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New Orleans is still in everyone's hearts and minds?not least for the music it contributed to the world. The beginning of New Orleans R&B is chronicled in an astonishing new Bear Family compilation!It features early and great performances by crescent city legend Professor Longhair!Most of the recordings new to CD! Some have never been available since the early 1950s!

Back in 1989, we issued a double LP, 'Mercury Records--The New Orleans Sessions, 1950. ' Containing early and great (not to mention some unissued) recordings by Professor Longhair, Alma Mondy, and other Crescent City legends, it was a definitive statement of New Orleans R&B at its inception. We uncovered the original acetates at Mercury Records' vault, and painstakingly restored them, thereby re-creating one of the great field trips in record business history on two LPs!

Since CDs were introduced, we've had requests to reissue that 2-LP set, but we couldn't see how we could improve upon it. . until now. Researcher Rick Coleman, whose recently published book on Fats Domino is recognized as a classic work in New Orleans R&B, figured out that a Mercury R&B session long thought to have taken place in Los Angeles in 1953 actually took place in New Orleans. To confirm his hunch, Rick spoke with Mercury A&R man Dee Kilpatrick, who recalled recording Alma Mondy along with a female impersonator, Pat Valadear, Woo-Woo Moore, and Plas Johnson's brother, Ray. So we included everything from that session, plus the ultra-rare gospel recordings by the Silvertone Singers from the 1950 sessions!

Add new photos, new notes, and digitally enhanced sound. That's how we took the story of Mercury's New Orleans sessions to a new level. A fitting tribute, especially as so many of the neighborhoods that gave birth to this music may never return!

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