickson, Bob Bain (guitar); Jewell L. Grant, Leroy Robinson (alto saxophone, baritone saxophone); Harry Klee (alto saxophone); Claude McLin, Clifford Solomon, Don Wilkerson, Eddie Chamblee, Bill Hill, Clyde Dunn, Lee Allen Orchestra, Hubert "Bumps" Myers, Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis , Plas Johnson (tenor saxophone); Joe Evans & Arthur McClain, Alvin "Red" Tyler (baritone saxophone); Isaac Royal, Harry Parr Jones, Harry "Sweets" Edison, John Anderson (trumpet); Arnett Sparrow, Herbie Harper (trombone); Ernie Freeman, Arnold Ross (piano); Norman Blake, Joe Foster (synthesizer); Eldeen McIntosh, Ray Martinez , Lawrence Norman, Milt Holland, Rufus "Speedy" Jones, Oscar Lee Bradley, Donald Dean (drums). Liner Note Author: Dave Penny. Recording information: Los Angeles, CA (01/04/1950-01/28/1957); New Orleans, LA (01/04/1950-01/28/1957); New York, NY (01/04/1950-01/28/1957). Author: Amos Milburn. Few artists in the history of recorded music have made alcoholism seem quite as appealing as Amos Milburn did on his run of hits for Aladdin Records in the '40s and '50s. Milburn was one of the biggest rhythm & blues stars of the pre-rock era, and his celebrations of wild, booze-fueled nights -- "Let Me Go Home, Whiskey," "Bad, Bad Whiskey," "Juice, Juice," "Vicious, Vicious Vodka," and "One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer" among them -- were potent enough to give even the most zealous reader of The Big Blue Book second thoughts about turning down a cocktail. It helped that Milburn was a top-shelf boogie pianist with a sly, witty vocal style, and he was fortunate enough to get just the right help in the recording studio. Let's Have a Party (The Aladdin Recordings) collects 29 numbers Milburn recorded between 1950 and 1957, which means a few of his biggest early hits don't make the cut (the frantic version of "Chicken Shack Boogie" which appears here is a recut recorded in New Orleans in 1956, with Lee Allen and Red Tyler on sax), but what's here is uniformly fine, and even the silly closing number, "We Teenagers Know What We Want" (recorded when Milburn was pushing 30), cooks with gas. While roadhouse jump blues was Milburn's specialty, that's not all this set has to offer; Milburn delivers a great version of Lionel Hampton's "Flying Home," shows his gift for slow blues on "Tears, Tears, Tears," and even leaves the bottle alone for a while on the midtempo groove "Milk and Water." Among single-disc collections of Milburn's work, The Best of Amos Milburn: Down the Road Apiece has the edge since it includes his material from the '40s, and Mosaic's exhaustive The Complete Aladdin Recordings of Amos Milburn is heartily recommended to the wealthy and obsessed, but Let's Have a Party is still an excellent collection of Milburn in his prime, and it'll have you and your friends cracking open your liquor cabinet in no time flat. ~ Mark Deming

Amos Milburn's recordings from the late 1940s and early '50s are among the first vital stirrings of rock & roll. Texas born and bred, Milburn's piano-driven mixture of R&B, blues, and boogie created musical ripples still heard decades after his passing. Unfortunately, Milburn's hard-drinking persona--exemplified in hits such as "Bad, Bad Whiskey" and "One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer"--also led to his death at only 52 years of age.

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