Josh White

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Aug 15 - 03:35 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Aug 15 - 03:35 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 11:19 AM

The first knpck out technique - that seems to have gone out of use in England is that upstroke.

Now flamenco guitarist use that upstroke -= an index swept across the strings from the first to the sixth. I've seen English folksinger/guitarist in No Fixed abode use it. in both cases as a dramatic flourish - but listen to Josh. He follows the index finger rapidly with the third finger - and he gets this rumpty tum sort of rhythm that drives the song along.

That technique - could be used by someone in English folksong. think of Martin Simpson doing Creeping Jame or the the late Tony Rose doing Thorneymoor Park. that would incorporate nicely.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Larry The Radio Guy
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 12:16 PM

Back to Josh White.......yes I did see him live a couple times at The Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton, Alberta.   I have vague memories of it.....no doubt he put on a great performance.   I suspect, however, my enjoyment was later tarnished by my own 'arrogance' of judging his music as not *real* blues.......but he was more like a folksinger.

The truth, of course, is that he was a masterful guitarist, a singer who could really communicate the meaning of the song, and an all round terrific performer.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 12:00 PM

I suspect that Mr Scott is really a Gilbert and Sullivan fan. He appears to have lots of little lists.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 10:59 AM

Unfortunately his wiki entry doesn't specify the pronunciation, tho it does say that he was also quite a successful racing driver.

I believe that name, Featherston[e]haugh, with or without an e at the end of the ston/stone syllable, can be pronounced, according to owner's prefs, as spelt (feather-stone-hore), or as feather-STON-och, or [as Will sez] as fanshaw. Anyone know which sax-player Buddy used?

≈M≈
aka Cholmondeleigh

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Will Fly
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 09:14 AM

Pronounced "Fanshaw"?

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 08:36 AM

Buddy Featherstonhaugh, - a relative of his died a few weeks ago, living in our village. unusual name.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 08:34 AM

"Bands that don't make my top 100 existed."
.,,.

& you expect us all to accept your top-ton list as definitive, eh Mr Scott?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Aug 15 - 02:38 PM

refresh.

I've decided to put some effort into this body of work. Frankly its much more influential in the folk club music of England than a lot of so called traditional music.

Its importance and beauty should never be lost to memory. It's techniques underpins every guitar toting folksinger in the UK.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 08 Aug 15 - 01:39 PM

"as if they never existed" Bands that don't make my top 100 existed.

Buddy Featherstonhaugh, George Shearing, and Victor Feldman were good.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Aug 15 - 11:22 PM

& we did, at that, have those listed in my post of 6 aug 0412. Whether Ambrose, Geraldo, Henry Hall, Ted Heath* et al "the equivalent" of the Armstrongs & Goodmans urged by Guest Joseph Scott obviously a matter of opinion: but surely somewhat crass to write them off as if they never existed. Dance bands, as well as jazz bands, had the word 'band' in their designation; and those of us who remember listening to the radio wireless in the 30s/40s recall that such had much impact & influence at the time.

≈M≈

*No, not that one!

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Aug 15 - 06:26 PM

the ones that stood out in my memory were Ben Webster and Wes. also Jimmy Witherspoon with Lenny Felix.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 07 Aug 15 - 02:22 PM

Al, you have sort of brought the threadrift back into line. On at least one visit here Josh White recorded with some of Hayes and Tracey's cohorts on the modern jazz scene I can't remember the names of the participants but believe Phil Seaman was the drummer. A friend of mine obtained an unissued test pressing 78 of Josh at this session doing a bawdy version of I believe it was Dark Town Strutter's Ball.

Re Jazz 625 I was led to believe that all those tapes were wiped/re-used including an Otis Spann programme but it seems a few did survive as I later saw and recorded T-Bone Walker backed up by a group of modern jazz players. I have a vague idea that a Champion Jack Dupree programme might have survived too.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Aug 15 - 01:38 PM

no we didn't have the equivalent of leadbelly, blind lemon, josh white, brownie mcghee, or lightning hopkins.

however we did have lonnie donnegan, gerry lockran....we still have Kevin Brown, Wizz Jones. we have artists of great ability who have made valid contributions to field of acoustic blues guitar.

also there some damn good musicians like Tubby Hayes and Stan Tracey who had no trouble playing alongside American jazzmen.

i wonder if any of you remember a tv series jazz 625 where Tacey backed Wes Montgomery and other greats. Also in the 60's pianist Lennie Felix had a radio series where he played a set with whoever was gigging Ronnie Scotts that week. Iwrote to the BBC and asked if they'd kept the tapes - no reply. no one knew what i was talking about. a common experience as you get old.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 06 Aug 15 - 11:09 PM

Back to the Status Quo thread drift --- they have turned Whatever You Want into a jingle for an Australian supermarket chain, which jingle gets played incessantly on TV here. I will *not* link to it (but if you must hear it, just type status quo commercial into Google, it's sure to come up).

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 06 Aug 15 - 07:34 PM

"Bit of an eclectically post-50s list." I wish I could say the U.K. had counterparts to Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, etc., but nope.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Aug 15 - 03:52 PM

"Obviously MGM has a very odd sense of pleasure!"

.,,.

"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."
    Jane Austen, Emma

Always the right word from good old Jane, Mike.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Aug 15 - 01:51 PM

I had the same album, Hoot. I was fascinated by Howard's dulceola playing.

Wiki article on the dulceola

Getty image of Leadbelly & Howard

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 06 Aug 15 - 12:38 PM

Will, the Leadbelly album which you mention with Paul Mason Howard was my first Leadbelly album a 10" disc on the Capitol label "Classics in Jazz" series issued in the U.K by E.M.I. The sleeve states Howard on Zither. My cousin bought the Eagle Rock Rag 78, mind blowing stuff at that time.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 06 Aug 15 - 11:37 AM

Maybe its me - but I just cannot imagine Leadbelly's "Fiddlers Dram" in any Tarzan film! And as to " if you have never marched to a band on parade you have missed out on one of life's great pleasures" - Again I am at a loss what to say. Obviously MGM has a very odd sense of pleasure!

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: meself
Date: 06 Aug 15 - 10:48 AM

Leadbelly Eagle Rock Rag

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: meself
Date: 06 Aug 15 - 10:43 AM

Leadbelly: Fiddler's Dram

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Aug 15 - 07:14 AM

When I think about Leadbelly's African roots - I always think of a track called Fiddlers Dram. I always think it sounds like something out of a Tarzan film.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Aug 15 - 06:06 AM

"to a band on parade you have missed out on one of life's great pleasures."
Hmmm!!
The first time we went to Greece we stayed on the Island of Poros on the Peloponnese
Just off the main Island was a rocky outcrop which housed a Marine Training College, and on the first morning we were woken by the incredibly discordant sounds of a military cadet band which sounded as if they were tuning up - this 'tuning up' lasted for the two weeks of our stay; it went on throughout the day, and even took place in small boats which sailed up and down between the island and the rock to the accompaniment of practicing musicians.
Apparently, it was the practice of the Greek Navy to send their musical failures to the College in a last-ditch attempt to make musicians out of them; when that didn't work, they were shipped out and another group of musical failures were shipped in in their place.
Don't know if the participants regarded it as "one of life's great pleasures", but it very nearly put us off Greece altogether.
JIm Carroll

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Aug 15 - 04:12 AM

"the UK's top 100 bands" I'll bite:
.,,.,.
Bit of an eclectically post-50s list. What about Geraldo, Ambrose, Harry Roy, Carroll Gibbons, Henry Hall, Jack Nathan?...

And define "band". Royal Marines? Grenadier Guards {"British Grenadiers", "The Old Grenadier"}? Coldstream {"Non piu andrai" from Figaro}? Scots Guards {"Ho-ro, my nutbrown maiden"}? Royal Army Service Corps [I still delight at the memory of marching to "Wait For The Wagon" in Aldershot in 1951!]?.........

(National Service was a nuisance and a bore, but there are always compensations; if you have never marched to a band on parade you have missed out on one of life's great pleasures...)

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Aug 15 - 03:47 AM

I know what you mean about Leadbelly, Al - I was hooked on him the very first time I heard "Grasshoppers In My Pillow" (aka "Leaving Blues") on an album of his stuff released in the UK around 1960 or so.

This particular set of things was, as I recall, recorded under the auspices of the Library of Congress. As well as Leadbelly's voice and guitar, he was accompanied on a few tracks by a dulceola player called Paul Mason Howard (the dulceola being a zither with a keyboard) and it was their duetting on "Ella Speed" which also set the blood zinging through the veins.

At his "wild African sound" wildest, I was intrigued by his rough and ready bar room boogie piano playing on "Eagle Rock Rag" - rough as guts but absolutely electrifying. Which is why, by comparison, Josh White sounded very tame to me.

Then along came Howling Wolf - but that's another story!

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Aug 15 - 01:15 AM

i agree we're drifting. i was commenting on the way a song can be transformed into somthing else, and gave the example of Quo's version of Wild Side of Life, which is the version most English people know.

quite a few people on the list are footnotes to the English scene, Quo are seminal English rock - headlining all the biggest venues, and hundreds of hit records and compilations. a massive contribution, and a massive career. with Wild Side of Life - they almost redefined the song. Quite a few American country songs have begone the same way - notably Dave Dudley's Six Days on the Road. In England - that's rock!

Josh on the other hand is almost the other end of the scale. his entire approach is trying to humanise and bring the music to the audience. i simply didn't understand that wild African sound of American folk music that is so evident in say Leadbelly and Robert Johnson, when i first heard it in the early 1960's. Josh, i could understand straightaway.

Josh given the circumstances of his birth and upbringing must have been steeped in the traditions of the folk music. he must have felt great affinity with the Leadbelly's and Johnsons.

Compare and contrast say with an artist like Gillian Welch or Martin Carthy who seem intent on ethnicising their work by adding little strangenesses - giving the music , a context by stylistic means.

]Somehow I can imagine Josh in so many English settings. I was listening to His eye is on the Sparrow - that would have been so great with Chris Barbers Jazz Band.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Janie
Date: 05 Aug 15 - 10:49 PM

Had never heard of Status Quo. Have learned a lot from the thread, but you guys are losing me now. Help me connect the dots between Josh White and Status Quo?

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 05 Aug 15 - 09:44 PM

"the UK's top 100 bands"

I'll bite:

1. Kinks
2. Led Zeppelin
3. Beatles
4. Queen
5. Steeleye Span
6. Big Audio Dynamite
7. Roxy Music
8. Gang Of Four
9. Deep Purple
10. Electric Light Orchestra
11. Fairport Convention
12. Smiths
13. Pink Floyd
14. Pretty Things
15. Kaleidoscope
16. Who
17. Rolling Stones
18. Yes
19. Traffic
20. Dire Straits
21. King Crimson
22. Clash
23. Supertramp
24. Procol Harum
25. Public Image Ltd.
26. Nice
27. Joy Division
28. Foghat
29. Japan
30. Cream
31. XTC
32. Wings
33. Zombies
34. T. Rex
35. Mott The Hoople
36. Depeche Mode
37. Police
38. Hollies
39. Ten Years After
40. Animals
41. Belle And Sebastian
42. 10CC
43. Creation
44. Sex Pistols
45. Dexys Midnight Runners
46. Beat
47. O.M.D.
48. Pogues
49. Pentangle
50. Searchers
51. Troggs
52. Fine Young Cannibals
53. Dream Academy
54. Dantalion's Chariot
55. Wire
56. Mirage
57. Modern English
58. Whitesnake
59. Big Country
60. Velvet Frogs
61. Soft Machine
62. Smoke
63. Yardbirds
64. Accent
65. Idle Race
66. Small Faces
67. Genesis
68. Outlaws
69. Free
70. Spooky Tooth
71. Moody Blues
72. Gentle Giant
73. Duran Duran
74. Caravan
75. Black Sabbath
76. Hawkwind
77. Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
78. Spandau Ballet
79. Dead Or Alive
80. Radiohead
81. Fotheringay
82. Verve
83. Stealers Wheel
84. Cure
85. Fleetwood Mac
86. Strawbs
87. Jethro Tull
88. Generation X
89. Proclaimers
90. Be Bop Deluxe
91. Art Of Noise
92. Tomorrow
93. Blind Faith
94. Humble Pie
95. Groundhogs
96. Move
97. Bad Company
98. Juicy Lucy
99. Badfinger
100. Barclay James Harvest

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Aug 15 - 04:51 PM

well like I say more musical than most groups. a lot of talent there. I saw John Coughlan do a gig with that Eric Bell who did the original riff for whisky in the jar - thin Lizzy with Noel Redding - ex Jimi Hendrix experience. a year or two before they all snuffed it.

Rick Parfitt the tory is loathsome - can't get over that. but as a musician - yes I rate him. more to the point, as a guitarist , I rate him highly.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 04 Aug 15 - 04:12 PM

Big Al ,just out of interest, where would you place Status Quo?
Top 10? Top 20? Top 50?

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Aug 15 - 01:38 PM

interesting! which list is that ?

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 04 Aug 15 - 01:10 PM

Status Quo are not good enough to be listed in the UK's top 100 bands.
Average is the word that comes to mind.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Aug 15 - 09:51 AM

Quo have - been enormously influential in England. and musically round the world their effect has been profound. you've probably been influenced by Quo without knowing it.

i have no great liking for them. politically we are estranged. they were heroes of th flag waving Thatcherite years. however i respect them and their achievements and musicality. any guitarist who has had a go at teaching what they do will know that they are no fools.

their big champions in folk music are the English folk rock bands who borrowed the Quo sound. compare and contrast Steeleye Span's Oh the Hard Times of Old England with Quo's Whatever You Want.

their earthiness seemed like a link from punk and skiffle to heavy metal and was often compared favourably to the corporate stateside heavy metal sound. they are much loved. they have heavy metal cred and showbiz/music biz acceptance.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 04 Aug 15 - 07:41 AM

The USA definitely is missing anything with Status Quo!
Probably their most popular number is John Fogerty's " Rockin' All Over the World".
AND, to make matters worse, Status Quo are a lot better known in the UK than John.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: PHJim
Date: 03 Aug 15 - 10:39 PM

Although I had never heard of Status Quo, I've met folks who had never heard of Norman Blake, Nat King Cole, Todd Snider, Gabor Szabo, Oscar Brown Jr., Hayes Carll, Nina Simone or John Herald. It just depends on the genre of music you're drawn to. I did listen to the Status Quo video that Big Al posted, but I doubt I'll ever listen to them again.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: PHJim
Date: 03 Aug 15 - 10:30 PM

Cliff Richard was quite well known in Canada, but a different era than Status Quo.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 03 Aug 15 - 10:00 PM

And Sweet. "Pictures Of Matchstick Men," "The Ballroom Blitz," and "We Don't Talk Anymore" get played in the U.S. some and that's about it.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 03 Aug 15 - 09:53 PM

Kind of similar to Slade, Cliff Richard, The Jam.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 03 Aug 15 - 09:51 PM

Status Quo are one of those weird cases where they aren't very known in the U.S. despite huge U.K. success.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: meself
Date: 03 Aug 15 - 01:19 AM

More importantly - WHO died in woo?

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: PHJim
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 08:31 PM

I'm from Canada, but I don't listen to "top forty radio". I must admit that I'd never heard of Status Quo.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 06:41 PM

one of my first gigs in country music was one of the support acts to Kitty Wells, who was touring the UK country clubs.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 02:20 PM

So Status Quo never had any hits in America...?

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 01:11 PM

The Wild Side of Life was written by A A Carter & W Williams. It was a big hit for Hank Thompson in 1952. Not being a hard core country fan I didn't know that Tubb recorded it. Did he?

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: PHJim
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 01:00 PM

. . . and the same tune is used for the response, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels" and also "I Am Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes" and "The Great Speckled Bird".

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: PHJim
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 08:36 AM

While I've often heard "The Wild Side Of Life" in many versions, that's the first time I've ever heard it (or anything else) done by Status Quo. Most folks with an interest in roots music have heard this song. It's a standard.

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 06:08 AM

status quo


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKLp9RGulyY

Subject: RE: Josh White
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 06:04 AM

status quo...doubt if anyone in England except the most died in woo country fans would know it otherwise.