XMAS CANDY

TEXAS BLUES PIANIST / SINGER 
CANDY GREEN
THE LADY IN RED   (JSP Records 1022, UK, 1981)

At the end of the post on Leo Wright earlier this month, I was enquiring whether anyone would have in his/her record collection, the LP recorded by the elusive pianist Candy Green in UK in the early eighties on the JSP label.  It’s one of those albums that never made it to CD format.

That’s the beauty of blogging. Here it is! A beautiful rip in glorious FLAC with full scan.

Ain't that a lovely Xmas present?  

Many thanks to Grumpy, a regular visitor!  

"DR. BLUES" CANDY GREEN  p, voc

real name: Clarence "Galveston" Green

b. 1929  d.1988

Clarence “Candy” Green (1929 – 1988), who is not related to the guitar playing Green brothers Cal and Clarence from Houston, is the blues composer of "Galveston Blues" and "Green's Bounce." At the age of 15, Clarence played piano for tips in the world of honky tonks and brothels. Later, Don Robey signed Clarence to a three year contract for the Peacock label resulting in the recording "Hard Headed Woman" with Bill Harvey's Band which was the "baddest band in America at the time." He also worked with Johnny Fontenette, Horace Richmond, Rip Bolden, Wes Montgomery, Leo Wright's band, and Sonny Boy Williamson. He was for a time a merchant seaman and travelled from Mexico City to New York, East Germany to Czechoslovakia playing music and gambling.

Read the small biography by Mike Leadbitter here.

Candy Green - Lady In Red (JSP 1022)

Another Mule; That Ain't Right; Taxi Lady; Please Set A Date; One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer; Gee Baby; Ain't I Good To You — Early In The Morning; In The Evening; Lady in Red; Wee Baby Blues; Boogie Stuff; Don't Cry Baby.

Candy Green (v/p), London, November 28, 1980.

Though he began his career as a blues/r&b musician, Green has spent much of his recent past playing in more modern idioms. This is a journey back to his youth in South Texas in the forties, and something of the spaciousness of traditional Texas piano-playing is on view (Another Mule, In The Evening), though his instrumentals (TaxiLady, Boogie Stuff] do not recreate the old-time barrelhouse sound. Green is a vigorous and pliant singer, quite light in his approach. His playing is deft, but hasn't that sense of playing between the notes that the truest blues pianists convey, and seldom is his touch really bluesy. Possibly a trio setting, after the manner of Charles Brown, with a similarly elegant guitarist, would have shown him off better. This is a pleasant record, but rather mild and uneventful.

Tony Russell Jazz Journal, May 1982