People should just know better.

In this day and age, you might be able to get away with faking something's provenance for a little while, but with information being so readily accessible and data so easily checked you're going to get caught out one way or another. What's amazing about the circumstances surrounding the supposed lost Luther Allison recording Underground is how close they did come to getting away with it.

No one is pointing any fingers at anybody, and maybe it can all be put down to an honest mistake, but recordings claimed to be from a private session Luther Allison did in 1958 seem to really have been made at least ten years later in 1968-69. It wasn't until after Thomas Ruf, and Ruf Records had released the 10-track CD and begun promoting it as the lost recordings of Luther that Rein Wisse, publisher of Block Magazine in the Netherlands, smelt something wrong.

Once the can of worms was open it didn't take long for the truth to come out. Ruf has published on its site Wisse's article on his investigation. Aside from subjective statements, "it doesn't sound like it was recorded in the '50s," the fact that "Cut You Loose," a song originated by Ricky Allen, appears on the '1958 recording' is enough to create serious doubts about the discs authenticity as it wasn't recorded by Ricky until four years after that date.

It wasn't just Thomas Ruf who was fooled by these recordings either. Both of Luther's sons, Bernard and Luther, genuinely believed they had unearthed a treasure in their father's collection.

Bernard is quoted as saying the songs on that disc were the first ones that he and Luther Sr. had jammed to when he was 12. What is true about these recordings is Luther did go into a studio by himself and laid down ten tracks in the late 1960's while he was under contract to Delmark Records

In fact there are quite a few people out there, including the above mentioned Wisse, who own bootleg recordings of those sessions. Instead of some third party making money off the deal like is normal in these situations, Allison himself was selling them. Delmark Records knew what was going on, but turned a blind eye to his breaking their contract.

Almost lost in the confusion are the actual contents of the disc. There's only about 30 minutes of music on Underground and as is to be expected the sound isn't of the greatest quality. The material itself though is an interesting mixture of instrumentals and songs that give the listener a good idea of the sound Luther was after in those days.

It's no wonder he was recording this on the sly behind Delmark's back, as it wasn't stuff they were going be overly interested in recording or publishing. You can hear Luther's interest in the rockier side of things on some of his instrumentals, (remember this is the guy who played guitar with his teeth as much as Hendrix did), but you can also hear his affection for the smoother sound of R&B coming through.