War Service Blues
1978 · Flyright FLY LP 538 · USA
- Artist
- James 'Guitar Slim' Stephens
- Title
- War Service Blues
- Release
- Greensboro Rounder
- Year
- 1978
- Label
- Flyright # FLY LP 538
- Format
- LP · Archival
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Genre
- Blues · Piano Blues · Boogie Woogie
- Primary theme
- Post-War
Annotation — Blues songs
Blues artist James 'Guitar Slim' Stephens, born on 10 March 1915 in Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA, he died on 10 February 1991 in Greensboro, North Carolina, USA. He recorded the song "War Service Blues" (Flyright Records # FLY 538) on 02 March 1975 in Greensboro, NC, with Stephens on guitar and vocals.1 Narrated from the perspective of a soldier drafted to war: "I'm in Class A...ain't gonna turn me down" - presumably a reference to the draft classification "1-A" - "eligible for military service", established in 1971 (under the Military Selective Service Act of 1967). The narrator laments "I might be blind, cripple and lame... this was keeps raging, I'm gonna soon be dead and gone". The song also looked at the home front / domestic impact: "mother's down on her knees praying for her child to return".Sources1Wirz discographies↩
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Notes
Track A3. Artist credited as Guitar Slim on Discogs. Stephens plays piano on this track (Discogs per-track credit; YouTube upload description: 'rec. March 2, 1975 by Kip Lornell; James Guitar Slim Stephens, voc, piano', Greensboro, NC). Liner notes Kip Lornell; remastered by Ron Geesin; design W. & M. Etherington; printed by Senol Printing Ltd. Matrix FLY LP 538 A-1 / B-1. UK release. YouTube upload runs 6:48 (no label duration).
About the artist
James "Guitar Slim" Stephens was born 10 March 1915 near Spartanburg, South Carolina, played pump organ and piano as a child, toured with the John Henry Davis Medicine Show in his teens, and later introduced Music Maker founder Tim Duffy to Guitar Gabriel. [Source: Music Maker Relief Foundation archive]