Best known for “That’s All Right” and two other songs covered by Elvis Presley, bluesman Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup was born in Forest, Mississippi. Crudup visited Chicago in 1939 as a member of the gospel group The Harmonizing Four and stayed to work as a solo artist but was not successful. Record producer Lester Melrose allegedly found him living in a packing crate. He toured the country in 1948 with Sonny Boy Williamson II and Elmore James. Throughout his career Crudup recorded for Victor, Ace, Checker, Trumpet, Bluebird, and in the ’60s–Delmark. This session was recorded November 10, 1969 and features Jimmy Dawkins and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith. Crudup’s guitar was amped through the same rotating Leslie speaker that Buddy Guy used on Junior Wells’ Hoodoo Man Blues (Delmark 612) for seven of the nine songs here. There’s also a nice talk section between Crudup and producer Bob Koester.

The human voice has rarely been as movingly rich as that of Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup nor has the human experience been so thoroughly mirrored as in the simple blues poetry of this big and gentle man from Mississippi. Some have commented that Crudup’s voice sounds similar to that of Elvis Presley but the truth is the other way around; Crudup wrote several of Presley’s hits and seems to have been an early Presley idol.