Old Friends - Sunnyland Slim, Honeyboy Edwards, Kansas City Red, Big Walter Horton, Floyd Jones (1993)

Personnel:
David 'Honeyboy' Edwards: Guitar, Harmonica (on track 5)
Floyd Jones: Bass
Sunnyland Slim: Piano
Kansas City Red: Drums
Big Walter Horton: Harmonica

Old Friends…together for the first time…nearly fifty years after their paths first crossed, a legendary group of old blues friends from Memphis and the Mississippi Delta finally gathered in a Chicago studio to record together for the first time. Sunnyland Slim, Big Walter Horton, Floyd Jones and Honeyboy Edwards knew each other since the early 1930s: Kansas City Red, the youngster of the bunch at 54, met the others one by one during the 1940s, and over the years, in Chicago and down South, the bluesmen worked with one another off and on in various combinations. Not until 1979, at a prestigious Carnegie Hall concert in New York, did all five play together on the same stage, and it was 1980 before the quintet recorded as a unit.

“The music has the unforced feel of (Chicago’s) blues of the late 30s and 40s without once sounding anachronistic. The five musicians (playing as a quintet) share the vocal duties, providing striking contrasts....All the material is original in the true sense, not just old blues with reshuffled lyrics and new titles, and the quintet interprets it with real conviction.”