BLUES
VA - Ain't Times Hard, Political and Social Comment in the Blues [2008] (4 x CDs)
Released in 2008 by UK-based JSP Records, Ain’t Times Hard is a four-CD deep-dive into the blues as a vehicle for protest, survival, and social critique. Across 100 tracks, this compilation reframes the blues not as mere lamentation, but as a coded language of resistance, documenting hunger, labor exploitation, racial injustice, and postwar disillusionment with startling clarity.
The set spans recordings from the late 1920s through the mid-1950s, with
CD1 anchored in pre-Depression hardship: Big Bill Broonzy’s “Starvation Blues,” Blind Blake’s “No Dough Blues,” and King Solomon Hill’s haunting “Times Has Done Got So Hard” offer firsthand accounts of economic collapse. These aren’t metaphorical blues, they’re dispatches from breadlines and levee camps.
CD2 and CD3 shift into the alphabet soup of New Deal-era relief: WPA, PWA, RFC, CWA. Tracks like Peetie Wheatstraw’s “Working On The Project” and Sleepy John Estes’ “Government Money” reflect both gratitude and skepticism toward federal aid. Bumble Bee Slim, Memphis Minnie, and Walter Roland appear repeatedly, their voices chronicling the tension between hope and systemic neglect.
CD4 moves into postwar blues, where inflation, reconversion, and civil rights stir beneath the surface. Ivory Joe Hunter’s “High Cost Low Pay Blues” and J.B. Lenoir’s “Eisenhower Blues” mark a tonal shift, less pleading, more pointed. The inclusion of Big Mama Thornton, John Lee Hooker, and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown adds weight to the era’s growing urgency.
Rarities abound: Carrie Edwards’ “Hard Time Blues,” Sampson Pittman’s “Welfare Blues,” and Alfred Fields’ “‘29 Blues” are seldom-seen gems that elevate the set’s archival value. With sequencing that favors thematic flow over chronology, JSP’s curation is both emotionally resonant and historically rigorous, a vital document of the blues as political witness. (B)
==========================================================
ALL 
OR
ALL
===========================================================
Track lists
CD1
01 Tom Dickson - Labor Blues 3:02
02 Blind Blake - No Dough Blues 3:05
03 Scrapper Blackwell - Down and out Blues 2:57
04 Big Bill Broonzy - Starvation Blues 3:18
05 Barbecue Bob - Bad Time Blues 3:18
06 Alec Johnson - Miss Meal Cramp Blues 3:00
07 Hambone Willie Newbern - Shelby County Workhouse Blues 2:55
08 Barbecue Bob - We Sure Got Hard Times 3:25
09 Gene Campbell - Levee Camp Man Blues 3:12
10 Andy Chatman - Hard Times on Me Blues 2:49
11 Charley Jordan - Tough Times Blues 2:58
12 Charlie McCoy & Bo Carter - Northern Starvers Are Returning Home 3:35
13 Leroy Carr - Hard Times Done Drove Me to Drink 3:28
14 Charley Jordan - Starvation Blues 3:20
15 Charley Spand - Hard Time Blues 2:37
16 Bumble Bee Slim - Chain Gang Bound 3:36
17 Charley Jordan - Days of the Weeks Blues 3:23
18 King Solomon Hill - Times Has Done Got So Hard 3:14
19 Carrie Edwards - Hard Time Blues 3:17
20 Leroy Carr - The Depression Blues 3:04
21 Tampa Red - Turpentine Blues 3:22
22 Scrapper Blackwell - Hard Time Blues 2:51
23 Fred McMullen - DeKalb Chain Gang 3:05
24 Buddy Moss - Hard Time Blues 3:11
25 Walter Roland - Red Cross Blues 3:14
CD2
01 Lucille Bogan - Red Cross Man 3:12
02 Sonny Scott - Coal Mountain Blues 2:48
03 Walter Roland - Red Cross Blues No. 2 3:03
04 Joe Stone - It's Hard Time 3:12
05 Jack Kelly - R.F.C. Blues 3:07
06 Walter Davis - Red Cross Blues 3:02
07 Mississippi Sheiks - Sales Tax 3:03
08 Josh White - Welfare Blues 3:26
09 Walter Roland - C.W.A. Blues 2:46
10 Bob Campbell - Starvation Farm Blues 2:49
11 Charlie McCoy - Charity Blues 3:09
12 Memphis Minnie - Sylvester and His Mule Blues 3:04
13 Big Joe Williams - Providence Help the Poor People 3:06
14 Teddy Darby - Meat and Bread Blues 3:09
15 Lane Hardin - Hard Time Blues 3:19
16 Carl Martin - Let's Have a Good Deal 2:45
17 Joe Pullum - Bonus Blues 3:24
18 Casey Bill Weldon - W.P.A. Blues 3:17
19 Peetie Wheatstraw - When I Get My Bonus 2:34
20 Bumble Bee Slim - When I Get My Money 3:10
21 Carl Martin - I'm Gonna Have My Fun 3:29
22 Peetie Wheatstraw - Jungle Man Blues 3:08
23 Red Nelson - When the Soldiers Get Their Bonus 2:41
24 Big Bill Broonzy - W.P.A. Blues 3:04
25 Jimmie Gordon - Don't Take Away My P.W.A. 2:56
CD3
01 Bumble Bee Slim - Hobo Jungle Blues 3:00
02 Frank 'Springback' James - New Red Cross Blues 3:16
03 Black Ivory King - Working for the P.W.A. 2:24
04 Sleepy John Estes - Government Money 3:12
05 Peetie Wheatstraw - Working on the Project 3:03
06 Sleepy John Estes - Hobo Jungle Blues 2:57
07 Lonnie Johnson - Hard Times Ain't Gone No Where 2:39
08 Robert Lee McCoy - I Have Spent My Bonus 2:54
09 Red Nelson - Relief Blues 2:48
10 Big Bill Broonzy - Unemployment Stomp 2:38
11 Peetie Wheatstraw - 304 Blues 3:06
12 Son Bonds - Old Bachelor Blues 2:39
13 Calvin Frazier - Welfare Blues 3:37
14 George Curry - Back in My Cell Again 2:42
15 Speckled Red - Welfare Blues 3:19
16 Washboard Sam - C.C.C. Blues 2:56
17 Sampson Pittman - Welfare Blues 2:43
18 Alfred Fields - '29 Blues 2:49
19 Gene Gilmore - Charity Blues 2:37
20 Lonnie Johnson - Four-O-Three Blues 3:02
21 Champion Jack Dupree - Warehouse Man Blues 2:49
22 Memphis Minnie - Nothing in Rambling 2:45
23 Yank Rachell - Hobo Blues 3:32
24 Tony Hollins - Stamp Blues 2:35
25 Ollie Shepard - Hard Times is on Me 3:07
CD4
01 Guitar Slim & Jelly Belly - Keep Straight Blues 2:18
02 Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee - Red Cross Store Blues 3:22
03 Guitar Slim & Jelly Belly - Working Man Blues 2:33
04 Cousin Joe - Post-War Future Blues 3:07
05 Jim Wynn - Shipyard Woman 2:58
06 Roosevelt Sykes - Living in a Different World 3:14
07 Ivory Joe Hunter - Reconversion Blues 3:09
08 Roosevelt Sykes - Sunny Road 3:07
09 Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson - Bonus Pay 2:53
10 Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson - Luxury Tax Blues 3:03
11 Smokey Hogg - Unemployment Blues 2:48
12 Smokey Hogg - Hard Times 2:37
13 Floyd Jones - Stockyard Blues 2:52
14 Ivory Joe Hunter - High Cost Low Pay Blues 2:42
15 Willie 'Long Time' Smith - Homeless Blues 3:12
16 Jack McVea - Inflation Blues 2:52
17 L.C. Williams - Strike Blues 2:35
18 John Lee Hooker - Strike Blues 2:39
19 Big Mama Thornton - Cotton Picking Blues 2:48
20 Floyd Jones - Ain't Times Hard 3:07
21 John Brim - Tough Times 3:07
22 Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - Depression Blues 2:52
23 Jimmy McCracklin - The Panic's On 3:32
24 J.B. Hutto - Things Are So Slow 3:07
25 J.B. Lenoir - Eisenhower Blues 2:54
=============================================================
=============================================================
Music weaves itself into the fabric of our emotions, dances through the corridors of memory, and whispers to the soul of who we are. Sharing these stories deepens the connection, turning the experience into something timeless and profound.
=============================================================
=============================================================
