Bummer Road is a compilation album by the American blues musician Sonny Boy Williamson II, released in 1969.[1][2] It achieved notoriety due to the inclusion of 11 minutes of studio outtakes related to the track "Little Village", where Williamson and producer Leonard Chess argue about the song.[3] The album was issued with a label advising that the track was not suitable for airplay, due to profanity—allegedly, it is the first blues album to carry any kind of "explicit lyrics" sticker.[3] "Little Village" inspired the name of Little Village, a band that included Ry Cooder, Jim Keltner, Nick Lowe, and John Hiatt.[4]
"Little Village" was recorded in September 1957, at the Chess Records studio in Chicago.[5] The songs on Bummer Road were produced by Leonard Chess; the album was compiled by T.T. Swan.[6][7]
AllMusic wrote that "every track is a burner," and called the 11-minute "Little Village" studio chatter addition "one of the best examples of enlarging the scope of a musical track by adding auxiliary material that wasn't originally meant for release."[7] Reviewing a reissue, The Age wrote: "The stunning 'Unseen Eye' ventures low-down through understated piano and guitar arpeggios, while the haunting 'Keep Your Hand Out of My Pocket' follows Sonny Boy's admonition: 'You'd better cut it now because if you let it cool, goddam it! It won't be worth a damn!'"[10] The Anchorage Daily News called "Santa Claus" a "sweet and lazy harp blues from a master, backed up by Robert Jr. Lockwood's guitar, and allegedly made up on the studio spot when Sonny Boy was drunk."[11]
^London, Justin (2013). "Ephemeral Media, Ephemeral Works, and Sonny Boy Williamson's 'Little Village'". The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 71 (1): 45–53.
^Herzhaft, Gérard (1997). Encyclopedia of the Blues. University of Arkansas Press. p. 36.
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