Topic: Quills player at Maxwell Street Market, 1931

[Alexei McDonald]

This is very interesting. It's a 1931 silent documentary film about Chicago. At one point, the film crew visited Maxwell Street, and caught a couple of musicians on camera. The most interesting of these is a man playing guitar and quills from about 56.30 to 56.40 (as part of a medicine show sequence), which has everybody speculating.

Film at:

 https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/090556-000-A/weltstadt-in-flegeljahren-ein-bericht-ueber-chicago/?fbclid=IwAR24FFRdC4GOFAWdXJ0bL29YY9JnNXy3yVlD-d2k9xQwZKuSK_Ikgq-OcBk

Facebook topic at:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/163835903692878/permalink/4068736856536077/

[Johnm]

Thanks very much for posting that, Alexei. It is fascinating, and I just wish that they had featured the guitar/quills player a little bit longer (and had the sound of him, of course). The entire film is fascinating, for that matter, or at least the portion that I watched. Thanks!
All best,
Johnm

[waxwing]

I suggest anyone interested in a little depth on HT's playing should read Johnm's notes on this Weeniepedia page:

https://www.weeniecampbell.com/wiki/index.php?title=Henry_Thomas--Guitar_Playing_Positions/Keys

Does leave room for some speculation.

Odd looking box body around the pipes.

Thanks for posting, Alexei.

Wax

[Stuart]

Hi Alexei: Thank you for posting this. I watched it all the way through uninterrupted earlier today and it really is excellent. I couldn't find much on Heinrich Hauser in English, but he definitely had an eye for recording certain aspects of the human realm and how to put it all together into a film.

Seeing glimpses of how things were done ninety years ago in and around Chicago and on the Mississippi--in more than just the few short stock bits and pieces we commonly see--was quite enjoyable.

As for the guitar/quills musician, we'll probably never know who he was. Perhaps he really was Henry Thomas, but hopefully there were many practitioners of the art form actively playing throughout the country at the time.

Edited to add:

https://film.absolutmedien.de/chicago-booklet/eng/

https://film.absolutmedien.de/chicago-booklet/

[dj]

Thanks for the link to the booklet, Stuart. 

It really was a fascinating movie, though I wish there had been narration to help with understanding where filming was taking place in each scene and what exactly we were seeing.  My German isn't good enough at this point to catch all the nuances of the title cards - I'll have to watch the film again to really translate them.  I did get the title to the beach scene, and it made me laugh.  It's essentially "A lot of people, a little water".