To the editors:
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I originally described Alligator Records as “rapidly becoming a major purveyor of quality soul and roots rock vinyl, as well as being the nation’s major independent blues label.” (In other words, Alligator is already the nation’s major independent blues label, and now it’s adding all these other neat things to its resume.) The edited sentence, “. . . rapidly becoming not only a major purveyor of quality soul and roots-rock vinyl but the nation’s major independent blues label” seems to reverse the original meaning.
While I’m on the subject of errors, let me own up to a few of my own. Both the title and refrain of Dr. John’s “Night Tripper” anthem from the album Gris-Gris refer to walking on gilded splinters, not “golden splinters” as I wrote in a concert review a few weeks ago [March 31]. In the same piece I indicated that Dr. John was present on some sides recorded in New Orleans by Charles Brown in the 1950s; Dr. John’s own recollections of those sessions, as related in the book Blues by Robert Neff and Anthony Conner, are that he was on hand but his youthful nervousness resulted in his being fired. So I should have said that he was present at the sessions, instead of on the records.
