Buster B Jones - discography

Welcome to the new Chetboard!

Buster B Jones - discography

Postby PaulBennett » Thu Dec 09, 2010 9:22 pm

Just ran across a cd Buster titled "Fingers In Flight" which he gave me a good 5 years back. It looks to be a 'self published' cd of 17 songs, 38 minutes long, and I wonder how many copies were issued or if he simply gathered many of his songs onto a home burned cd. The song selections are bit different from the "A Decade of Buster B. Jones" which is 25 songs.

The 17 songs are Buster B Boogie, Ask John, Just Another Rag, Merci Marcel, Fingers In Flight, Lefty, Funky Fingers, Sir Thomas Letty, Misdirected Energy, Le Minuet, Jus d' Orange, Goin' Home, Three-String Swing, Marcel's Thumb Mostly Merle, Frere Jacques, and Live @ Five.

While Buster was known primarily for his faster Jerry Reed songs, some slower songs like 'Le Minuet' are absolutely beautiful and another such as 'Jus d'Orange' (I have a tef tab but it's unlearnable) should not be as obscure as it is .

I'm curious about my cd, apparently it wasn't widely distributed. Any suggestions? Knowing others would enjoy hearing Buster again. I'd have to recommend getting the Amazon 25 song cd which is only $8.99. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001FJ ... =dm_sp_alb
PaulBennett
 
Posts: 41
Joined: Fri Aug 20, 2010 4:25 am

Re: Buster B Jones - discography

Postby Tony Enamel » Fri Dec 10, 2010 8:38 pm

Paul,

though I'm not near my CD rack while writing this post, I think I have this CD, "Fingers in Flight", as well. I purchased it in about 2004 or 2005 from Buster when he visited the Tommy Emmanuel Festival in Rietberg/Germany.

It does look like a home burned CD indeed, only got it in a slim case. I guess Buster just wasn't too much into the business side of the music business. Either it was never published regularly (by a label instead of a self release) or it was at some point and he just made copies at home when the regular batch was sold out.

On the rather new Wikipedia article on Buster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_B._Jones) it is listed as his first CD. Apparently, the other CD you mentioned, titled "A Decade of ...", seems to be some kind of Best of album, compiling songs/recordings from a couple of other albums, including "Fingers in Flight" and also "Just Us".

Apart from the great "Guts & Steel" with Thom Bresh, Buster's best album by far in my opinion is "Just Us", because it really feels like an album, not just a mixture of songs, that don't belong together, and also displays the lyrical side of his songwriting and playing.

As far as I know, Tom Redmond was involved in producing "Just Us" respectively co-produced it. I think he also came up with the discography on Wikipedia and should be able to shed some light onto the various albums.

Paul, you're right that it would be great if some more material would be available for purchase online. Especially, "Just Us" should be published for download in MP3 format on a page like CDBaby. I don't know who owns the rights, but perhaps it could be useful to approach Buster's widow Nancy with this idea, if I may say this here in public.

Regards,

Ingo
If it ain't got the groove, the bodies won't move.
Tony Enamel
 
Posts: 181
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2010 3:12 am
Location: Germany

Re: Buster B Jones - discography

Postby keener » Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:51 pm

I also have the Fingers In Flight CD ... great picking.

Ingo, Nancy is not Buster's widow ... she was his girlfriend at the time of his passing. They were indeed close, but I doubt that she has a legal authority to distribute his works. (However, I do not know how the estate was settled.) Nonetheless, she is married now and I would imagine, IMHO, that she wants the past to be remain something she has made peace with (and has nice memories of) without reliving it.

Tom may know more about distribution potential. I don't know how Buster's CD's were produced (except for the one specifically noted in the Wikipedia entry), but I know that Stefan Grossman sold a lot of Buster's CDs and I think he was involved in a production sense. (Buster told me that Stefan made "good money" from the CDs but that his (Buster's) cut was small, making me think that Stefan probably paid the licensing fees and perhaps helped with recording ... that is speculation, though.)

I think this highlights the importance of musicians having a way for their music to survive their deaths. As I have mentioned before, one of the reasons I've uploaded so many videos to YouTube is that I don't want to die with my music still in me. And, it's why I encourage others to do likewise (or make commercial products that will endure).
keener
 
Posts: 764
Joined: Mon Aug 16, 2010 9:16 pm

Re: Buster B Jones - discography

Postby Tony Enamel » Sat Dec 11, 2010 7:30 pm

Sorry, Bruce, I probably mixed that up and should have been more careful about what I was saying.

Nevertheless, it's not such a big question of a "distribution potential" nowadays, because it's not such a big investment for a fingerstyle soloist, who recorded his own material, to have the files uploaded to a page like CD Baby.

Regards,

Ingo
If it ain't got the groove, the bodies won't move.
Tony Enamel
 
Posts: 181
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2010 3:12 am
Location: Germany


Return to Announcement and News

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 19 guests

cron