Kassie Jones - a masterpiece. Most surreal version of the Casey Jones theme. Keeps digressing into talk of other things. Freudian dream imagery - John Fahey, on Furry Lewis
I visited this site for 10 years and only now found this introduction topic. I followed this forum for its wealth of information, mostly quietly because I don t have that much to contribute. My name is Rein, Dutch but currently living outside of Bergen, Norway. An interest in history guitars and where things came from (and a Stefan Grossman book from the Library )led me to attempt country blues guitar when I was 15. 30 years later my interest has widened and deepened ( I would now be more hesitant to even call this music country blues when so many of its great lived and worked in cities for example), but steel deeply in love with this music. At the moment I am very much into Tommy Johnson and his associates, and starting to explore the mandolin.
Hi Everyone! I am not sure how I DIDN't find you 10 years ago!!!! I have long studied the blues and I learned from this group as soon as I found it!! I enjoy your shows and network! and I plan to learn many more country blues songs with yall's help
Eventually I will post up some of my music... but if your dying to hear it (like I know you are) look for Martin Hruz, Barrelhouse blues or Blues127
Looks like I owe the Britts a second time around for keeping my country's music alive and well
Hi all - long time lurker here. Played guitar all my life and yet feel like I know nothng. Discovered Rev. Gary Davis and others from a Stefan Grossman VHS tape at the local library 20+ years ago. Thanks to the pandemic I found myself playing and reading more about country blues. Love the forum - many thanks!
I've been on the site occasionally for years, but never ran across this thread. So... being perilously close to the "older than dirt" category, I first encountered country blues at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1969 (Son House, Lightnin' Hopkins, Big Joe Williams, Arthur Crudup). I can boast of two degrees of separation from Big Bill Broonzy--my best friend's father knew him when he was a cook at the Circle Pines camp and learned a couple of songs from him. My own style owes a lot to Big Bill, Lightnin', Brownie McGhee, and Blind Willie McTell.
I'm going to be at Centrum in August, so maybe I'll run into some of you there.
Hey y'all, I've been lurking a little bit for a couple of years. I find the conversation very interesting and have recently had some lyric/chord progression questions of my own, so I figured that I would register. I grew up in the south - Alabama, for a short time, and then eastern Texas - and in particular, the story and enigmatic musical styling of Leadbelly fascinated me. I started playing guitar at the very start of the pandemic in the U.S., with one of those wonderful $50 E-Bay special boxes - you know, the ones that make a 70s Stella seem like a Martin (or an Oscar-Schmidt Stella, if that's your jam!) in comparison. I moved up to a cheap mini-dreadnought, then to a Yamaha 12-string that I sold in hopes to buy a Harmony Stella h-922. That hasn't panned out yet, and for now I am sadly stuck with a tiny plywood Kay box that has the right vibe, but not exactly a "Leadbelly" sound. I like Blind Willie McTell, but sadly my fingers are a bit too dumb for his treble-string trickery. Still trying to figure out what's going on with BBQ Bob.
I hope I'm a valuable contributor to this constructive and interesting forum.
For the "possible lyrics questions" you mentioned, be sure to spend some time looking through the list of lyrics on weeniepedia -- almost 3,400 songs! Wah!
The within-weenie search engine has some quirks, but between it and the tag system you should be able to find what you're looking for. I noticed that the link for "Ella Speed" in Weeniepedia takes you to the version by Wallace Chains; for the Mance Lipscomb version I had to use the tag index. For the Leadbelly version I surprisingly did not see any lyrics, but there's a wonderfully detailed article about the song here:
I have been lurking around here looking up many valuable resources on the site for a while now and thought it about time to introduce myself and hope in time I can repay the debt I owe.
I have been playing the guitar for many a year now but really only the last few years finally started to dedicate some serious time to it. I have always had a strong interest in blues music even when I was more of a heavy metal/rock listener in my youth, but now I seem to have found the missing link to the sound I always had in my head. My personal tastes are more of the hill country style.
Thanks again for all the info people have shared on here. It has been a big help, especially when trying to find out things of a sub genre of a sub genre.