Yazoo Records

Another blues record where the back cover is more academic, almost archaeological, and attracts attention because of the information it contains. It comes from my father's fantastic collection of blues records assembled during the blues revival of the 60s and 70s.

"It is a compilation of tracks recorded by blues artistes Leroy Carr (piano) and Scrapper Blackwell (guitar) entitled "Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell - Naptown Blues 1929-1934". During the blues revival in the '60s and '70s a number of labels emerged which compiled old, mainly pre-war, 78 rpm recordings borrowed from collectors' libraries of rare originals. One of these labels, Yazoo, was founded in New York by Nick Perls in 1967, adopting an art deco peacock as its logo taken from the 1927 Black Patti label (see below). As can be seen from the back of the album, released as Yazoo L1036 in 1973, there is little to attract the artistically minded but much to anyone interested in details of the content and the performers, even, in this case, to the extent of seeing the death certificate for Leroy Carr who died in 1935. The cover art is attributed to Bob Aulicino who also produced artwork for Nick Perls on the Blues Goose label which he started in 1970 and which focused on live recordings of some re-discovered blues performers as well as some of the up-and-coming artists."