v/a: Baby, How Can It Be?

Label: Dust to Digital

Another instant classic from the Dust-to-Digital label, Baby, How Can It Be? neatly arranges three discs of old-time country-blues and hot jazz into romantically themed segments: love, lust and contempt. And lemme tellya — these cats and kittens in the '20s and '30s were anything but polite! Featuring liner-notes from Nick Tosches and an illustration by Robert Crumb, this package spans a broad range of sweetness and vile, sour hatred. All selected from the 78s of John Heneghan (a famed collector who lives in NYC), these tunes sound great — some hiss and crackle, sure, but also jarring clarity, like on (ahem) "Let Me Play with It" by Hartman's Heart Breakers. If a double-entendre is too complex for you, how about the ditty from Harry Roy and His Bat Club Boys called simply "Pussy"? (You'd think they might've given their bands better names, eh?) Disc three is the killer — literally — with some not-ready-for-radio sentiments such as "It's a Shame to Whip Your Wife on Sunday" and "I Used to Call Her Baby." The Broadway Bell-Hops say it best though: "Wimmin — Aah!" (M.L. Thrope)