The James Cotton Blues Band – The James Cotton Blues Band

Don’t let the relative roughness of this record cover fool you – this thing is in pristine condition. Verve was one of those labels that, for whatever reason, had indestructible vinyl. Every Verve record I own sounds fantastic still. But man, did someone do a job on this cover. I suspect it was a promo copy that someone took the effort to try to remove the promo info from, and didn’t do a great job. Don’t do that, people, just leave things alone.

Nevertheless, this is an awesome record from earlyish in Cotton’s career – having graduated from “Jimmy” to “James.” (Having always known him as James Cotton, I was more than a little surprised to find the “Jimmy Cotton Blues Quartet” designated on “Chicago / The Blues / Today! Vol. 2.”)

I mean – it’s James Cotton. It’s Chicago blues. It’s 1967. What more do you need to know?

By odd coincidence, as I was writing this up, I was listening to a Pacific Gas and Electric record for the first time – and they were covering Cotton’s “Jelly Jelly.”