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The Famous Hokum Boys Georgia Tom Dorsey on CD

Hokum' was a raucous, rowdy music that nevertheless demanded good musicianship. All these sides were cut in 1930 - a testament to the popularity of Big Bill and Georgia Tom, both as single artists and as the Famous Hokum Boys. An added joy, on the session of February 5th, is Scrapper Blackwell taking time out from his partnership with Leroy Carr. As it turned out both the principals were to have successful but widely divergent musical careers. Big Bill Broonzy's career lasted well into the 1950s. He was, according to the diktats of the time, a folk singer, bluesman or jazzman. By the time he died in 1958 (of throat cancer, maybe aged 55) he was relatively prosperous and (through the folk world) well connected. Georgia Tom was Thomas Dorsey, whose professional start was playing piano at rent parties. In the mid-1920s he wrote and performed religious material alongside his secular output. In 1928 his recording of the self-composed 'It's Tight Like That' (it's as bawdy as it sounds) was a multi-million seller. In 1932, a crisis - the death of both his wife and newborn son - moved him to confine himself to the religious. When he died, aged 92, he was a leading - and revered - member of the Gospel movement.