Various artists – “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of” 2XCD – Yazoo Records [Album As Art #87]

Only Robert Crumb can do 'em up in this fashion: The cover to "Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of."

I’ve been struggling as to where to go with The Gumshoe Grove. More coverage of current bands? More trips down Nostalgia Lane? More … girls in bikinis toting machine guns?

To tone down the pressure I’m going to bring to your attention a 2CD Americana compilation I purchased years ago, The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of. I discovered it through the Robert Crumb connection — he did the artwork and is a big A-cana supporter — and it’s been a pleasure to return to it when I need mes an old-timey fix.

The liner notes detail the exploits of some famous, from-the-annals-of-history collectors, including brothers whose giant stack of bricabrac collapsed and killed the maniacally fastidious collectors where they sat.

I’m not quite the sort of collector that breaks out into cold sweats and has no friends, but I do have a nice arsenal going and I intend to protect it. I’m not sure if The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of, itself, will become a treasured item someday, but it never hurts to invest in good tunes and top-of-the-line art, both of which Stuff has in kind.

Reviewing this ginormous compilation, dubbed straight from vinyl, comprehensively would be an insane undertaking — ever tried to sum up 46 tunes in 8-10 ‘graphs? — so I’ll just stick to the cuts that penetrate deepest.

First disc:

•  Amedie Ardoin & Dennis McGee‘s “Two Step De La Prairie Soileau” has always been my favorite. A klezmer shit-kicker with fiddles that just won’t quit (or, to put it a different way, go all the way up) and a four/floor bass-drum beat, “Two Step” is the type of tune that gives people the Collector’s Bug in the first place. It’s idiosyncratic, far-out and so specific to its time and place I don’t suspect you’ll be hear material like this played fresh any time soon. So get it here!
• Long “Cleeve” Reed & Little Harvey Hull, shabbily recorded as their cut, “Original Stack O’ Lee Blues,” is, are also so distinct and full of character as to render a lot of the Little House of the Prairie-style songs of the era obsolete. Full of heart, full of soul, but, most of all, full of that down-home, potatoes-’n'-gravy goodness.
• If jug-bandin’ about town is yer thing, you could do worse than the Memphis Jug Band‘s “Jim Strainer Blues,” a kazoo-uncorkin’ shuffler with a nice balance of strum and bottle-blowin’. Not the best; one of the best, though.
• “Ain’t That Trouble in Mind,” a previously unissued — a crime, that — song from Grayson County Railsplitters, brings enough earnestness, delivered in a “tarnation”-style Texas accent, to warrant mention. “Sometimes I have money, Sometimes I have none. When I get on a drunken spree, My money’s been all gone”? Yep, people wrote better lyrics back then, bar none. The honk-heavy harmonica don’t hurt things none. Naw, it sure don’t.

Second disc:

• There’s nothin’ too darn-special about Yank Rachel With Sleepy John Estes & Jab Jones’12-steppin’  ”Sweet Mama,” but it’s solid and sassy, like the best barrelhouse blues numbers. Plus, those names/aliases are some of the best I’ve ever heard of (another good one, if yr looking for a blues alias: Corn Cob Jackson). Jab Jones? J … J … JAWESOME.
•  Ashley & Foster croak out an above-average story-song with “Bull Dog Sal,” and it wasn’t even issued until The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of came out. Crazy.
• “Chicken, oh chicken, roost behind the moon. Chicken, oh chicken, ate it very soon etc. etc.” … Need I say more of Georgia Pot Lickers‘ “Chicken Don’t Roost Too High”?
• I was waiting for a track to remind me of John Fahey and his modern ilk (James Blackshaw, Jack Rose, Ben Chasny), and I found just that in “Wild Cat Rag” by Asa Martin & Roy Hobbs. Bitchin’ pickin’, fellers. Fellers?
• I didn’t realize how many solo bluesmen sound a lot like Blind Lemon Jefferson. King Soloman Hill most definitely fits into that category, but I’m not saying he was ripping off B. Lemon; I’m just saying, having heard Blind Lemon first, that’s my impression. Just sayin’.
• “I Shall Not Be Moved,” by Blind Roosevelt Graves & Uaroy Graves, contains a hint of that New Orleans flavor we all grew a little more familiar with by dint of all the benefit shows after Hurricane Katrina. Soak in some more; it’s good for you.

OK, I’m outta juice. You have to listen to this compilation and get back to me, cool?