I don’t know much about Mike Shaw’s Alabama Entertainers. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that they may have been from Alabama, and that someone named Mike Shaw was involved. The tune is an interesting one, though. It sounds like a close relative of Carroll County Blues, one of the great early country blues fiddle tunes, first cut by Mississippians Narmour and Smith. The instrumentation, with the prominent kazoo, is interesting, as is the loose heterophony between it and the fiddle.

Tangleweed nicked part of Carroll County Blues for our instrumental Mississippi Trashboat, from our as-yet-untitled forthcoming third CD.

Tennessee River Bottom Blues (mp3)

Courtesy of Juneberry78s.com. Please consider purchasing one of their CD-R or DVD-R compilations of old-time 78s and radio shows.

P.S.: I finally broke down and purchased Tony Russell’s discography of pre-war country recordings, so I’ll be able to shed some additional light on recording dates, catalog numbers, and personnel when it arrives.