The Blues???

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 25 Aug 10 - 02:50 AM

Some Blues.....enjoy


Luther Allison..Songs from the Road

Dave Hole, Lillehammer, Norway

GfS

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Janie
Date: 24 Aug 10 - 10:53 PM

just peeping in to say how much I am enjoying the links and enjoying this thread.    I preshedate the ejumacation.

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 24 Aug 10 - 07:41 PM

Just got back from the pub and stuck on my Billie & Dede Pierce LP (Riverside RLP 370. Just as good as I remember.

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Aug 10 - 04:41 PM

BTW, ya'll... If you click on enough of them barbershop (NJ Warren) videaos you'll more than likely see the G-man playing his washtub bass... Mighty fine bass player...

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Aug 10 - 04:08 PM

Well, Jimbo, they sho nuff listen the times You and me have played together...

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: GutBucketeer
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 11:49 PM

Hey Bobert. I'm still playing the blues after all these years. I gotta tell you though. All of the splitting hairs and talking gets a bit tedious. I would much rather just listen and play. It's gotta be deep down inside you though. Ya gotta feel it. It's gotta move you and the folks that hear it. AND they gotta listen and get that feeling deep inside them too.

Too many folks now make it an academic exercise. They've stopped listening.

JAB

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 07:54 PM

Now back to Mike Baytop... Before his stroke he could spin stories that would lead to other stories and, hey, you weren't gonna get a word in edgewise so...

...about 8 years ago or so we all contributed to a fund to buy NJ a new resonator... Actaully it is the one he's playin' in that clip that Neil put up...

Well, there is a great little reso maker out in Hagerstwon, Md called "Beard Guitars" and Paul Beard makes some of the finest resonator geetars made... He also spins his own cones and fir $225 will take yer old reson and put one of his "super" cones in it and make you a new nut and bridge and all that and when you get it back you go, "Wow, this thing never sounded so good"...

But nevermind that...

Now Mike Baytop used to be the finest dressed bluesman in the MidAtlantic and always had his beard trimmer short and,well, he was some impressive... About five years ago my wife, P-Vine< called Mike up 'cause she wanted to know how he kept his beard so trim 'cause she wnated to buy me what ever he was using for Christmas... So hse calls him and starts into her question but when she got to the word "beard", Mike interupted and started talkin' about "Beard Guitars"... Well, once Mike starts it's kinda hard to get his attention so the poor P-Vine had to listen to at least 10 minutes of Mike's "Beard Geetar" stories before she could get his attention...

Once she did, he prolly gave her another 20 minutes of "beard trimmer" stroies but at least she finally got 'nuff info to get me the beard "trimmer" for Christmas...

BTW, ya'll... please check out NJ and them little boxes next to yhim... Lotta them were done at the barbershop and I reckon if ya' hunted closely you'd find the ol' hillbilly in lot of them...

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 07:58 AM

Sniff... Sho nuff is, Neil... I didn't know that stuff was out there... That Jackie Merritt playin' harp with him...

BTW, ya'll want a treat, click on a couple of them others boxes and check out Elenor Ellis who taught me Blind Lemon's "One Kind Favor", or Waymon "Buttermilk" Meeks who I wrote my song "Buttermilk Blues" for, or Baytop amd Franklin... That's the Mike Baytop who cam to play at the Caverns with NJ... Mike has had a stroke and can no longer play...Sniff... Rick Franlin (Hookum) plays with Phil Wiggins (Cephas & Wiggins) now adays... Love all them folks... They is all my homies... I gotta go now but seein' as Neil has opened up this YouTube so that folks can see some of the folks I am talkin' about I'll tell a couple more NJ stories and one really funny Mike Baytop story...

Hope ya'll don't mind...

Later...

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Neil D
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 01:02 AM

This him, Bobert?

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 10:51 PM

So, back during my days jammin' at the barbershop, I became real close with the oldest of the old black bluesmen by the name of N.J. Warren... Now, me and N.J. were real close and I called him "Dad" tho he always called me "Sidewalk"... But we were tight...

So when I moved outta Wes Ginny, whewre I coud make the barbershop in 2 hours to Page County, Va., where the barbershop was now too far fir a Saturday afternoon jam session, I was invited to play at a festival at Luray Caverns... Only catch??? They wnated me to bring some "authentic" (wink, wink) bluesmen with me... So I call up DC an' arrange not only N.J. but Mike Baytopn who is a great geetarpickin' blueman...

So, the Luray Caverns Festival is a biggie and they pay real well and Mike and N.J., a couple of city boys, is, ahhhhh, lost and arguin' over the directions that I had given 'um... But we finally get them to the Cavrens and we are 'sposedf to go on stage in like, ahhhhhh, 10 friggin' minutes so...

...the Cavern peoples was doing everything to get our insruments to the stage and N.J. opens the truck of his car to get his geetar and here ya' have 20 Caverns peoples standing around to help grab stuff to get us up on stage when...

... N.J. sdrops this Fresca bottle in tghe parklin' lot and the parking lot being down hill that Fresca bottle was rollin' away at a purdy decent clip and then I here N.J.'s voice "Hey, Sidewalk, go get my bottle of shine" as he pointed towards the *Rollin'-away- Fresca- bottle*... Maybe ya' had to be there but the expressions on the faces of these Cavern's workers, who had just witnessed this entire episode, was priceless...

N.J. Warren died last year... I sho nuff miss him... He was from Tennessee and played lotta "Lightnin' Hopkins" stuff, but alot slower... "Goin' to California..."

I donno, maybe I'll talk more about N.J. in the future... I had a lot of good times being with him and playin' music with him... And I miss him terribly...

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 08:34 AM

Yeah, Blues Beaten Redshaw is a'smokin' blues player, Rob... I like his one string cigar box diddlybow... Lotta players her in the US play lap diddlybows similar to dobro players...

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 06:53 AM

Ther young lad inthose links seems to be doing OK...I believe he's only 16.

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 09:02 PM

Yeah, Rob... I know about a few of yer cigar box players... There's a website called Cigar Box Nation that has a few of 'um postin'... And that's a good thing... Heck, next thing ya know ya'll be sayin' "ya'll"...lol...

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 03:33 PM

Well whaddya know, Bobert, we've even got 'em over here:

UK's First Cigar Box Guitar Festival


And On the Jerry Can Resonator

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: mayomick
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 01:41 PM

I find that a lot of recent blues musicians miss out on the intensity of the blues poetry when they write blues songs . Blues for me is not just the music.
e.g. "gonna lay my head on some lonesome railroad iron, let that two-nineteen train satisfy my mind " Bessie Smith(?) - that sort of thing

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Stringsinger
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 01:09 PM

Will, you've made a new fan. Nicely done. Sometimes like BB you just have to find the right notes.

Tell you what though. One of my very favorite blues musicians was Charlie Parker.

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 12:59 PM

I've heard about this girl but never actaully heard her stuff... Seems that piano doesn't quite mix with the hill country blues... More Chicago, east coast or Lousiana...

As fir as boogie piano, AnnieBlues outta the Pacific northwest is about the best I've heard... Ann Rabson and Barrelhouse Bonnie ain't to shabby either... There's also a fine boogie-woogie piano player in D.C. name Joel Baliese (sp) that I've played with a few times...

Anyone groove out on that diddlybow sample by Jessie Mae... Gotta get me a diddlybow one day... Had a guy who was gonna make me one and I paid Ted Crocker to wind me up a hand wound pickup fir it but that guy got the pickup and then fell off the face of the earth with my pickup... Grrrrrrr!!!

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 11:49 AM

So great to hear your stories, Bobert. Puts it in context.

That Touch the Blues video site has more stories than straight music. I like the one that comes up on the "When" link: "When not to play the blues". Pinetop Perkins says, "I talk to the Lord about it all the time, hoping he'll forgive me." Says he keeps the seventh day holy, doesn't play the blues, or go fishing... Then he plays "His truth goes marching on"... with wonderful automatic blues stylings.

This morning on NPR, Eden Brent, a comfortably-off white Mississippi girl who apprenticed to Delta piano player Abie "Boogaloo" Ames, who dubbed her "Little Boogaloo".

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 09:10 AM

BTW, before her passing, Jessie Mae sat in on a recording session with Richard Johnston who is well known throughout the Sotuh as a OMB (One Man Band)... The interestin' thing about Jessie Mae's contributions is that she really isn't singin' but talkin' (answering) while Rochard sings the song... This is part of the tradition of hill country blues... The late Fred McDowell frequently had his wife do the same when he recorded... It add's that juke joint feel to the recording...

BTW, part 2... Speakin' of "juke joints"... One one of my trips to Mississippi I was priveledged to go to "WildBill's Juke Joint" in Memphis... Quite an experience... The joint really didn't get cookin' until "after midnight"... Wild Bill was an interesting character and worked the door flawlessly... There was a $5 cover and to look at him work the door you wouldn't think he was payin' attention but he knew everyone that had apid and so if they went out for some air and came back in he knew who had paid...

The Late Sam Carr who was a well known drummer in the Clarksdale area told me that workin' the door back on the "ol' days" was a dangerous job and that all the guys who did it would have a pistol stuck under their belt so that everyone knew it was there... He was also the first person to tell me that when a balck man shot and killed another black man on Saturday night that the Bossman would come get him outta jail and back to work on the plantation come Monday morning...

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 06:29 PM

Bingo, maeve!!! Cut #12, "Baby Please Don't Go" is Jessie Mae on the diddlybow... Anyone who ain't ever heard one just check it out... Purdy wicked!!!

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: maeve
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 01:46 PM

Bobert, some of the samples on CD Baby might include Jessie Mae Hemphill on diddley bow.

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 01:24 PM

Well, Mr. Othar died in February of 2003 at a ripe age of 94 but the summer before that he opened his home up to a 17 year old geetar picker from eastern Carolina named Daniel Ballenger, alias "Rev Slick"... Now Daniel had allready figured out most everything about playin' a geetar but he hadn't quite figured out "the blues" but a summer of gettin' up at the crack of dawn, doing the farm chores with Mr. Othar and then spendion time ridin' in Mr. Othar's truck the back roads, playing a little music here and there and stoppin' to talk with everyone and learning how to make a fife outta sugar cane that grew wild along the creeks... Well, all this stuff was all that Daniel needed to propell Rev. Slick onto the fast track of becoming the next big bluesplayer...

During my 2003 trip in the "hill country" I hooked up with Daniel for several days and he was kinda like my "guide" and opened alot of doors to meetin' folks, listenin' to and playin' lotta music and gettin' to know some of the folks that Becky mentioned above... Like Jessie Mae and Mississippi Blind Morris and Sam Carr... I also learned alot about Mr. Othar and also Junior Kimbrough, who had a Juniors Juke Joint just outside of Como, Ms... And benieve you me, this ol' hillbilly was soakin' all this stuff in big time...

So, ya'll askin', "Well, I ain't heard of Rev. Slick?" and there is a good reason fir that... Ya' see, Daniel wasn't really a reverand but that didn't seem to be standin' in the way of his spirituality but, like Son House before him...

...the blues were and so Daniel made the choice to not play the blues no more and last I heard he's only playin' gospel and faith music these days... That's too bad 'cuase the boy was defiantely very good... Came in 2nd at the 2004 International Blues Challenge in Memphis outta 120 some bands...

But the point is that in takin' Daniel into his home at age 93 and spending that time with Danail is the real story about what a givin' man Mr. Othar was...

W.C. Handy??? Hmmmmmmmm??? Well, story is that it was Handy who coined the phrase the blues and it's a tribute to him that every year hundreds of blues musicans and enthusiests converge on Memphis for the W.C. Handy awards... One year I went down for the awards but got back into the hill country and didn't come out until it was time to catch my flight home...

BTW, if anyone can find a clip on Jessie Mea playin' diddlybow that would be real interestin'...

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: maeve
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 01:10 PM

Will you tell us about him, Dick? Who are your favorite Blues musicians?

I reckon many of the folks posting to this thread already know about him, but some of us might not. Here's a start:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynikZ7Zz53E&feature=related

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 12:56 PM

Innaresting. 100+ posts on blues and nobody mentions W. C. Handy

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 11:36 AM

The Otha Turner link above was to an uncredited video, but there are many more. I checked another one, Otha Turner "King of the Fife", which turned out to be a trailer for "Touch the Blues, a living testimony of Mississippi folklore", a 2010 online "video jukebox" site with 12 short films on Mississippi blues by Scott Jennison.

Jennison says:

"I've been working in television since 1986, with a range of experiences and a lifelong interest in documentary films. Films that explore the origins of our world.

"After years of filming and research concerning the music and traditions of West Africa, I stumbled upon a close remnant, still alive in the United States... The Blues of Mississippi.

"In early 2001, I discovered how few elders of Blues music were still alive, as well as, how quickly and quietly, they were dying. With no outside funding, in an attempt to preserve one of Americas most enduring legacy's, [sic] I traveled to Clarksdale, Mississippi... which is considered Ground Zero for the Blues.

"The resulting personal stories, songs, folklore and words of wisdom (captured during the next 7 years) were worth it all. What a privilege to explore this vast, dynamic world... and get to know some of the kindest people on the planet.

"My life will never be the same... thank you all."

Films featuring: Morgan Freeman [the big name talking head, and nice one if you need one :-) ], Otha Turner, Big Jack Johnson, Sam Carr, Pinetop Perkins, Jessie Mae Hempill, Big Lucky Carter, Blind Mississippi Morris, Snooky Pryor, Luther Dickinson, James "Super Chikan" Johnson, and Terry "Big T" Williams.

So glad you've got the faster connection now, Bobert!

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 09:04 AM

Thanks fir the link, Neil...

Mr. Othar, as folks 'round Gravel Springs called him, was someone I was plannin' on meeting on my second pilgrimage to Mississippi but unfortunately I planned that trip for May of that year and Mr. Othar died the February just a day after one of his daughters died...

But I did visit with his peoples while I was there and invited to a "picnic" where I was first introduced to fife and drum music... Also introduced to some forms of dancin' that I really can't talk about but that folks do no matter how old they are... Whew...

Now every August Mr. Othat would roast a goat and have boi ol' picnic and folks would come from every and anywhere to be there and play music and swap stories... Stories are very much part of the north Mississippi hill country music tradition... The people there still hold an anual "Goat Roast" at Mr. Othar's farm and folks still come and carry on the tradition...

More on Mr. Othar later...

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: maeve
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 06:36 AM

Neil D.- Thank you! Otha Turner reminds me of my grandfather, with his loving, practical approach to life. Scenes in the film are so familiar to me- rolling the biscuits with a bottle, making do with what you have, making what you need. They even use a churn like my grandmother's (pulled out of the ashes just a couple of months ago).

I love this family and the music rising out of a hardscrabble life.

maeve

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Neil D
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 01:06 AM

Otha Turner

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 08:25 AM

I've always liked Robert's version better than any of the folks that have covered that song...

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Mavis Enderby
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 04:15 AM

There's been a link of two to versions of that song and it's inspiration upthread (look for Mississippi Sheiks, Crooked Still, and It Hurts me too) but no-one's posted Robert's take on it yet - and for reminding me how good it is, I thank you!

Pete.

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: maeve
Date: 18 Aug 10 - 08:22 PM

Has this been posted yet? I really like it. Robert Johnson "Come On In My Kitchen"

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Aug 10 - 07:52 PM

Fun while it lasted but, alas, seems as if "The Blues" is headin' the wrong way...

You can run, you can run
Tell my friend, Willie Brown
Yeah, you can run, you can run
Tell my friend, Willie Brown
Got these crossroads blues this mornin'
Lord, I'm sinkin' down...

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 09:09 PM

Well, Becky... The did get into a little jammin' around the 4 minute mark and, hey, it was right decent...

Now I'm about 45 minutes into listenin' to Pete's link... It almost a hour long... Real nice stuff... Little bit of moans, field hollers, dozens, sermons...

Back in the late 60's I was workin' as a community orgainizer and got hooked up with a black Baptist church an' lotta stuff in this link reminds me of stuff I came to really appreciate... I mean, I grew up in the church but not this kinda church... No wonder, them folks just get to church on Sunday mornin' and they still there late into the afternoon... I mean, black folk make church fun... That's what I learned long time ago...

Loving the fife and drum.... I mean, first tiem I heard this in Mississippi I was goin' "What the heck is this?"... Now I know...

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 08:08 PM

I think the Chinese band's story is more interesting then the band itself, probably... people making it how and where they can and the appeal crossing cultures... they do bill themselves as a "blues and jam band".

~ B in T

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Leadfingers
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 07:54 PM

I had got into the fringes of Folk and then fell into the Blues thing in early '65 , when I discovered that it was easier to play a twelve bar in E on a cheap D whistle than on a soprano sax ! December '65 the almost blues band I was in was on Television !
A LOT later I saw Gary Davis a The Troubadour (When Long John Baldry was Roadying) - I wuld have loved to have a jam with him , but I dont think R G D had ever met a Blues Whistle player !

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 07:42 PM

89% of Pete's link now loaded... Took just a little over an hour and I'm lookin' at the sky and rain is movin' in so I might not get it all 'cause my pudder comes down from satalite... Think I'll jus' give listen maybe after the puuder goes down... It sho nuff goin' down tomorrow 'cause they callin' fir big rain so if ya'll put links up an' come back an' I ain't said nuthin' then it's 'cause of the storm...

But we need the rain...

BTW, I almost hate to put this guy into the mix but I feel I gotta... Another prodegy that learnt up his blues is "Rev. Slick"... Well, he ain't exactly a reverand but the boy come to Como about 8 years ago after his junior year ibn high school back in NC... Skinny white kid who had some chops and he lived that summer with Mr. Othar (Otha Turner) and got himself educated in the blues and he was out there playin' some fine north Mississippim hill country blues when that gold croos he wore around his neck finally sank in and when that happened he swore off the blues... Kinda like Son House but Son kept goin' back but Rev, Slick (Danuel Ballenger is his real name) just been wlakin' the straight and narrow since then and is playin' gospel music these days... Heck, the boy gotta lotta talent so he can play whatever he wants... Jus' wished he didn't get so caught up in that blues is the devil's music crap 'cause now he's gone from the blues scene...

I doubt anyone gonna find much on him but if ya'll do find a clip, he sho nuff was enetrtainin'...

B~

p.s. Sorry, D-Dancer about the Chinese band... Some parts were better than otyhers... That rat-a-tat drum machine in the background was irritating to me... Jus' play the stuff stright up, I say...

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 07:29 PM

The Beijing band has it's moments but not exactly my kinda blues...

"The Land Where the Blues Began" is all me... The guy with the red paterned shirt is a yound R.L. Burnside... But this is all about the area of Mississippi where I been to 3 times... I guess if you had to pick a town that was the epicenter of this style of music it's Como, Ms... Ya' hear Fred McDowell and Otha Turner...

BTW, the Lowebow that I play is just a third generation diddybow where you can ganhge the tunin' by moving a metal rod with a capo behind it up or down the neck... This instrument is mezmorizin' because it's pure beat... Mine has 4 strings... One big fat bass and three trebbly ones... They are split in terms of amplification... One pickup for the bass and two fir the trebbly ones... You tune it just about anyway you wnat to match what you are gonna sing and let it rip... I use a slide on mine but alternate with held down strings... I tell ya' what, when you get these things a'goin' they will sho nuff put an audience in a trance... I mean, folks ain't heard this and they is like deer in the headlights...

The "The Land Where the Blues Began" will prolly take the rest of the night to load and I'll give listen to it over the rest of the night but it very much reminds me of my pilgrimages to the "hill country" (ha) of north Mississippi... I'm surprised that soemone didn't mention what the "hill country" is... Ain't no hills there!!! Just as flat as the Delta... Just up about 10-15 feet that become the banks of the Mississippi River when it floods out bad... But real flat... Okay, gotta a few slight hills but we're talkin' slight...

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Mavis Enderby
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 05:01 PM

Just for you Bobert: The Land Where the Blues Began

Lots more good blues (and other) films on Folkstreams

Pete

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bettynh
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 04:13 PM

I got to thinking about how I know what I do about the blues, and thanks to youtube, some of the answer is here . I know, those are suits and Lenny certainly wasn't a bluesman. But he could explain blue notes and syncopation in 1955 and be heard. Not an easy thing to do. He'd just written music for On the Waterfront. West Side Story was 2 or 3 years in the future. If you follow to the other 4 parts of this, it ends in pure mid-fifties jazz. But the first three installments discuss blues even when calling it jazz. The funniest part is his description of the "evolution" of blues into an intellectual persuit and bemoans the fact that "no one dances any more" because it took concentration to listen to what blues had become. Within 10 years, the basic blues would be back in fashion and young people were literally dancing in the streets.

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 03:16 PM

O.k., couldn't get much comment when I originally posted "Beijing's premier blues and jam band" last fall, and Bobert couldn't see any of it... but it looks like you've finally gotten that faster connection, Bobert??

Try this: Beijing Blues, Woodie Alan ( studio version)

and/or Woodie Alan, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Xiamen Beach Fest

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 12:36 PM

another couple fantastic clips... I love to see anything by Son House... Some folks might not know it but Son was also into preachin'... So that preachin' thing was always with him... I have a VCR tape (what's them???) of him doin' a torured monologue about playing blues on saturday night and then feelin' all this shame come Sunday mornin'... Very conflicted, Son was... Liked his womenz and he liked his whiskey, too...

Gonna get relegion,
goin' join the Baptist church
Gonna get religion
goin' join the Baptist church
Gonna become a Baptist preacher
so I don't have to work...

Thanks fir the clips, ya'll...

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Neil D
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 11:41 AM

Son House and Mike Bloomfield discussing the Blues

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bettynh
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 09:50 AM

Ben Prestage: Weed

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 08:58 AM

Well, when I happened on a blues website about 8 years ago this same disagreement was rampant... Some of the folks there were decidedly into "pre-war blues" meaning the folks who played and recorded their work before WW II... At the time I thought that was a very barrow definition and I still do...

Like I have said, I consider myself to be a "bluesman"... Yeah, I have copied others but I also have a wealth of other musical experiences which I have blended into my sound... I believe that I put out a sound that is unique... I also think that Eric Bibb has a unique sound... As do Carey Harris and Guy Davis, a couple other folks who were brought up in middle to upper middle class families...

I think it really comes down to the commitment level folks... I beleive I have made alot of the correct choices... I mean, I've been on three major pilgrimages to northern Mississippi and played with the Burnsides, the Kimbros, and listened and watched and soaked in everything around me... Teaching GED in the Richmond City jail where I was abpout the only white face, working at a drug rehab half-wat house where I was also about the only white face and living in rural areas around Richmond where agin I was about the only white face exposed me to alot of African American dialect and culture which I also soaked in...

I doono what else I could have done along the way to better prepare me to say "I'm a bluesman"... I mean, we all have trials and tribulations to draw emotions from... We've all had that one relationship go bad 'er that best buddy to be killed in Vietnam or in a car accident... That ain't somethin' exclusively for black plantation workers...

But, hey, that's just MO which one can take and a buck nine and get a 12 ounce cup of coffee at the MiniMart... lol...

BTW, ya'll... That Seasick Steve is one fine north Mississippi bluesman fir someone who didn't grow up on a plantation working "5 1/2 days a week (uless it rained)" (John Lee Hooker)...

BTW, Part 2... If anyone can find a clip of Ben Prestage and put a link to him I think that folks would really enjoy his stuff... I've known him for several years now and was forunate to be able to book him for a little concert series I co-coordiante in Luray when he was coming thru last summer... Great bluesman/msucian...

Opps... Ran over my time limit... Gotta go get on my tractor and play "plantation worker", i.e. the P-Vine's undergardener... lol...

B~

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 08:07 AM

Rob Naylor
"Although I'm sure there's still poverty, racism and pain in the southern rural culture, I don't think that it can be the same level of nose-grinding poverty and constant overt racism that applied when the blues originally emerged. So by Hoot's criterion, as the culture has evolved somewhat, there can be no more (or very few) "true" blues artistes and the vast majority of current musicians playing blues *must* be "copyists" as they "haven't lived the culture"."

So we disagree on width of definition. Conditions are somewhat improved but I believe that the people growing up under the current somewhat improved conditions chose to express themselves with "Rap". The most recent time that I was in Mississippi with two surviving blues musicians ther had been a recent Rap Festival which drew many thousands of people when the surviving juke joint probably housed a couple of dozen folks.

If you have ever been to Mississippi for instance you would soon discover just how much poverty still exists. But I've seen it in Chicago and Detroit too.

Hoot

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Green Man
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 07:19 AM

Got into blues in the 60's and it kind of stayed with me through being in a rock band, the army and after the army getting into folk. Its been a long road but when it comes down to it if the the music speaks to you, and you play it then you have what it takes. If your music speaks to others then you are blessed.

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: buddhuu
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 05:49 AM

Hey.

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 05:04 AM

Well I've listened to a fair number of the people noted on this thread now, and I have to say that I reckon Hoot's definition of what constitutes a "true" blues player/ singer and a "copyist" is, IMO, unnecessarily narrow.

Although I'm sure there's still poverty, racism and pain in the southern rural culture, I don't think that it can be the same level of nose-grinding poverty and constant overt racism that applied when the blues originally emerged. So by Hoot's criterion, as the culture has evolved somewhat, there can be no more (or very few) "true" blues artistes and the vast majority of current musicians playing blues *must* be "copyists" as they "haven't lived the culture".

I can't agree with that. It seems to be a similar backward-looking philosophy that some of the more conservative "folkies" on here espouse and would imply pickling the genre in aspic. Just to take one example: I've listened to a whole bunch of Eric Bibb's stuff now and I can't believe anyone would categorise him as a "copyist" despite his relatively privileged New York background.

Or maybe I just don't "get it" yet and need to listen to a whole bunch more stuff, when it'll suddenly become clear to me?

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: maeve
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 08:19 PM

Great links and discussion; thanks, everyone.

maeve

Subject: RE: The Blues???
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 08:15 PM

Yeah, 3 more fine ladies who also put out some fine blues... Big Koko Taylor fan here...