Roger Wolfe Kahn & His Orchestra - Russian Lullaby

1927. The Lower East Side of Manhattan. A hot August night. A young Jewish mother, a newcomer to this country, takes her crying newborn from his crib. She sits with him on the fire escape and lulls him back to sleep with a tune from the Old Country: a Russian lullaby.

Emmett presents: "The Waiting Is The Hardest Part"
Spring-Summer Megamix 2010

Face A
Grandstand - Soul Stage Orchestra
Hilly Fields (1892) - Nick Nicely
Just For Me - Manfred Mann
Skyline - Norman Greenbaum
Zoo Gang - Paul McCartney
The John Scene - Tigers On Vaseline

Face B
Morpha Too (rough mix) - Big Star
You Were So Warm - Dwight Twilley Band
Looking For The Magic - Dwight Twilley Band
Cantata Per Maryam - Piero Umiliani
Like We Were Before - Song
The Mess (live) - Wings

Face C
DK 50-80 - Otway & Barrett
Towering Inferno - The Green Arrows
Space (excerpt) - Georges Rodi
Magic - Unknown Artist
Strangers From The Light - Baltinore
Cosmic Surfin' - Haruomi Hosono

Face D
Brodovi - VIA Talas
Summertime City - Mike Batt with The New Edition
(Like A) Locomotion - Leftside
Cardboard Lamb - Crash Course In Science
Under Your Thumb - Godley & Creme
Everyday - William Onyeabor

Face E
Doot Doot (extended version) - Freur
C'est Fab - Nancy Sesay & The Melodaires
Ain't You - Kleenex
Marcy - Norman Greenbaum
Petrol Flowin - Yan d'Ys
Honey In The Rock - Blind Mamie Forehand

zip file with all 30 songs, plus m3u

This megamix is dedicated to my son Noah, born the day after this was posted!

FROM THE ARCHIVES: ELECTION DAY SPECTACULAR

Dock Boggs: Country Blues
John Coltrane: Afro-Blue
Jimi Hendrix: Machine Gun
Mickey Newbury: An American Trilogy
Art Tatum: Elegie

Blind Willie Johnson: In My Time Of Dying [1927]

recorded in Dallas, Texas

I just got back from a bit of travelling, and this was my go-to track for coping with the takeoff-terrors on airplanes.

"Dying will be easy."

Lemon Jefferson: Two White Horses [1927]

Four-on-the-floor.

Dock Boggs: Country Blues [1927]

The psychic intensity of this recording is insane. From the first second, you're hypnotized. It's eerie. Other highlights include the lyrics, Dock kicking ass on the banjo, and the title. Who says "ooh!" after the line "Sweet heaven when I die"?

Some background on the song, from the liner notes:
"Homer Crawford, the itinerant photographer and musician from Tennessee, taught the song to Dock as Hustling Gamblers, probably around 1914. Dock added verses of his own... Hustling Gamblers and Darling Cory belong to the same lyric and tune family, one that has been around in the Southern mountains for over a century. The family of tunes probably originates late in the 19th century and belongs to the then developing tradition of white blues ballads. Dock's tune differs from the common versions..."

There are some fascinating (and scary) stories about Dock's life on The Celestial Monochord, from which I also nicked this photo of Dock, age 9 (in 1907).

This song is available on the Dock Boggs collection Country Blues as well as the legendary Anthology Of American Folk Music.

recorded in New York City