Link: Big Belly Momma

There is a bar on Broad Street in Richmond, VA called Triple. It sits on a mostly abandoned block along one of the city’s grandest thoroughfares. On either side of it are parking lots and the rest of the block is dotted with various supply stores you find on the edges of major cities. They serve bar fare and beers, there are pool tables upfront, and in the back, next to a flashy jukebox, a grand upright piano.

On my visits, the bar was always full of interesting characters and could often get rowdy, so my friends and I became regulars. Every night I went to Triple, I’d look to the back and see the piano quietly collecting dust and next to it, the naughty jukebox blaring Nickelback or Staind, or some other teenie-bopper atrocity.

Albert Smith, where were you? You could have woken up that piano and turned that scene on its head. Those rounders and scabs would have gladly joined you for your refrain of “Big Belly Momma”.  What a time that would have been.

As we approach the holidays, Music Maker is excited to offer a much loved and long out of print compilation, Blues Sweet Blues, featuring Albert Smith’s “Big Belly Momma” and many other great tracks that we will be returning the next few weeks in our Diggins’.

– Aaron