Freddie Slack Mr. Five By Five: The Singles Collection 1940 - 1949 (2-CD)

(Acrobat Music) 49 tracks

Freddie Slack was a boogie-woogie pianist and swing bandleader who started out in Jimmy Dorsey's band in the 1930s and scored a string of hits in the 1940s. He then worked with the Will Bradley Orchestra, where he was called "Daddy Slack" by the band members. He played the piano solo on Bradley's recording of Beat Me Daddy, Eight To The Bar, one of the early white boogie-woogie hits and a classic of the big band era. Slack later led his own band and performed with some of the finest singers of the era, including Ella Mae Morse and Margaret Whiting.

This 49-song collection begins with his hits with the Will Bradley Orchestra at Columbia and then includes selected A- and B-sides from his releases at Decca and Capitol up to the time he left the label. It contains all of his chart entries with Will Bradley, including the Top 10 hits Beat Me Daddy Eight To The Bar, Down The Road Apiece, Scrub Me Mama With A Boogie Beat and There I Go. Also included are the pop and R&B hits he scored with his own band: the Top 10 successes Cow-Cow Boogie, Mister Five By Five, That Old Black Magic, Riffette and The House Of Blue Lights. Hits with Ella Mae Morse, Margaret Whiting, Liza Morrow and Johnny Mercer are also featured on this 2-CD compilation. Other singers include David Street and Charlotte Blackburn, and there are also notable recordings with blues singers Big Joe Turner and T-Bone Walker.

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