:o)

Cover photo of Mississippi Girls: 1928-1931
17.75" x 10.75", oil on roofing felt, 2014

For blues aficionados like myself the Document label is where it's at. The Austrian label has the ambition to release all blues music recorded before 1945 in chronological order. It released nearly a thousand records thus far. I own about twenty-five of them and my favorite is the cd Mississippi Girls: 1928-1931. It contains the complete works (in chronological order of course) of Geechie Wiley and Elvie Thomas (see an earlier post), Mattie Delaney, Mary Butler, and Rosie Mae Moore. Mattie Mae Moore recorded 4 sides in 1928 accompanied by Charlie McCoy on guitar. Staggering Blues and Ha Ha Blues stand out most. Ha Ha Blues makes the top 100 for the second time: "Papa, I'm slipping out tonight, I'm going ha ha ha. All you men, you may go your way. I'm sick and tired, of your low dirty ways". There is no known photograph of Rosie Mae Moore that I'm aware of but the cover photo on the cd-jacket provided a more than appropriate alternative to illustrate Ms. Moore. It's painted on a piece of roofing felt, left over from my roofing job, as a challenge from one of my students who recently started painting on such surfaces. (I don't think I'll do more than one though!)