Mudcat: is this a blues forum?

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 08:07 AM

When I was, I think, about 14, an uncle took me to a venue in Bristol - don't know if it was the Old Market or the Colston Hall - to see a black man playing the guitar and singing.

When I was 20, I went with some friends to the Free Trades Hall in Manchester to see a black man playing the guitar and singing.

The first one was Bill Broonzy, the second one was Gary Davis. I have to admit that details of the Bristol concert are very hazy because I didn't really know anything about him or the music. But it got me interested in the music. By the time I saw the Rev., I was very interested indeed, and I can recall his concert very vividly. At around the same time (mid-60s') I bought my first two blues albums. One was Leadbelly, accompanied on some tracks by dulceola player Paul Mason Howard, and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee's "Back Country Blues". I also remember borrowing a 10" LP of Sonny Terry playing solo harmonica. Of course, I just had to buy one and learn "Fox Chase" and "Whooping and Hollering" and the train blues.

All this was 45-50 years ago, but sometimes it feels like yesterday. To me, Broonzy, Davis, Terry, McGhee - their light remains undimmed.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 07:55 AM

Like FolkGiant, I became interested in the blues thru Cream and Dylan... Dylan, IMO, has always been a bluesman at heart... And as he gets older he's more and more the bluesman...

As fir this joint being into the blues??? Well, only kinda... Like I said, it isn't a blues forum but ther are enough of us to make it interesting... So, I reckon I'll just keep posting to this thread an' maybe we can get it over 100 which I believe would be a 1st fir a blues thread...

B~

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 06:07 AM

"Yes, Mudcat is a blues forum as much as it is any other kind. The key to getting on well here, from what I gather, is communication, sharing and the pursuit of support and mutual appreciation."
Exactly, Folk Giant. Seeing as how my buddy Roger has quoted me, I might as well join in. Whilst folkpersons of all persuausions do make most of the running around here it does appear to give the inpression of a monopoly. NOT SO ! The few people here I communicate with have all sorts of musical interests which I don't share. ('ello, Les) But The Blues has featured prominently here for years and will continue to do so as long as the usual suspects are around.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Neil D
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 01:22 AM

Thanks Kat. On the subject of unrecorded early blues artists I'm reminded of a couple anecdotal stories from two well-known figures in the genre. Rev. Gary Davis claimed he learned the version of "Cocaine Blues" he so popularized from a carnival worker in 1905. And In 1903 while waiting for a train in Tutwiler, in the Mississippi Delta, W. C. Handy had the following experience. "A lean loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept... As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars....The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard." Imagine if we could have gotten those 2 guys recorded. Nevertheless we can determine that Blues music was already being played all over the South at least a generation earlier than the first recordings.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: FolkGiant
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 12:59 AM

I play blues, both acoustically and electrically, on the guitar and harmonica.

It was the Yardbirds for me... I was a big Beatles/Dylan fan and was getting into the Delta blues a little when I read stories of a certain, um, Clayton... Clifton... no, that's not it... British kid, played guitar in the Yardbirds and in the Bluesbreakers. Oh, well, whatever.

"From The Cradle" is a smoking blues album by anyone, let alone a so-called "white boy", which is the only insult I can think of for a blues player that might be worse than "foreigner".

Yes, Mudcat is a blues forum as much as it is any other kind. The key to getting on well here, from what I gather, is communication, sharing and the pursuit of support and mutual appreciation.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Richie
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 11:38 PM

Since this is a tradtional music forum, blues is part of the discussion.

I'm interested in blues, old-time country and folk music.

Richie

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 09:23 PM

That's awesome, Neil, thanks for the link.

Has anyone mentioned Mudcatter dwditty?. He put out a great blues CD. Matter of fact, I see he has a new one out, too.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 06:58 PM

Yeah, it's too bad that recording didn't start 50 years earlier... We'd have an entire batch of new heros...

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Neil D
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 06:25 PM

Was it Sonny Boy Williamson who said "Those white boys want to play the blues real bad, and that's how they play them, bad"?

Yeah but Howlin' Wolf said some of those white boys could play blues better than he ever could, but none of them could SING the blues like he could.
Here is one recording that predates Charlie Patton by a couple years r i c, although I personally like Charlie's "Spoonful" much better. But I know what you mean about the lost early blues artists from before the regional labels started recording guys like Charlie and Son and Skip.
Those guys learned there craft from someone.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 05:33 PM

I think we're gonna need a urine sample, Amos, ol' buddy...

Translated: Pee in ther cup...

B~

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 01:12 PM

Aw, g'wan, Bobear. You know we loves your blues and we loves THE blues. Jes' because we go off an flirt with the "damsels fair who down by the Banks of TYne do roam, a wearing the laurels green" doesn't mean we think less of your scrawny butt and your blues music, dude.


A

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 01:04 PM

Is Mudcat a blues forum???

Nah, not really...

I mean, over the years I have posted to just about every thread that has the word "blues" in it only to watch the thtead drop off the bottom like a whales turd in the bottom of the ocean...

What's this thread up to??? 40 some posts??? That's bout 30 more than the usual...

Problem is that there ain't alot of us here that are blues players... I'm not satyin' that some folks might not have a couple blues songs in their bag but that ain't the standard...

As fir me, that's what I loves to play and, unless I'm about half drunk, it's all I do play...

But to be honest, other than a small handfull of Mudders who like me play alot of blues, most folks here don't really have much interest in the blues or they would psot to blues threads...

It's so bad that I had to get a PM from another memeber tellin' me that outta the 4,297 above-the-line threads that are going on currently about punching horses and shany sings there was, ahhhhhhh, a blues thred!!!

Cowabunga!!! Stop the presses!!! Get Ripley on the phone!!!

B~

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 10:31 AM

Woke up this morning
Couldn't learn the scorum
Somebody said
This was not a blues forum
And it's hard, hard
Yes it's hard, hard it's true
To think about the Mudcat
When you got the Blues Forum blues....

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 05:22 AM

As my Mudfriend, FatB*****d, often says, this forum is dominated by folkies! Certainly there are more US blues fans posting here than UK ones, but we few, we blue few, hang in here for their pearls of wisdom and help with lyrics.

RtS

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: mousethief
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 07:57 PM

A life without blues is like a day without blues, over and over. Hardly bears thinkin' on't.

You and that candyman are gettin' mighty thick, a-ha, mm-hm.
You must be stuck on the candyman's stick, mm-hm, oh yeah

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 07:28 PM

I think Duster Bennett's thing was really the one man band stuff. I used to have a bootleg of that.

I can only immediately think of two blues songs that have successfully made it into English usage.   There was a wonderful version of Spoonful that made it onto some UK band's B side and I can't even think of the band's name now. Going to have to go through my old 45s and 7 inch tapes. It had a very original sort of jazzy bounce to it.

The other is Good Morning Little Schoolgirl and even there the UK versions teeter between meaningless and leering. I am struggling to remember who did the version that speaks for me (It's a US version), but rather than boxing the 4/4 it comes down on the ONE (as James Brown might have said). Maybe a third might be "Shake your moneymaker".

You know what? After 40 years I have figured out that taht version of Spoonful that I liked had reframed the bassline a bit like Schoolgirl.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 05:21 PM

I heard a rumour that Rev Gary Davis only had five fingers on each hand. Couldn't possibly be true.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:33 PM

VTam, thanks for posting that link. I'd forgotten about him!

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:30 PM

Yes, I have a debt to the British blues of the 60s that introduced my to current and earlier American artists. My first instrument was blues harp.

I think it's pointless trying to identify who is 'authentic' and who plays best. It's all opinion. I liked Duster Bennett's harmonica playing particularily.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:20 PM

One of the greatest evenings of my life was sitting not too far from the front of the stage, around the middle of the row, in the Free Trades Hall in Manchester in 1964.

First on the bill was Julie Felix, followed by Buffy Ste. Marie, and Jack Elliott & Derroll Adams. All this faded away when the Rev. Gary Davis stepped on to the stage with his old Gibson J200, in a pale suit. He stepped straight to the mic, felt for it, said "Hi Mike", hung up his stick, swung the guitar round - and launched into the most electrifying music I'd ever heard. All with just a thumbpick and one fingerpick, on his index finger.

Anyone else there that night? Who could have stopped me from rushing back across the Pennines (I was a student in Leeds) to my guitar and practising until my fingers bled? No one!

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:17 PM

"Yes there is a blues contingent here. Among the members are yours truly, Bobert, Roger in Baltimore, Amos, Max, Peter T, Gutbucketeer, poppagator, and numerous others."

Well maybe someone should kick their asses and get them posting more Blues threads in the bluddy Music section, instead of just posting daft blokey stuff in BS!

I might learn more about stuff I know nothing about if nothing else! Plus Tam needs them boys up here for company and for stuff to inspire her in doing what she's natural for!

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: r_i_c_2007
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:13 PM

got it that time!

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: r_i_c_2007
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:09 PM

Thanks for the links guys - great stuff! Once remember seeing a BB King interview when BB said Peter Green was 'the only guitarist which makes me sweat' but i think the location angle may be something of a cultural cul-de-sac or we are going to see folks criticising Django Reinhardt for playing jazz, for example?

Max has a great bass string technique, you can walk on the line he lays down! :)

No, no-one can out-Green, Greenie although Carlos Santana did a lovely version of Black Magic Woman (in which he altered the lyrics) and Jeremy Spencer [original Fleetwood Mac] was and is a great slide player, through him i listened to Elmore James and through EJ to the great Robert Johnson of course. Just wish we could get back earlier than Charlie Patton, we have lost sight of some tremendous blues guitarists predating recording and folklore collection from the Delta, unfortunately: but oops, i haven't read the Finn yet! :-o

[lol]

Ric


hey! i guess this is a kinda blues forum after all?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L49LznEBvGY

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 03:57 PM

As far as Cyril Davies is concerned, I cherish my vinyl EP of his Allstars playing "Country Line Special" - an absolutely riveting record - featuring, of course, that great pianist Nicky Hopkin. Korner was not a great guitarist or singer, but a great promoter of the music and a great broadcaster - also a promoter of the guitar work of Davy Graham. There was also the excellent blues harp player Mox Gowland who was a feature of the Cousins allniters - now living in France.

As far as (the young) Peter Green is concerned, he was highly praised by B.B. King for the soul in his music. He's never been the same since his illness, IMHO, but was a wonderful performer. However, I would agree with Richard that the Blues Band are very tame - and always have been. If you get away from the known names in this country, there are many regional musicians who can give blistering performances and who have an immense knowledge of the music.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 02:56 PM

Suggestion for Max, Joe and the others: if blues people find the folk stuff too overwhelming, why not have a separate division for them? A bit like The Line, but not as judgemental :) People already have a choice to filter BS, so it should be easy enough to filter for blues.

Me, I like hearing about all sorts of stuff, even if I can't play it.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Bernard
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 02:46 PM

One of the best British blues protagonists is Dai Thomas from Salford... not only is he a brilliant performer, but his knowledge is encyclopaedic.

He is one of the few bluesmen I've seen who can entertain a non-blues audience!

Dai Thomas at the King's Arms, Salford

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Suzy T.
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 02:41 PM

Just to reiterate from a post above -- the weeniecampbell.com is by far the best place for pre-war country blues music that I've found on the web. And it (like Mudcat) is a wonderful online community. Although it is guitar-centric, there are also posts there of interest to fiddlers, mandolin players, there is some discussion of other styles of 20s music. For me it's an important resource.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 01:37 PM

I love this guy

and I would never have found him if I had not first gotten interested in blues because of what I have been exposed to through Mudcat.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 12:44 PM

I was a great fan of the 60s British blues thing, and will certainly never forget the first time I met Jo-Ann Kelly. I was using my then PA rig to run the disco at a flash party at Nottingham University and a small slim young woman with slightly surprised spectacles started towards me. I thought "Hello, here comes another reggae request" (not my favourite sort, although it is another story how I got shanghaied into running a reggae club one summer) and a voice that seemed to come from somewhere underground husked "Hi, I'm Jo-Ann, are you the man with the PA". Totally velutinous vocal vibrations that shook me to my core. I knew her rough edged singing, but the husky speaking voice was amazing.

I later settled down with one Jacqui Walker who was such a close friend of Jo-Ann Kelly's that they used to swap maternity clothes and that is why my oldest step-daughter is named Jo-Ann. So no, I don't forget Jo-Ann Kelly. But I disgress.

I was also a great fan of TS McPhee's playing, and the usual stuff, Fleetwood Mac when they played blues, and Chicken Shack, and somewhere I still have the first half dozen or so Mayall albums, and some electric US stuff like the Climax Chicago Blues Band, some Chess albums and so on. The usual suspects.

But I still don't really think the British blues performers had whatever it is or was. Recently I went to see the Blues Band and they were just tame. When I was younger and saw Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, they were a lot older than the Blues Band are now, but they still had vibrancy.

If you listen now to Alexis Korner stuff it is rather embarrassing, and the Cyril Davies Allstars always sounded lead-footed.


Peter Green, before he got spiked, was a wonderful sensitive guitarist. I doubt whether anyone will ever match "Greeny". But "Greeny" was not blues. He could emulate Chicago blues as well as any Englishman. But it never really sounded authentic.

The British blues pianists somehow missed by rather further - remember the "Brunning Sunflower Blues Band" - yet there was a "highly regarded" British blues pianist wholly failing to sound quite right.

Eventually I realised that I wasn't ever going to be able fully to connect to the blues, as a player and singer I was an invader, a parasite, no matter how I enjoyed listening to it, and so I stopped trying to sing and play it. Somewhere out on the internet is a recent-ish vid of my leading one of my sessions in the new-country-blues archetype "I washed my hands in Muddy Water". It ain't all that bad - but it ain't right. The 60s UK blues boom wasn't bad, it was better than me, but it wasn't quite right either.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: frogprince
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 12:17 PM

Ric, I responded as I did initially because sometimes some folks here get their tailfeathers ruffled, and fuss because "my kind of music isn't getting it's fair share of attention here". As people have been indicating, any kind of music gets dicussed that someone is interested in at the time. That certainly includes blues; there are links around here to some delightful stuff by members and those whom members enjoy.
                         Dean

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 12:07 PM

In the generation before those named above, Englishmen Alexis Korner & Cyril Davies were highly·regarded·by·the·knowledgeable British Bluesmen also.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: olddude
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 12:02 PM

Ignore all of us, we are like the island of misfit toys LOL
there is blues and everything else here, especially the crazies (myself included) LOL

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 12:00 PM

Amos, he's a newby...be nice!:-) Maybe he doesn't know about The Line, yet.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 11:50 AM

It's a blues forum and a folk forum, a forum for singers and players of lays, lutes, shanties and Spanish ballads, Elizabethan ditties, cowboy tales, lumberjack, whaler, Irish rebel, Merkin hobo, socialist, union and railroading songs. You name it and we do it.

What an odd question! Five minutes perusing the threads above the line should make it obvious.


A

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Zen
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 11:43 AM

I'm not sure what we English can bring to the blues other than an academic appreciation. Cuckoo, nest, that sort of thing.

Jo Ann Kelly was a friend of mine back in the late 70s until her untimely passing. As Will Fly noted she was considered to be a wonderful blues singer by many American musicians. And there have been very many other fine English blues singers, Peter Green is one of note who I met a few times.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 11:33 AM

Jo Ann Kelly, who I saw many times in London and jammed with occasionally (as did many others), was considered to have a wonderful blues voice by many American blues musicians. She was invited over to the US to play and refused.

I once played her version of "Keep Your Hand Off It" to a visiting blues musician from the States and asked him to describe what he thought she looked like. "American, large, black, feisty..." were the words included in his reply. When I described her to him - English, white, slim, blonde hair, round specs - he was flabbergasted!

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 11:23 AM

If you a search on any of you favorite blues topic, artists...etc. in the DT/Forum box, you may get entire discussions on them.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 11:22 AM

Mr Bridge - You obviously missed the British Blues revival of the late sixties - Dave and Joanne Kelly , Mike Cooper , Ian A Anderson and Dave Peabody to name but a few , were ALL very competent blues performers , mostly acoustic stuff .

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 11:21 AM

Was it Sonny Boy Williamson who said "Those white boys want to play the blues real bad, and that's how they play them, bad"?

And it was, and is, Buddy Guy who has said on many occasions, that it was the British blues enthusiasts and players in the 60s who helped to keep an interest in the blues alive. Instrumentally, the blues is another musical form, like any other. There weren't many 48-bar jigs in my part of my father's Lancashire musical heritage or my mother's Norfolk musical heritage, but it doesn't stop me going at them on my violin. As far as singing blues is concerned, I wouldn't sing some, and I would sing others - simply because I enjoy the words and music. I don't pretend to be a black sharecropper any more than I pretend to be an East Anglian agricultural labourer or a Lancashire miner. It's all performance.

As Bobby Charles said, "Do it wrong 'til you do it right".

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 11:19 AM

The original logo used to say "A Magazine for Folk Music & Blues"

I think you can still find it in the internet archives.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 11:05 AM

Crow Sister - No, the Digital Tradition was not blues related - that is Max's main interest, not ours. Dick does some blues among many other types of folk music. I'm primarily a ballad singer, as I think you are from the postings of yours I have seen. The DT was probably 90% trad before we started harvesting songs posted here, which has lowered the trad percentage considerably.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 10:49 AM

Will Fly...I really enjoyed that!

I found 78 videos on youtube when I searched on "Mudcat Cafe" but I don't think they are related. Anyway, they are all on blues, old interviews, etc. Looks as though they are well worth the watching.

ric, you can see and hear Max on youtube HERE.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 10:42 AM

Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) said lots of things. It had something to do with his personality. I've got footage of him trying to play with Muddy on Mojo if you really want the blues played badly.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 10:31 AM

I'm not sure what we English can bring to the blues other than an academic appreciation. Cuckoo, nest, that sort of thing.

Was it Sonny Boy Williamson who said "Those white boys want to play the blues real bad, and that's how they play them, bad"?

I think it was about one of the slightly later-than-first-on-the-scene London blues gods bands, like the Yardbirds, or the Blues Band, not I think Mayall.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 08:30 AM

One of the highspots of the Washington Society Getaway has always been Boberts Blues session , with most of the participants Catters of one kind or another !

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: r_i_c_2007
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 07:41 AM

Hi all :)

wow i am stunned - gosh!

yes i am a blues affectionado first and foremost with plenty of other musics appreciated, in fact blues is an on-going revelation to me, every time i think i know the blues i discover another great blues artist and realise i know nothing

have read several books on blues history and just got hold of a second-hand copy of Julio Finn's book which i am looking forward to reading ~ there is a review on Mudcat ...

now need to cycle backwards through this thread and check out some of the kind links -

am a private player acoustic and electric and not the bee's knees but enjoy what i do :)

and HEY! i couldn't find a Blues subject header so plumped for the folklore one instead, probably thinking about the Folkways record label: remember that one? you must be almost as old as i am! [lol]

bests ;)

Ric

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:41 AM

Oh Lizzie how could we have the blues when we got you?
I thought it was for everyone's music but that the bored with early retirement white middle class "Traddies" were keeping it going for us while we are at work.
LOL

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:40 AM

Count me in - I think this might qualify...

Smokestack Blues

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:31 AM

I think there should be far more discussion about the blues on here...It's got bogged down into English Traddie stuff way too much..in my humble opinion.

Subject: RE: Mudcat: is this a blues forum?
From: Zen
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:20 AM

There are a few of us who try to keep the faith!