another college term for Big Al!

16 Apr 15 - 01:51 PM (#3702258)
Subject: another college term for Big Al!
From: Big Al Whittle

just listend to a Broonzy track that was nestling on a compilation called the roots of Blind Lemon Jefferson ..Long Tall Mama.

And I thought ...hell thats another bunch of tricks i never knew about. back to college tomorrow. After fifty years you'd think I'd get fed up with the same teachers droning on.

does anyone have that effect on you?

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16 Apr 15 - 02:24 PM (#3702267)
Subject: RE: another college term for Big Al!
From: Will Fly

Al - if we've any brains we never stop learning.

I'd been playing "The Glory Of Love" as an instrumental for lord knows how many years, but resurrected it recently with vocals - just for a change. Still found something new here and there...

And as for the Reverend Gary Davis - I'm still scratching the surface after 50 years!

Can I sit in the front row with you?

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17 Apr 15 - 08:11 AM (#3702421)
Subject: RE: another college term for Big Al!
From: Big Al Whittle

refresh

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17 Apr 15 - 10:11 AM (#3702447)
Subject: RE: another college term for Big Al!
From: GUEST,leeneia

What is a Broonzy track?

Surely you had at least one teacher somewhere who didn't drone on? Who tried to be interesting?

What kind of tricks are you referring to? Vocal effects? Guitar techniques? Rhyme schemes? Something else?   

Share.

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17 Apr 15 - 10:15 AM (#3702448)
Subject: RE: another college term for Big Al!
From: gnu

Requiring minds want to know.

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17 Apr 15 - 10:24 AM (#3702451)
Subject: RE: another college term for Big Al!
From: GUEST,#

Leeneia, the Broonzy track is a reference to a track on a CD compilation done by blues man Big Bill Broonzy. Trouble in Mind

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17 Apr 15 - 11:29 AM (#3702464)
Subject: RE: another college term for Big Al!
From: Will Fly

Leeneia, I think the point Al's making is that, no matter how much one has studied a particular kind of music, no matter how long one has been interested in it, no matter how long one has listened to the masters, no matter how much one thinks one knows it all, it's still possible to be pulled up short by something you've not come across before in the canon.

So it's, metaphorically, back to school - to listen again and study again under those same masters...

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17 Apr 15 - 03:37 PM (#3702528)
Subject: RE: another college term for Big Al!
From: GUEST,leeneia

Yes, but what was it?

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17 Apr 15 - 07:46 PM (#3702589)
Subject: RE: another college term for Big Al!
From: Big Al Whittle

its a fair question. i wish the answer was simple.

lets put it this way.

yesterday it was Broonzy. he played a simple riff i learned off Lighning Hopkins records when i was young. but suddenly Broonzy plays it differently. different rhythm, different feel to the song, different function in the way the guitar punctuates the song. and done without self conscious self importance. and i am old - and yet i can do no other than try to incorporate this texhnique until i can use it, with all the apparent artlessness of Broonzy.


today - it was something different. somehow i started thinking about a song called Electric Chair blues by blind lemon jefferson. i was moved by the song and recorded it a while back. then out of the blue people started requesting it at my very few folk gigs.

so i thought about the song and i realised there was an ambiguity in the lyrics of the sort analysed by the great English critic William Empson. utterly brilliant. this is what the audience had been reacting to. sheer brilliance.

no one studies this stuff as far as i'm aware. Jim Carroll, whom i respect very much, seems to think my attitude to the blues makes me first cousin to Simon Cowell. and the blues audience in England are just bleeding idiots. if it doesn't come in earsplitting volume - its not the blues.

in other words i feel isolated.

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18 Apr 15 - 02:18 AM (#3702621)
Subject: RE: another college term for Big Al!
From: Musket

Been a disciple of blues in folk since Ralph McTell said all his guitar tutors were dead.

I'm still elated when I hear something and work it out. The fun part is then weaving it into a song. Shoehorning a Blind Blake turnaround into a Child ballad gives me satisfaction on sooo many levels.

One day Al, they will let me out of remedial class and I can sit with you and Will, flicking Soggy Doris's at the blackboard.

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18 Apr 15 - 10:42 AM (#3702696)
Subject: RE: another college term for Big Al!
From: GUEST,leeneia

You're not isolated anymore, Al, because now I know what you mean.

About volume: the blues is the music of people who are sad, tired, or angry. for each line, ask yourself which emotion it expresses. Sad or tired songs should be sung quietly. Anger call for loudness.

A good example of this is "The House of the Rising Sun". Here's a song sung by a person who's DYING, who's all alone, and is enveloped in shame, yet performers bellow it out with all the vigor of a football cheerleader.

Too many performances mimic the hard loudness of a performer trying to make himself heard over an inattentive audience in a bar. When we have a good audience, we can forget that style and concentrate on what the song says.

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