AMG Review of Honeydripper [Acrobat]

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All Music Guide

Acrobat's The Honeydripper is one of at least nine Roosevelt Sykes albums that bear his famous moniker. It compiles 11 sides recorded for Decca in New York City in 1940, and seven which were cut for Okeh in Chicago in 1941. During this period, Sykes' piano was augmented by the presence of a percussionist, and on the New York date the drummer was jazz legend Big Sid Catlett. Let's get one thing straight. Two distinctly different musicians were known as "The Honeydripper", and each was associated with a song that bore his nickname in the title. Neither of these tunes is included in this collection. The early R&B hit by Oklahoma-born, West Coast boogie-woogie pianist Joe Liggins made its first appearance on records in 1944 and was successfully covered by Cab Calloway the following year. Arkansas native Roosevelt Sykes, on the other hand, was dubbed "the Honeydripper" some 15 years earlier by St. Louis vocalist Edith North Johnson (1903-1988), who also recorded under the names Hattie North and Maybelle Allen. In September 1929, Sykes accompanied her on a Paramount recording of her own "Honey Dripper Blues," a song that would soon be absorbed into his regular working repertoire. Johnson's passionate delivery on the "Good Chib Blues" seems to have had a strong influence upon Sykes, whose vocal technique would ripen and intensify during a career that would extend into the early '80s.