Got a piece in this week’s Phoenix on some recent reissues of classic rhythm&blues and early rock’n’roll c/o the Specialty label. Fans of my Blogariddims mix should note that that’s where I happened upon Percy Mayfield’s “Louisiana.” But, as mentioned in the review, my favorite recording on all the discs is the absolutely unfuckwitable acapella demo version of “Hit the Road Jack,” featuring Papa Mayfield and an unnamed female partner who, as I put it in the article, “holds a darker-than-blue tri-tone on the chorus’s ‘moooooooore’ in a way Ray Charles wouldn’t dare.”

If she were singing to me, I sure as hell wouldn’t come back. (Or would I?)
Mayfield_RoadJack.mp3

& dig the doubly deferred rhymes in the second verse! Now that’s fonky.

For my moolah, the Mayfield’s the best of the bunch.