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| Featured album ... Me and Mr Johnson |
In my collection / studio there are literally hundreds of albums and thousands of tracks, in my car, just one - 'Me and Mr Johnson'.
Respectfully, and at the risk of being labelled a blues philistine, Mr Clapton isn't really at the top of my tree when it comes to the many blues artists, preferring, as I do, the more, earlier ones. However, this album a cover of Robert Johnson's songs is something special. If this one isn't in your collection, it should be. |
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Back to the Roots of the Blues ... Backtracking
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Latest release 11th Dec 2025 - Thank you for visiting with us, we cordially invite you to review and download the current production below. 'Backtracking' is a result of our research a journey of discovery that never ends, our love of the Blues and respect for the artists that left us this legacy of music.
All this simply because the music, the history and the culture of the blues never ends. We're honoured and privileged to share the music within the genre of the Blues back in time a hundred years and beyond, a genre so vast and so diverse.
Backtracking is streamed online and is broadcast worldwide. It's free to join the 'Backtracking' time machine - Get the authentic blues on your radio station ..... |
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Featured artist of the week .... Ruben Lacy
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Ruben Lacy was one of the most talented and influential artists in Mississippi blues during his short career as a secular performer. The grandson of a minister, Lacy was born in Pelahatchie on January 2, 1901, or 1902*. He was a well-known blues performer in the Jackson area and the Delta until he became a preacher in the 1930s. he died on November 14, 1969. He is buried in Bakersfield, California.
Ruben “Rube” Lacy recorded only a handful of blues songs, but he played an important role in the formative years of Mississippi blues. As a young man Lacy travelled widely, and he recalled meeting country music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers while both were railway workers, and working in Chicago with an uncle from Germany who taught Lacy to speak German fluently. After returning to the Jackson area, where he became known as the blues king,
Lacy made four recordings for Columbia Records at a session in Memphis in December 1927, but none were released. The following March he traveled to Chicago, where he recorded two songs for the Paramount label, 'Mississippi Jail House Groan' and 'Ham Hound Crave'
Following a train-related injury in the 1930s, Ruben decided to join the ministry, a path followed at times by several Mississippi bluesmen of his generation. He preached in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri before moving to California. In 1966 blues scholar David Evans located Lacy in Ridge crest, California, and recorded him preaching and performing gospel songs with members of his congregation. Although Lacy would no longer  perform blues, he remained proud of his early recordings and suggested to Evans that the religiously devout feel the blues “quicker than a sinner do, ’cause the average sinner ain’t got nothing to worry about.” A newspaper obituary and Ruben’s death certificate in 1969 both gave Pelahatchie as his burial site—as cited on the front of this marker—but his son, gospel singer Rev. John Lacy of Indianapolis, has since reported that his family decided to bury him instead in Bakersfield, California.
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| With hundreds of artists loitering in our library often it is hard to choose one to feature in our ‘Different shades of Blue slot’ – Clicking through, I found the classic album, Your Mind Is on Vacation, it’s nearly Christmas, so perhaps Santa will bring me the vinyl version, after all, at only £82, but for now, as I write I can play the mp3 cheap and nasty one.
Mose Allison has suffered from a categorisation problem, given his equally brilliant career. Although his boogie-woogie and bebop-laden piano style is innovative and fresh sounding when it comes to blues and jazz, it is as a songwriter that Allison really shines. His songs have been recorded by the Who Young Man Blues, Leon Russell I’m Smashed, and Bonnie Raitt, Everybody’s crying’ Mercy. Other admirers include Tom Waits, John Mayall, Georgie Fame, the Rolling Stones, and Van Morrison. But because he’s always played both blues and jazz, and one not to the exclusion of the other, his career has suffered. As he himself has said, he has a category problem, what am I? – Blues, R&B, folk, jazz. Despite the lingering confusion, he remains one of the finest songwriters in blues of the 20th and 21st centuries .. read more in the narrative below. |
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Get in touch, How to contact ... PD Productions
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Every day we have the blues ..... PD Productions Video archive...
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| Welcome to the PD Productions video archive. We are delighted to receive video clips from our very good friends around the world to include in our 'Backtracking' program. Below is a list of the clips scheduled for the next few weeks ... |
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The Staple Singers - I'll Take You There |
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47th Street Jive - June Richmond with Roy Milton's band |
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B. B. King - The Thrill Is Gone |
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Diunna Greenleaf & Blue Mercy |
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Nina Simone - Ain't got no, I got life |
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Raymunda Dutch Blues - Pity the fool |
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Take Me to the River LIVE - Sharde Thomas and Rising Star |
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Send us a video clip of your gig (mp4 format) - Click here |
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| Current clip: .... John Lee Hooker - Boom boom |
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| Play the current video clip |
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| Legal / Copyright stuff |
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Myths and Legends of the blues ..... Amede Ardoin
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Firstly, do please read the narrative before playing the tracks, otherwise, the recordings will seem strange ... At PD Productions it seems we spend an awful lot of time trawling through the internet, books and documents that come into our possession from sometimes the strangest resources, one such trail led us to Amédé Ardoin, a man of incredible influence in his time and a life ending in violent tragedy.
Amédé was primarily an accordionist, outstanding as a forerunner of both Zydeco and Cajun music, and as one of the first musicians in south Louisiana whose commercial recordings have dual significance in terms of important historic folklore and the emergence of Blues. Amédé’s records are in the 78 rpm format, recorded between 1930 and 1934. At that time the word Cajun appeared in some song titles, but was not applied to the Cajun genre as a whole, at the time, the music was loosely known as French blues. The word Zydeco certainly didn’t widely exist at this time, the phrase, les haricots or les haricots sont pas salés appeared in some black Creole songs and would eventually become by the 1950s Zydeco as a name for black Creole dance music.
In our research we have discovered that Amédé’s music has been classified as Cajun, zydeco and blues to mention just a few, scholars continue to argue about his definitive classification; one such document we have read suggests his music doesn’t easily fit into ANY classification. Following a late night of reading, we were to discover he was acclaimed as a major talent of two-step, blues, (Whatever they are) and waltzes, greatly influencing an exhaustive list of styles, we’ll refrain from comment; indeed his work remains relevant and even influential today. |
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