Cecil Gant 78 RPM Decca 48200 Shot Gun Boogie / Rock Little Baby Blues EE+/E

	£		55
	$		73

Cecil Gant was an immensely influential post-war blues vocalist, songwriter, and piano maestro. Billed as "The G.I. Sing-Sation," his fast-paced piano arrangements laid the foundational bricks for urban rhythm and blues.

Shot Gun Boogie (Side A): A blistering, high-energy jump blues interpretation of the famous Hank Williams rural theme, driving hard with frantic boogie-woogie bass figures.

Rock Little Baby (Side B): A relentless, roaring uptempo performance featuring an unhinged vocal delivery that heavily foreshadowed modern popular music.

Recording Year: 1951 (Released posthumously in early 1951, representing some of the absolute final sessions Gant tracked before his untimely death).

Recorded at the dawn of 1951, this Decca single represents a vital milestone in the transition from post-war rhythm and blues into early rock patterns. As industrial factory employment opportunities in major northern manufacturing hubs drew massive populations during the Second Great Migration, the traditional music market underwent immediate shifts.
Rock Little Baby functions as an explicit time capsule of this evolution, utilizing the frantic, driving rhythms required by younger urban dance halls. Major record operations like Decca introduced their specialized 48000 Sepia series to recapture market share from rising independent upstarts, creating a bridge where Black urban piano blues permanently reshaped global popular culture.

This item is sourced directly from the estate archive of Michel Chaigne, widely regarded as one of France’s most meticulous and dedicated post-war blues discographers. A passionate researcher and a contemporary of foundational European blues scholars, Chaigne spent decades building a highly curated library focused heavily on the historical trajectory of American roots music. His collection is celebrated internationally for its strict preservation standards and its comprehensive representation of influential blues musicianship. The inclusion of this item in his personal archive serves as an authentic stamp of historical significance and quality curation.

This release belongs to Decca's highly targeted 48000 Sepia series (Catalog number 48200).

Most retail copies were completely destroyed by the high tracking pressure of coin-operated commercial jukeboxes.

Condition Report
Overall Grading: EE+ (Side A) / E (Side B, plays significantly better than the visual grade suggests).
Visual Appearance: Highly impressive state of preservation. The grooves retain an intense level of dark factory luster and a highly reflective mirror shine, showing only a minimum of superficial scuffs under close direct light.
Structural Flaw & Repair Detail: As shown in the accompanying close-up images, there is a hairline crack extending about 3cm inward from the outer edge on one side only. To preserve the long-term structural integrity of the shellac, a neat, vintage black stabilization tape slice has been applied strictly over the blank outer rim area.
Audio Performance: This flaw is completely non-affecting to playback (NAP) and is almost completely inaudible, as the hairline and tape reside fully outside the entry groove path and do not cause a physical skip or a repetitive thud during tracking. The roaring piano instrumentation and shouting vocals track beautifully with deep acoustic power and an incredibly low underlying surface noise floor.
Labels: Clean, iconic gold-on-black Decca typography fields. The text is perfectly legible with tight center spindle fields showing no trailing or wear.

Postage, Packaging, and Handling
We understand the immense historical value of pieces from the Chaigne archive and treat their transport with absolute care.
The record is sandwiched securely between multiple sheets of ultra-thick card stiffeners to completely isolate the rim hairline and tape boundary from transport shock
.The assembly is wrapped in heavy-duty bubble wrap to prevent shock damage.
It is placed centrally inside a custom, oversized, doubleskin corrugated cardboard box.All remaining void spaces are filled to eliminate any internal movement during transit.

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