Fred Davis & The Blues Express - Fred Davis & The Blues Express (Cuyahoga River Fire Smoke LP) RSD23

This product is a Record Store Day 2023 title.

This is not available to pre-order and is available to buy in store, on a first come, first served basis from 8am on 22nd April 2023. Remaining copies will be available to buy online from 8pm on Monday 24th April 2023. Please use the 'Notify When Available' button to be the first to know about availability of products online.

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For Fans Of...Magic Sam, Otis Rush, GA-20, Albert King, Elmore James. Never before heard blues from 1969! Exclusive RSD 2023 release! Pressed on "Cuyahoga River Fire Smoke" vinyl at Gotta Groove Records, Includes download card. On Remined Records, Colemine's re-issue imprint. Produced by Eli 'Paperboy' Reed. Recorded by Eli's father in 1969. Tapes have been hidden for over 50 years, now being released for the first time ever. "Fred Davis was a legend, but only in my living room. As a teenager, I started digging deeper and deeper into the blues records in my Dad’s collection. That was when I started to get the Fred Davis story in fits and starts. Fred could play like T-Bone Walker and had a keen voice like J.B. Lenoir, he said. He used to front a jump band in Kansas City, before something went down that sent him to prison at Leavenworth. In the summer of 1967, he ended up working alongside my Dad at Harco, the Cleveland factory where my grandfather was an executive. They became friends, bonding over the B.B. King and Bobby Bland records blaring from the AM radio on the factory floor. Fred taught my Dad the rudiments of blues guitar, but his style. Instead of barring with his first finger, he wrapped his thumb around the back of the neck. That left his other fingers free to create big, ringing voicings that imitated the Kansas City horn sections he heard in his youth. Fred could play up and down the neck and, even when he played and sang just by himself, he sounded like a full band. Or, at least, so the legend went. These were only foggy memories from thirty years previous, passed down from a father to a son. But then we found the tape. A quarter inch reel in a plain white cardboard box, hiding on a shelf in the attic. My Dad explained how it came to exist: He found some friends (acquaintances really) who had a band and some equipment. They setup in my grandparents living room where the upright piano was, and he invited Fred over to record some of his songs with the band backing him up. We found a place nearby that could dub the tape and put it on a CD for us. When we finally got the transfer back, the legend became real. With this music now professionally transferred and remastered, I can only hope that Fred Davis can finally receive the acclaim that he deserves; that he never received in his lifetime. The legend can finally go behind the confines of my living room and, with any luck, to the whole world."

1. Wine Hop
2. Drifting Blues
3. Express Train
4. Midnight is Falling (acoustic)
5. Piano Boogie
6. Time When You Say You Love Me
7. Midnight is Falling
8. Euclid Avenue
9. Five Long Years
10. Wine Hop (acoustic)
11. Tell Me Pretty Baby