Smoking Reefers & Kicking the Gong/ Various – Smoking Reefers & Kicking The Gong / Various

Description

Whatever it’s nomenclature, entertainers have long enjoyed a “special relationship” with cannabis/marijuana, particularly musicians and singers, who’ve long delighted in extolling the joys of recreational drugs. This compilation deals with the leaf’s early years, when it was generally referred to as “Reefer” (sometimes, “Gage”, “Pot”, or “Tea”), and was pretty much the exclusive domain of Jazz and Blues musicians. The oldest sides featured herein are a couple of the earliest known druggies’ anthems, ‘Willie the Chimney Sweeper’ (an homage to smoking opium, a practice then widely known as “kicking the gong”) and ‘Dope Head Blues’. Some major artistes feature on this set, notably Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Fats Waller, Champion Jack Dupree and The Ink Spots. Mind you, many of the song titles are a dead giveaway: ‘Reefer Man’, ‘Sweet Marijuana Brown’, ‘Reefer Head Woman’, ‘Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs Murphy’s Ovaltine?’, ‘The Reefer Song (If You’re A Viper)’, etc.