Big John Greer - I'm The Fat Man (2007/2019)

John Marshall Greer, born on November 21, 1923 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, is widely regarded as one of the very best tenor saxophonists to ever grace the R&B genre of music, and a pretty good singer to boot, as you will hear for yourself in this album from the Rev-Ola division of London's Cherry Red Records. It has great sound and informative, interesting liner notes.
Another great collection of jump blues and R&B from Rev-Ola, this time featuring heavyweight singer and sax player Big John Greer recorded between 1949 and 1955. His earlier sides follows the pattern of the blues shouters like Roy Brown and Wynonie Harris. Over several 1949/50 sessions Greer belts out some great rockin' songs like his hot cover of Stick McGhee's Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee plus Long Tall Gal/ I'm The Fat Man and others along with some storming instrumentals like Rockin' With Big John and Big John's A Blowin'. The later sessions find Big John mostly just exercising his mighty lungs with the sax chores handed over to the awesome Sam "The Man" Taylor. The sessions really start to heat up when Mickey "Guitar" Baker joins the fray in '53 and includes his wild version of the old blues standard Bottle It Up And Go, his answer to Chuck Berry Come Back Maybelline, the appropriately titled Play Me Some Loud Music, Lucky Lucky Me and others. This CD also includes his only hit, the great, much covered, blues ballad Got You On My Mind. On three tracks John is joined by the great vocal group The Du Droppers and the great instrumental Blam features sensational guitar by Baker and exclamations from The Four Students. You'd better have a fire extinguisher ready 'cos by the time this disc is finished your CD player will be smoking!