Blues In The Alley CD

Jimmy Wilson
Blues In The Alley - Selected Singles 1948-1956 CD

The subject of this release falls into the category of Great Unknowns, despite enjoying a career that spanned almost a decade and a half and that introduced one of the all-time classics of North California Rhythm & Blues.
Jimmy Wilson was never interviewed, and the very little known about him comes from the memories of a couple of musicians who worked with him at various times.
He started out as a gospel singer, but switched to R&B at the instigation of west coast producer-songwriter Bob Geddins, with whom he was closely associated in the period covered by Blues In The Alley.
Most of his records sold well locally, without crossing over to the mainstream.
The one exception was Jimmy’s ‘signature song’, the original version of the blues standard Tin Pan Alley which probably sold better than all his other records combined, but which he was unable to follow up commercially in spite of making many other recordings of comparable quality.
Blues In The Alley offers a superb overview not just of Jimmy’s music, but also of the Bay Area blues scene of the early 1950s – of which Jimmy was a key component.
Shortly after making the last of the cuts featured here, Jimmy moved away from North California and continued recording in Louisiana.
A heavy drinker, he passed away in 1966 at the age of just 42.
This CD refocuses attention on Jimmy’s recorded legacy with a collection that pulls together all the secular blues recordings that he cut with Geddins between 1948 and 1956.