Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton is a boxed set collecting remastered versions of the recorded works of blues singer Charley Patton, with recordings by many of his associates, supplementary interviews and historical data. The set won three Grammy Awards, for Best Historical Album, Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package, and Best Album Notes.
Contents
Background
Revenant Records was formed in 1996 by John Fahey and Dean Blackwood. The project to compile a boxed set of Charley Patton's music took approximately two years to complete, financed in a large part by an inheritance Fahey had received. "There's a lot of playful stuff in [Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues], the depth of scholarship is there," said Blackwood. "But we dispense with the pretense."
The package includes seven CDs and is designed to resemble a 78 rpm record release. Only 52 Patton recordings survive to this day and five of the CDs contain these recordings plus songs he performed on as guitarist and other artists he brought to his record label. The seventh disc includes interviews with some of Patton's contemporaries. Also included is a reprint of Fahey’s 1970 master's thesis on Patton as well as notes by blues scholars David Evans, Dick Spottswood, and Ed Komara. Lyrics and reproductions of original 1929 Paramount ads are also included. The printed material covers Patton's life, music, and his world in the Yazoo River Basin within which he lived and performed.
Reception
In his review of the box set, music critic Richie Unterberger called it "Perhaps the most sumptuous, nay incredible, box set package ever devised for a blues artist." He also cautions that some of the tracks "sometimes suffer from unavoidably poor sound quality due to the extremely rough shape of the only surviving original copies."
Scott Schinder of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Revenant "has topped itself with this lavish seven-CD box honoring the gravelly howl, inventive guitar work, and vivid songwriting of seminal Delta bluesman Patton", and he praised the accompanying essay by John Fahey as "illuminating" and "fascinating". In The Guardian, Richard Williams suggested that the "unwieldy but magnificent collection will probably remain for ever unmatched" in its focus on a single musician.
Track listing
Disc 1
By Charley Patton:
"Pony Blues"
"A Spoonful Blues"
"Down the Dirt Road Blues"
"Prayer of Death Part 1"
"Prayer of Death Part 2"
"Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues"
"Banty Rooster Blues"
"Tom Rushen Blues"
"It Won't Be Long"
"Shake It and Break It (But Don't Let It Fall Mama)"
"Pea Vine Blues"
"Mississippi Boweavil Blues"
"Lord I'm Discouraged"
"I'm Goin' Home"
By Buddy Boy Hawkins:
"Snatch It and Grab It"
"A Rag Blues"
"How Come Mama Blues"
"Voice Throwin' Blues"
Disc 2
By Charley Patton:
"I Shall Not Be Moved" (take 1, previously unissued)
"Hammer Blues" (take 1, previously unissued)
Personnel
Dean Blackwood – compilation producer
Scott Colburn – audio production, tape transfer
John Davis – transfer
Potsy Duncan – illustrations, digital manipulation
David Glasser – mastering, audio restoration
Christopher C. King – coordination, transfers, sound director
Alan Lomax – engineer
John Work – engineer
Charlie Pilzer – audio restoration
Matt Sandoski – mastering engineer
Steven Smolian – transfers
David Evans – liner notes
John Fahey – book
Richard K. Spottswood – liner notes
Chris Strachwitz – interviewer
Ernest C. Withers – photography
Henry H Owings – design, layout design
Susan Archie – art direction