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Wednesday 22 June 2011

Random Review #74 Cherry Poppin' Daddies - Zoot Suit Riot The Swingin' Hits Of The

C9S2CD9 Picked by@spurssimon follow his life in music year by year (amongst other things) at the great blog rumbles and grumbles which is linked at the right hand side of the blog.


Due to my High Fidelity style reshuffle of my music collection this pick takes me into the Blues section of my music and an album I confess that I have hardly listened to. As I have explained  before once I start to get into a certain genre of music part of the joy for me is the research and discovery of the different sub-sections of music within the genre, and where it all evolved from. Blues has lots of sub sections, piano blues, guitar blues, harmonica blues to name three instrument led sections, but then you can split guitar blues into Chicago, Memphis and Texas if you want to go by Geography. I could go on forever but you get the idea. I got into the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies via a great guitarist called Ronnie Earl (see review dated 20th February 2011) who led me to discover a band called Roomful of Blues, they played what is called swing blues, upbeat high tempo, music heavy on brass and delivered by bands, dressed to the nines, in baggy (Zoot) suits, shirts and ties and the odd fedora hat. The music comes originally from the likes of Cab Calloway who most will remember singing Minnie the Moocher in the film The Blues Brothers. Loving Roomful of Blues made me want to find more music of this ilk and I discovered the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies in a blues magazine.

This album is a greatest hits, but doesn’t mention which part of their career it covers or when it was released. I think it was packaged together for the UK market when swing dancing was becoming popular and doesn’t even have a picture of the band and you get the idea it was pulled together in a hurry. There are 7 members of The CPD’s however there is an additional 29 musicians on this album including a  9 piece brass section classed The First Church Of Sinatra who play on Come Back To Me.

Most of the tracks are as mentioned up tempo danceable songs that are full of innuendo, Shake Your Lovemaker, Here Comes The Snake, and Dr. Bones, give you an idea of what I mean! I don’t know why I’m trying to explain this they are called the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, what more do you need to know!! Saying that Drunk Daddy addresses alcohol abuse and domestic violent, all be it in a very crude way......
“Drunk Daddy broke my fingers
Drunk Daddy kicked my head
Drunk Daddy smashed my Sister
Turned my whole world red”

The album is a bit to samey for me tracks merge from one to another without really making an impact, I much prefer the band I mentioned previously Roomful Of Blues, that for me have much more variety to their music and a bit more style. I can’t hate this album but I also can’t imagine playing it again this side of 2020.

Mark 5/10





2 comments:

  1. Not a great one then, sorry about that Andy!!

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  2. don't be sorry tey are my CD's, and the enforced listening is great as I ensure I'm not missing out on anything, I have overlooked

    ReplyDelete