St. James Infirmary:The Crumb Family

Artist: The Crumb Family

Genre: Ragtime

Appears On: R. Crumb Handbook Bonus CD

Appears On (Mixes): Thirteen Ugly Children Roll Gutterballs

Song Notes: I'm probably the only person on earth who's relatively indifferent towards R. Crumb's comix, but loves his music. Both of these selections come from the recently-released R. Crumb Handbook] bonus CD (which, well, I actually got BECAUSE of the CD; I did read the book, and it's OK -- it's got quite a bit of essay-writing by Crumb going over his life and philosophies and suchlike, as well as some of his classic comic work, including some that appeared in Terry Zwigoff's brilliant documentary Crumb and Ron Mann's Comic Book Confidential.

The first track was originally from the album Number 3 (a/k/a Singing In The Bathtub) and is an original composition. The second is a traditional song, and I believe this recording appears on the sampler CD for the first time, and were taken from a live performance in Hamburg in 2003. (Unfortunately, it doesn't list the instruments; it only says that the players were R. Crumb, his wife Aline Kominsky-Crumb and his daughter Sophie.) This is the only review I could find of the CD, and it's a relatively positive one, but says that it pales in comparison to the comic work, which basically seems to support my first sentence...

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