Houston-based Freedom Records only lasted four years, from 1948 until 1952, but during that time they managed to released 50 singles by the likes of
Big Joe Turner,
Texas Alexander,
Little Willie Littlefield, and
Jesse Thomas, among others. Owned by transplanted New Yorker Solomon M. Kahal, whose principal background was in Tin Pan Alley, Freedom ended up focused on the jump blues and rhythm & blues generated out of Houston's Fourth Ward clubs. His relationship with a band called Conney's Combo gave him three artists, singer
L.C. Williams,
Lonnie Lyons on piano, and guitarist
Goree Carter, with which to build up his label; he later added teenage piano wizard
Little Willie Littlefield, who went on to record for the Bihari Brothers' Modern Records in Los Angeles. The company's big coup, however, was getting
Big Joe Turner, then unsigned and on a Southern tour, for a quartet of singles, and also nailing
Lightnin' Hopkins as an accompanist. This single 14-song CD isn't a proper cross-section of Freedom's output, but it has its share of self-contained high points:
L.C. Williams' hit "Ethel Mae," twhich put Freedom on the map;
Turner's "Adam Bit the Apple" and "Midnight Is Here Again," the boogie-woogie piano of "Littlefield's Boogie" by
Little Willie Littlefield,
Goree Carter's rocking "Come On Let's Boogie,"
Jesse Thomas' sax-driven jump blues ("Let's Have Some Fun"), and
Lonnie Lyons' slow ballad "Far Away Blues." The material crosses between guitar and piano blues and that brand of big-band-type R&B that was still popular at the end of the 1940s; it also has one of the funniest blues records this writer has ever heard,
Clarence Samuels' frantic "She Walk (Part 1)." The sound is just about decent, sometimes with a fair amount of noise, and a lot of this obviously came from disc sources -- given the 50-year age of the source material and the fact that it was intended for 78-rpm release by a long-dissolved local label, it's hard to complain. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
