Blues for Dootsie: The Blue and Dootone Sides

Veteran West Coast horn man Walter "Dootsie" Williams founded Blue Records in 1949, originally to release the raunchy "blue" songs of comedian Billy Mitchell (the first of these, "Song of the Woodpecker," was fairly representative), and over the next two years Williams released some 34 singles on Blue, roughly half of them blues or R&B. Williams folded Blue in 1951, then changed the name of his label to Dootone and began to pursue a more pop direction, although he continued to issue blues and R&B-related material. By 1955, when he changed the name of the label to Dooto for legal reasons, Williams was dealing almost exclusively with doo wop performers. In 1956 he set up Authentic Records to handle his blues issues, but by 1958 he was all but done with the music business, settling back into comedy production, releasing albums by comedian Redd Foxx and others. This generous 30-track, 75-minute collection gathers up some of the more notable blues and R&B sides that Williams released on his Blue and Dootone imprints, and while there is some intriguing stuff here like Johnny Taylor's slow and elegant "Back Alley Blues," Fats Gaines' generic but effective "Katy Lee," Bumps Myers' funky "I'm Clappin' and Shoutin'," and a pair of rough-and-ragged Stormy Herman tracks ("The Jitterbug," "Cadillac Fever"), most of it is fairly ordinary stuff, making Blues for Dootsie an archival treasure but not necessarily a musical one. Collectors will love it, but casual listeners may find that it strikes the same note and tone over and over again. ~ Steve Leggett