The Blues in St. Louis, Vol. 1: Daddy Hotcakes

When George “Daddy Hotcakes” Montgomery sings “Mustard Greens,” his rich, rugged voice shifts from a call-and-response conversation about eating cornbread and mustard greens to lyrics about growing up in the country. The impulse of the moment is what drives him. Samuel Charters, who recorded Daddy Hotcakes in 1961, continues to marvel at Hotcakes’ ingenuity twenty years later: “I never have recorded anyone who was quite like him.... Using his imagination and a store of blues phrases to help him through occasional hesitations he simply made up the songs as he went along…. I never could be sure what was coming next.” Hotcakes developed his style wandering across the South and taking on various performing jobs on the road. He settled in St. Louis in the 1940s, where he continued performing on the streets and entertaining people in St. Louis streetcars. This compilation explores Daddy Hotcakes’ creativity and imagination, key ingredients for the St. Louis blues.

Track Listing

101	Strange Woman Blues	Daddy Hotcakes	03:11
102	The Deep Blue Sea	Daddy Hotcakes	02:44
103	Well, I've Been Down to Memphis	Daddy Hotcakes	04:02
104	Pull My Windowshade Low	Daddy Hotcakes	02:49
105	Wine Blues	Daddy Hotcakes	03:17
201	Mustard Greens	Daddy Hotcakes	03:53
202	Corrine Corrina	Daddy Hotcakes	02:28
203	Don't Sass My Grandmother	Daddy Hotcakes	02:30
204	Hawaiian Dream Blues	Daddy Hotcakes	01:47
205	I Ride My Horses Most Anywhere	Daddy Hotcakes	03:10
206	I've Got a Woman Who's Very Nice to Me	Daddy Hotcakes	03:05