Two CD collection. Although only in operation from 1956 into early '59, Cobra Records and its Artistic subsidiary spearheaded the rise of a brand-new movement within the Chicago Blues firmament. Eli Toscano and his partner Howard Bedno ran their labels out of a TV and radio repair shop and record store on West Roosevelt Road with a small studio attached in the rear, positioning their enterprise to record the cream of young West Side bluesmen. And a series of extremely promising Blues artists found their way through Cobra's doors, poised to make history with a fresh, modem sound that was as influenced by the single-string bending of B.B. King as Muddy Waters' traditional ensemble approach, advancing the Windy City Blues sound exponentially. Willie Dixon served as Toscano's primary A&R man as Cobra built itself a seminal Chicago blues catalog that stands tall beside the better- known concurrent output of Chess and Vee-Jay.
T**9
Snakebite
Shines a light on the neglected Cobra artists, i.e. not guys not named Sam, Buddy, or Otis. Cobra got a great sound out of whoever stepped in their cave, whether it was Shakey Horton, Guitar Shorty(!), Betty Everett, Duke Jenkins' Orchestra, the Clouds, Harold Burrage, or The Calvaes. This 2 CD set goes well with the cheaper digipak 2 CD Cobra comp. that's out there well for a round assessment of Eli Toscano and Willie Dixon's efforts to beat the Chess Bros. at their own game.
B**L
A note from the producer/compiler of this release
As the producer/compiler/annotator of "The Cobra Records Story," which has been out only a few months on Fuel, I can state without a doubt that there is no "newer version" with 14 extra tracks on Fuel. There are several bootleg CDs of Cobra's catalog floating around from overseas thanks to their 50-year public domain laws that may well have more and/or different tracks, and many moons ago Capricorn had a two-CD set out covering the same Cobra/Artistic catalog that was legit. This one has 36 tracks, including a handful of songs that have never been on any CD comp before legitimately. It does a nice job of summarizing the Cobra/Artistic archives, though you'd need five CDs to cover everything!
B**M
Electric Blues from Chicago
I read elsewhere that there is a newer version with 14 other songs added. Does anyone know what these song are? It's already a great collection!
Trustpilot
1 month ago
4 days ago
