Chopper did a piece a while back for the vinyl record website Shattered Platter where he recommends lps, turntables, speakers and booze:
Scott “Chopper” Franklin (The Cramps/Wanda Jackson/ Charley Horse/The Mau Maus) gives suggestions for blues & roots music to check out.
Low Estate 16 Horsepower
All of 16 HPs records are on heavy rotation around here, but Low Estate gets the most spins. If a Faulkner reading ever needed a backing track this would get the call. You’ll think you’re listening to the Devil hisself, but when you find out singer David Eugene Edwards is actually deeply religious, you’ll be even more intrigued.
Blues Classics by Memphis Minnie
In my latest project the Heathen Apostles we are doing Black Rat Swing, and ever since pulling out and listening to this record to learn it, I haven’t been able to stop. Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey may have gotten all the accolades, but Minnie is the real deal. This is a great cross-section of her best sides from the 1920’s to the late 1940’s.
Red of Tooth and Claw Murder By Death
When I first put this record on I thought I was hearing the soundtrack to Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, and later when I read the lyrics I knew I was. First Adam Turla’s amazing voice kicks you down, then Sarah Balliet’s great cello steps on your throat. Get two copies of this, you’ll wear the first one out.
Something’s Wrong/Lost Forever Scott H. Biram
This is stripped-down, one-man-band music at its best, but Time Flies is as slick as anything you’ll ever hear. SHB manages to capture both the grit and melody of Leadbelly, along with some great Hank Williams, Sr. storytelling (though a little “rougher around the edges”). He puts on a great live show, too.
Lil Son Lil Son Jackson
Some (incorrectly) call Lil Son a poor man’s Lightnin Hopkins, but this Texas blues stands on its own and also has a great swamp feel to it. On this record (1960 re-recordings of some of his earlier hard-to-find classics) he gives Jimmy Reed and Slim Harpo a run for their money. It’s a recent Arhoolie re-issue, shouldn’t be hard to find.
Well, I go through turntables like crazy, so I keep a stack of them in a back room. The current one is a Technics DC Servo, next up…?
I go through JBL home speakers and a bottle or ten of Old Overholt.
