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Preserving Country Blues through Education, Performance and Technology

Shake Your Wicked Knees - Rent Parties And Good Times, Yazoo 2035

November 17, 2011, 06:36:10 PM by Slack
Views: 968 | Comments: 0

Shake Your Wicked Knees - Rent Parties And Good Times
Written by John Miller

Shake Your Wicked Knees - Rent Parties And Good Times, Yazoo 2035

I recently found this CD, which is sub-headed "Classic Piano Rags, Blues & Stomps 1928-43", on sale, and I'm so glad I picked it up, for it is superlatively good. It is one of the series of CDs of Blues piano music that Yazoo has released that were produced (which in this instance, I assume, means the cuts were selected and sequenced) by the English record collector Francis Wilford-Smith. Other CDs in this series include one devoted to Roosevelt Sykes and Lee Green (reviewed elsewhere in this section), one focusing on Charlie Spand, and two devoted to the Blues piano stylists of St. Louis in the pre-War era. Francis Smith's knowledge of this material must be encyclopedic, for I had the feeling as I listened to the program that I was hearing the very best that the various artists had to offer.

A couple of extra-musical impressions began to develop as I listened repeatedly to this CD. One is that in the context of a rent party, a pianist's musical skills must have been taken as a given; just as important, though, must have been the ability to entertain, to act that host, engage in banter with the guests and maintain a stream of humorous woofing going along with the music. Not an easy job description! A...

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Robert Nighthawk - Prowling with the Nighthawk

November 17, 2011, 06:35:25 PM by Slack
Views: 822 | Comments: 0

Robert Nighthawk - Prowling with the Nighthawk
Written by John Miller

Robert Nighthawk - Prowling with the Nighthawk, Document DOCD-32-20-6

I recently picked up this re-release of an earlier Document CD, and have been pleased with what an excellent job Document has done with the re-issue. The program is generous, with 26 performances by Robert Nighthawk, recorded in the years 1937--1952 for six different record labels, and in a variety of ensemble settings. The notes accompanying the CD share a wealth of biographical and discographical information on Robert Nighthawk, and I refer interested parties to them for that kind of information. I will confine the discussion here to his music.

The earliest recordings presented here feature Robert Nighthawk working with Big Joe Williams seconding him on guitar and on several tracks, Sonny Boy Williamson 1 (John Lee Williamson) on harmonica. With two exceptions, "Don't Mistreat Your Woman" and "G-Man", for which Nighthawk played slide in Vastapol, these cuts find Nighthawk flat-picking out of G position in standard tuning, while Big Joe and Sonny Boy riff more or less non-stop. It is not what you would call a nifty sound, and there doesn't appear to have been a notable amount of listening going on between the players but it is strongly played and forcefully expressed. Apropos of this, I cong...

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The Persistence of Pre-Blues Material

November 17, 2011, 06:34:24 PM by Slack
Views: 695 | Comments: 0

The Persistence of Pre-Blues Material
Written by John Miller

The Persistence of Pre-Blues Material

I have been thinking about pre-Blues material for a long time (years and years) and figured out a long time ago that I particularly like it. I suppose the question comes up then, what makes a song pre-Blues, as opposed to Blues? I think two chordal/harmonic characteristics most strongly define pre-Blues songs:

* Absence of the "blue" IV chord. Blues have a dominant 7 chord with a flat 7 note relative to the IV chord of the scale. Pre-Blues material has either a straight major triad for the IV chord or a telescoped major 7 chord off of the IV note of the scale.

* Absence of the "blue" I chord. Blues most often have a dominant 7 chord (major triad with a flat 7) off of the I chord of the scale. Pre-Blues material has a straight major triad off of I, or, as with the IV chord, a telescoped major 7 chord.

What separates Blues chordally from the various western musics that preceded it, is that it has dominant 7 chords off of I, IV and V. Neither the major scale nor any of the Greek modes conforms to this chordal configuration. As a result, Blues has both a structure and a sound that does not have commonly known precedents prior to its appearance. Blues is most often described by persons living at the time as having fir...

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Sam Collins - Jailhouse Blues

November 17, 2011, 06:33:15 PM by Slack
Views: 384 | Comments: 0

Sam Collins - Jailhouse Blues
Written by John Miller

Sam Collins - Jailhouse Blues Yazoo 1079

This is not a new CD, but it is a great one, collecting most of the strongest titles of the under-appreciated Mississippi singer and guitarist, Sam Collins, in one place. According to the CD's liner notes, Sam Collins was born in 1887 in Louisiana, but raised across the border in McComb, Mississippi. This is in the southern portion of the state, in an area that did not produce many Country Blues musicians who were recorded in the first wave of Country Blues, in the 20s and 30s. If Sam was indeed born at the time reported, he would be placed in the company of such relative oldsters as Frank Stokes, Henry Thomas, and Gus Cannon, all of whom appear to have been in at least their forties when first recorded.

As represented in this CD's program, Sam's music appears to have had two primary strains: slide blues and sacred numbers played in Vastapol tuning and raggy and pre-blues numbers played in C, standard tuning. Whether playing in Vastapol or C, though, Sam Collins's magnificent vocals grab your attention and won't let go. Sam had an incredibly good voice, really one of the most beautiful in the history of the Blues. He knew what to do with it, too; sometimes his vocal rendition out-does the expressive content of the lyric. In "Dark Cloudy Blu...

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Johnny Temple - The Essential Classic Blues

November 17, 2011, 06:31:40 PM by Slack
Views: 314 | Comments: 0

Johnny Temple - The Essential Classic Blues
Written by John Miller

Johnny Temple - The Essential Classic Blues, , CBL 200038

This 2-CD set collects a large roster of the greatest hits of Johnny Temple (1906-1968), a transplanted Mississippi blues singer (to Chicago), who enjoyed a great deal of popularity in the period between his initial recording in 1935, and the early Post-War period. There are 36 songs included in the set, so you really get a hefty sampling of what Johnny had to offer.

Johnny's first recorded number, "Lead Pencil Blues", was very forward-looking number--a shuffle with duet guitar accompaniment in which the guitar laying down the time was employing the classic riff associated with Robert Johnson's "Sweet Home Chicago" and countless blues since then. Also anticipating the future in the cut is the flat-picked lead guitar, something encountered with great frequency on Johnny's later recordings. Two early recordings, similarly duets, "Big Boat Whistle" and "The Evil Devil Blues", are terrific. The interplay of the two guitars, one of which was Johnny's and the other, I believe, Charlie McCoy's, is excellent, as was Johnny's singing. "The Evil Devil Blues" is a bona fide oddity--a cover of Skip James's "Devil Got My Woman" that shows you can really end up with good things occasionally by NOT copying someone too caref...

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