Mudcat: is this a blues forum?

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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.