Goree Carter & His Hepcats – Rock Awhile (Full Presto 78 Version)
Goree Carter & His Hepcats – Rock Awhile (Short Presto 78 Version)
It’s not often that I find something that perplexes me totally, and so, when I do, I feel a need to share the story…Yesterday, Egon, of Now-Again Records, fame had a pop-up at his spot in Highland Park. This particular month the focus was the record collection of Houston legend Bubba Thomas, featuring work that he recorded with his group, The Lightmen, as well as things recorded on his own “Lightnin'” label and assorted other Houston related gems and classic bits of wax. These days, I tend to shy away from the things I’ve either already run into in the past, or that I used to own, mostly just because I know I can find copies of those things, and instead I gravitate towards things that I know I’ll never run into again (and this particular pop-up was great for that, as subsequent posts will show, featuring fairly long-time wants from Cold Fire Inc. and Iranian musician Shamayehzadeh).
In that regard, I saw this strange bit of wax (not even wax really, but feeling like metal), with no label and the extra low price of $5. I love a good mystery and so I put it in my stack of wax and went through all of Egon’s wares before taking a listen to things. I’d never seen the “Presto” stamp, but it sounded like something that might have been a one-off or a local pressing plant and, given the Jazz bent to the collection, I was expecting some lo-fi locally produced Jazz. When I played the record at 33rpm, I was amazed at how crazy it sounded, with this weird drone-y guitar and what sounded like a distorted trombone. The thought occurred to me that given the fact that it seemed like only one song was on each side of music that perhaps it should have been played at 45rpm, so I kicked up the tempo and the sounds were a little quicker, but still basically on the Spiritual Jazz/Avant-Garde tip.
I’m not sure how I figured out that this should really be played at 78 rpm, but thankfully I was able to adjust the little portable turntable at Rappcats to 78rpm (This particular detail is a fascinating one, because normally I bring my own portable record player and if I had, I never would have even known this was supposed to be played at 78rpm, since I’ve NEVER owned a 78 or a player that goes up to 78rpm. It’s possible that had I done what I normally do at these pop-ups, I would never have even known what this record is!). When I played it at 78rpm, the full measure of the song finally revealed itself to me. What I heard was this really rocking Jump blues, with this great T-Bone Walker inspired guitar. I didn’t need to listen to much to know at $5 this was a steal, whatever it was.
Taking it to Egon didn’t help much in terms of solving the mysteries behind the disc, as he had no idea what it was. So, I decided that I’d have to return back to Rappcats, in order to digitally record both sides using Egon’s portables (again, since I don’t own a 78rpm turntable) later in the day. I still wasn’t really thinking about the record all that much, including during the time it was digitizing, which I used to shoot the shit with some of the other collectors/DJs.
It wasn’t until I got home and got a full listen to the digitized song that I could start to figure out what I had here. It didn’t take very long at all to sort out that this was from Houston born/raised, Goree Carter & His Hepcats, with his song “Rock Awhile,” something I had never heard.
As I dug deeper into Goree’s story, I heard the recorded mix of “Rock Awhile” that was released as a 78 in 1949. The mix I had on this 78 sounded VERY different. Much more raw, with different solos and other minor changes all over the place. Once I realized that, I started to think, maybe this was something a good deal rarer than I’d realized when I bought it. Additional digging online made it possible to link the Rappcats sale to Conrad Johnson, who was the saxophone player with Goree Carter, including on this song. Given the fact that Bubba Thomas and Conrad Johnson both worked together with the Kashmere Stage Band, it seemed likely that this had originally come from Johnson’s collection and into Bubba’s collection, and then finally into Egon’s hands for the sale. I really don’t have any idea if this is as rare as it seems (to me it seems like either a demo version before the band was signed to Freedom records, alternate takes from their recording session, or it’s a one-off, just pressed for the members of the band), but whatever the ultimate case may be, it’s an exceptional record, just great sounding and full of the kind of energy that would define early Rock’n’Roll.
If anyone has information on this particular recording, please feel free to contact me at eljefe[at]meltingpot.com, but until then, let’s “Rock Awhile” to Goree and enjoy the sounds!
There is more Goree Carter to be found on the Internet Archives. Scratchy but very cool stuff.