Heavy Sugar: Second Spoonful
"The Pure Essence of New Orleans R&B, compiler Stuart Colman has dug deep into the city's unique recording legacy to bring about a sumptuous second helping. In addition to the requisite sourcings, the net has been cast wider still in order to focus on material gleaned from such picayune outlets as Rustone, Pontchartrain, Athens, Winner and Spinett. There is a very good reason for this. Midway through July 1954, The Times-Picayune (New Orleans' powerful daily broadsheet) brought to its readership's attention an editorial issue entitled "Music Box Week". The feature centered on a coming together of the area's record industry chiefs, and their declaration that the "juke box" had become a national institution. Never had a truer word been spoken. Every diner, bar, night club, laundromat and military barracks within the city limits sported a Wurlitzer, a Seeburg or a Rock-Ola, and the multitude of coins dropped into the slots gave rise to a win-win situation. With the coming of rock & roll in the mid-fifties, it was the Big Easy's arsenal of neon Nickel Odeons rather than its radio stations where you could hear the latest sounds first. This gave the shoe-string independents, most of whom were unlikely to accrue a review in the trades or make a programme director's playlist, the chance of some welcome promotion. So, in order to reflect this freewheeling coalescence, names like Johnny Love, Willie West and Alonzo Stewart have been given the chance to rub shoulders with such greats as Fats Domino, Little Richard and Huey "Piano" Smith. Welcome to Heavy Sugar: Second Spoonful."
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"The Pure Essence of New Orleans R&B, compiler Stuart Colman has dug deep into the city's unique recording legacy to bring about a sumptuous second helping. In addition to the requisite sourcings, the net has been cast wider still in order to focus on material gleaned from such picayune outlets as Rustone, Pontchartrain, Athens, Winner and Spinett. There is a very good reason for this. Midway through July 1954, The Times-Picayune (New Orleans' powerful daily broadsheet) brought to its readership's attention an editorial issue entitled "Music Box Week". The feature centered on a coming together of the area's record industry chiefs, and their declaration that the "juke box" had become a national institution. Never had a truer word been spoken. Every diner, bar, night club, laundromat and military barracks within the city limits sported a Wurlitzer, a Seeburg or a Rock-Ola, and the multitude of coins dropped into the slots gave rise to a win-win situation. With the coming of rock & roll in the mid-fifties, it was the Big Easy's arsenal of neon Nickel Odeons rather than its radio stations where you could hear the latest sounds first. This gave the shoe-string independents, most of whom were unlikely to accrue a review in the trades or make a programme director's playlist, the chance of some welcome promotion. So, in order to reflect this freewheeling coalescence, names like Johnny Love, Willie West and Alonzo Stewart have been given the chance to rub shoulders with such greats as Fats Domino, Little Richard and Huey "Piano" Smith. Welcome to Heavy Sugar: Second Spoonful."