{"id":10400,"date":"2016-03-07T05:30:16","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T05:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=10400"},"modified":"2022-02-14T16:55:43","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T21:55:43","slug":"album-review-blowfly-77-rusty-trombones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/07\/album-review-blowfly-77-rusty-trombones\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Blowfly — 77 Rusty Trombones"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blowfly_77rt\"Warning<\/strong><\/span>: this review may not be suitable for readers under the age of, I dunno, let’s say…twenty-one. And the subject of the review \u2013 Blowfly<\/b>‘s final album, 77 Rusty Trombones<\/i> \u2013 well, it’s certainly not what one would call family entertainment.<\/p>\n

Blowfly was the alter-ego of Clarence Henry Reid<\/b>, an accomplished singer, songwriter and musician. But Reid’s accomplishments in the 1960s\u00a0 didn’t translate to much in the way of commercial success, and so by 1971 he set about releasing albums as Blowfly. Those albums \u2013 beginning with 1971’s The Weird World of Blowfly<\/i> \u2013 continued a practice in which Reid had been engaging for sometime: making X-rated parodies of popular songs. Before launching his career as Blowfly, Reid made recordings of his comedy pastiches and shared them among friends. But once the albums started coming, he developed the masked- and caped-hero persona to go along with the music. Think of him as a cross between Redd Foxx<\/b> and \u201cWeird\u201d Al Yankovic<\/b> (though the latter’s career came some time after Blowfly got started).<\/p>\n

To say that Blowfly’s entire act was smutty is to engage in criminal understatement. Was it dumb? Sure. Was it puerile and crass? Without a doubt. Was it entertaining? Absolutely. After The Weird World of Blowfly<\/i>, the man released no less than twenty-six more albums in that style. A random sampling of album titles tells the story: Porno Freak<\/i> (1978), Analthology<\/i> (a 1996 \u201cbest\u201d-of), 2012’s Black in the Sack<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The approach rarely differed from album to album, but the quality control (if one can call it that) was pretty high, and as naughty party records go (check out the LAFF Records set<\/a> or the inimitable Swamp Dogg<\/b><\/a>), Blowfly’s albums have an undeniable appeal. His oeuvre certainly isn’t \u201cgood clean fun,\u201d but it’s fun all the same.<\/p>\n

Reid passed away in January after a quick and aggressive illness. But he left behind one final, parting shot: 77 Rusty Trombones<\/em>. Every bit as trashy as his fans have come to expect, it includes well-arranged (albeit quickly-recorded, and it kinda shows) songs like \u201cIf You Don’t Blow Me By Now,\u201d a gleeful desecration of the Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes<\/b> hit. Equally obvious \u2013 but no less delightful in a scatological kind of way \u2013 are the Queen<\/strong>, er, tribute<\/i>, \u201cHe Will Fuck You\u201d and the Guess Who <\/b>takeoff, \u201cAmerican Ho Woman.\u201d You get the idea.<\/p>\n