Lazy Lester - I'm A Lover Not A Fighter (1994)

Unlike many of the minor figures in post-war blues who passed on before they gained any recognition, Lazy Lester's music is enjoying something of a renaissance. Since 1987, he has toured the USA and Europe and, as Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds says of him, he continues to be 'a great human being, and he plays his ass off!' Born Leslie Johnson in Torras, Louisiana, on June 20th, 1933, Lazy Lester learned to play both harmonica and guitar and, by the age of 19, built up a local reputation on both instruments. He played with Guitar Gable and later began a long recording relationship (on harmonica) with Lightnin' Slim. Three months after his first session with Lightnin', Lester made his own first recordings - I'm Gonna Leave You Baby and Lester's Stomp - for Jay Miller in Crowley, Louisiana. Lester was to become Miller's right hand man in the studio and cut some of his best material there, including the influential I'm A Lover Not A Fighter (a staple cover for '60s white R&B bands). Lester's own favorite songs - Take Me In Your Arms, Sugar Coated Love, The Same Thing Could Happen To You and Lester's Stomp - are all on this great CD collection, a tribute to the Louisiana blues sound of the 1960s, when downhome music wasn't just 'in the alley', it was well and truly 'in the swamp'.