Blues

Leonard “Baby Doo” Caston Sr. – Baby Doo’s House Party (1987)

  • Posted on January 2, 2010 at 6:01 pm

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Sometimes I’m astounded by my own ignorance.  As a fan of blues music, particularly from the 30′s to the 60′s, I can’t explain why I’d never heard of Baby Doo Caston before.  He played piano and sang as a part of the The Five Breezes and The Big Three Trio.  Both of which which featured Willie Dixon.  He also claimed to have convinced Willie to drop his boxing career in order to pursue a career in music.  Those accomplishments alone should warrant a substantial place in the history of blues music.  Yet Baby Doo’s career seems to have eluded any detection by yours truly, who up until now, fancied himself as a blues connoisseur.   Yep, it’s official, I’m an idiot.

The problem, of course, is that I just really didn’t know much about Willie Dixon’s pre-Chess days.  Neither The Five Breezes nor The Big Three Trio recorded on Chess which is where you’ll find the majority of Willie’s recordings.   That makes the odds of stumbling upon recordings for those two groups considerably longer.  Dixon became a legend at Chess and had no problem finding other great piano players such as Eddie Boyd, Otis Spann, Willie Mabon, Sunnyland Slim and the lesser known (but one of my favorites) Lafayette Leake. I couldn’t find any video of The Big Three so here’s a great video of Willie Dixon on the upright bass and Sunnyland Slim on piano.

Where Baby Doo went next is a bit of a mystery.  There’s a serious void of information about his musical career from the time he left the Big Three Trio in 1956 until he released this album in 1987.  I’m not sure where he disappeared to for 31 years but here’s a nice biography on Baby Doo Caston is case you’d like to know more about his humble beginnings in music: http://www.artistdirect.com/artist/bio/leonard-caston/412968.

This album was actually released shortly before Baby Doo’s  death in 1987 at the age of 70.  Overall the material is pretty good.  Baby Doo is a decent blues singer and and I like his style of piano.  The band is pretty tight and there isn’t a whole lot to criticize about the LP other than a couple of weak songs like “Ugly Woman”.  The first tracks on either side have a bit of a subdued James Brown groove to them.  Very nice.

So how did I stumble upon this week’s selection?  Doing what I do best……absolutely nothing.  See, my wife is a garage sale fanatic.  Get between her and a garage sale and there’s a good chance that you’ll require some type of medical assistance.  She’s been known to fill up the car on a “good day”, but it’s difficult for a man with 3,000 cd’s and 4,000 records to explain to his wife that her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a problem.  So I smile, nod my head and use her shopping prowess to further my own OCD needs. Since she’s acutely aware of my odd musical tastes, I’ve educated her to grab any records that look odd or unusual while she’s out pursuing her favorite pastime.  She’s gotten so good at it that she’s actually found some of my all-time favorites.

So that’s exactly how I came by today’s selection.  I’m a very lucky man.

Tracks:

Side One

Side Two

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