Search - Robert Pete Williams :: Long Ol Way From Home: The Chicago Sessions

"One of the Top Ten Blues Recordings of All Time"

Marcea Wolf-Carter | Weddington, North Carolina, U.S.A. | 04/03/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a stunning and amazing recording. It's the best Robert Pete Williams recording I have ever heard (and I have heard all of them). It was recorded by Grammy Winning Producer Norman Dayron when he was a student at the University of Chicago in 1965. The sound is clear as a bell and completely transparent. It's just like being there at the actual concerts in Chicago.The recording starts off with Robert Pete telling an original story about going out in Chicago's bitter winter cold the night before the concert. It was 20 degrees below zero and he was hungry, looking for something to eat and wearing just a thin shirt. He had just been released from Angola State Prison in Lousiana where he was serving a sentence for first degree murder (he killed a white man in self-defense in a bar fight) and had never been in Chicago before, so he had no warm clothes. Yet he finds humor in what happened to him there and in his own mistake. The song he composed about that incident "It's So Cold in Chicago" is remarkable for his complex guitar fingerpicking, where he plays the rhythm part, the melody, and the harmony part simultaneously as a powerful second voice in a duet with a dark, strong deep blues vocal sound that can only be compared to Robert Johnson, Son House, or Charly Patton.Finding this recording was, for me, like finding a diamond in my pocket. It's like no other recording of Robert Pete Williams ever made. I recommend it to people who can really hear music (not just deep blues fanatics) and who know the real deal when they hear it. Thank you to Norman Dayron, the blues record producer, who had the good luck to be there at the time and the amazing instinct to just turn on his tape recorder. I would rate this recording as one of the top ten Blues recordings of all time."

Greatest Live Blues Concert Recording of the 20th Century

Marcea Wolf-Carter | 04/06/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What is there to say that hasn't been said by others? This album should be recognized with a Grammy for "Best Blues Concert Recording of the 20th Century". Anyone who has ever been moved, touched and inspired by the Blues should have this album. Norman Dayron, the producer who recorded this album, is either the luckiest man alive, in just being there with his tape recorder when the event happened, or he is the Number #1 Blues Producer in the world (and a musical genius)."

Fantastic

Brian D. Hackert | Peterborough, NH | 06/24/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Excellent sound quality, capturing the music and the rapport with the audience. Great playing and singing from the most unique blues musician on record, along with banter and stories between songs. If you have no Robert Pete Williams yet, this would be a fantastic beginning."