Ed Bell

Ed Bell's Paramount record of his own "Mamlish Blues" is the kind of performance that has the power to suspend the listener in the eternal present moment. Its simple, repetitive, ascending, and descending scale evokes a magical sensibility that is echoed on the flipside, "The Hambone Blues," and the other two titles he cut in Chicago in September 1927. Bell's modest but substantial recorded legacy places him in league with more famous individuals such as Blind Boy Fuller, Tommy Johnson, Charlie Patton, and Robert Johnson. The magic that waits within Bell's recordings to be dis...