Meet Me in the Bottom is Stackhouse Recording Company's long-awaited second volume in the Arkansas Blues series of field recordings produced by Louis Guida under a Bicentennial grant in 1976. Guida traversed the state to record in nightclubs, at artists' homes and inside a prison unit. The collection includes sides by Calvin Leavy (famed for the blues standard Cummins Prison Farm), Queen Bee & the Soul Seekers, a band of sisters led by guitarist Essie Smith, now known as Essie "The Blues Lady" Neal; Harmonica Slim (Travis Blaylock, who recorded in California in the 1950s and '60s); Texarkana Five; guitarist Duke Bradley from Pine Bluff; the Sounds of Soul from Osceola; and the Cummins Prison Band. In an ironic twist of fate, Calvin Leavy, who had not served time in prison when he recorded Cummins Prison Farm or the songs on this CD, was later convicted of multiple drug-related charges and incarcerated at Cummins in 1992. He was transferred to a facility in Pine Bluff in 1993. Blues enthusiasts joined in his appeal for parole, but he died in 2010 in a Pine Bluff hospital while serving his sentence. The Cummins Prison Band that appears on this CD consisted of Louis L. Mosley, William T. Wright, Willie Slater, Jesse Youngblood and Charles Ice. Harmonica Slim, who recorded an LP for BluesTime in 1969, following singles on Aladdin, Vita and other labels, became a minister in Texarkana prior to his death in 1984. Most of the other performers on this CD have also passed away, although Essie The Blues Lady has been performing and recording, Julius Bradley leads Uncle Julius and the All Star Blues Band in Osceola, and Travis Matthews plays in church and at various events in Texarkana. The first Arkansas Blues CD, Keep It To Yourself, featuring solo performances by CeDell Davis, Nelson Carson, Trenton Cooper and others, is also available from Stackhouse Recording Company (SRC-1910). Compilation and liner notes on both volumes are by Louis Guida and Stackhouse owner Jim O'Neal, co-founder of Living Blues magazine. Meet Me in the Bottom was produced in cooperation with the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies of Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock.