bobo thomas!
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Hello heaven, daddy wants to use your telephone... So you can call good daddy anytime when he's gone - Papa Harvey Hull & Long Cleve Reed, France Blues
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic. dj
Walter Roland.
With the recent Sonny Scott and Lucille Bogan lyric threads, I've been listening a lot to them, which inevitably leads to listening to a lot of Walter Roland. Roland could do it all - great singer, great pianist, really good guitar player. The July 1933 session he did with Bogan and Scott is, to me, one of the greatest pre-war blues recording sessions. Roland lived until 1972, but never recorded after 1935. It's a shame he wasn't part of the post-war blues rediscovery. Maybe Alabama was a bit too far off the beaten track. Agreed. Such a great versatile musician.
I contacted Allmusic Guide a while ago and told them he didn't vanish in 1935; After 1935, however, Roland seems to have dropped off the face of the earth -- his subsequent activities and ultimate fate remain unknown. At least they added his birth and death date previously stated undetermined. Walter Roland - Allmusic https://www.allmusic.com/artist/walter-roland-mn0000813231/biography Thanks for reviving this thread, dj. Walter Roland is certainly a great choice. There are certainly a lot of musicians I'd put in this category whose work I was not familiar with when the category was started. I'd especially like to have heard more from Dennins McMillon and Sonny Jones, too East Coast players whose only solo titles (four apiece) can be offend on the "Blind Boy Fuller, Vol. 2" set on JSP. I sure wish Romeo Nelson had recorded more titles too.
All best, Johnm dj
Quote I sure wish Romeo Nelson had recorded more titles too. Agreed. Nelson lived on well into the LP age - he died in 1974 - and was visited by researchers and interviewed in the 1960s and 70s. It would have been nice if someone had recorded an LP or 2 of his work than. dj
Just a bit more on Romeo Nelson. According to an article in Frog Annual Number 5 (thanks, btasoundsradio, for inspiring me to pull that off the shelf) by Michael Hortig, Pete Welding and Erwin Helfer made an attempt to record him in 1964, but he was out of practice and the 3 tracks recorded were unusable. Welding touched base with Nelson again in 1965, and though his playing was much improved, it still needed a bit more work. A final attempt to record Nelson was contemplated in 1966, but nothing came of it, apparently for lack of money to cover costs. So we came close to hearing more from him.
taft
Pete Welding's recordings, and other documents, are held in the archive of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. The Romeo Nelson tapes are probably among the 700 tapes in the collection. See: https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=1929&recCount=25&recPointer=0&bibId=17244296
dj
Another thought prompted by recent lyric posts:
Josh White Okay, I know that he survived and recorded prolifically well into the LP era, but... After moving to New York and becoming a bit of a studio regular for Vocalion, with sessions with Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell, Buddy Moss, and Walter Roland and Lucille Bogan, White severely injured his left hand in early 1936, severing a tendon, with gangrene (or some other infection) eventually setting in. He stopped playing for a few years, and when he returned to performing, he was more of a strumming/simple picking folksinger. He probably would have moved in this direction anyway, as that's where the money was in New York City at the time. But I can't help wishing and wondering what he would have done had he never injured his hand. So in his case, it's "I wish we could have heard more of an uninjured Josh White, at least occasionally playing as he did in 1935." Hi all,
I have a bunch to add to this list: Smith Casey, Dennis McMillon, Roosevelt Antrim, Sonny Jones, Tarter & Gay, Little Buddy Doyle, Allen Shaw, Mattie Delaney, Rosa Lee Hill, John Lee Ziegler, Robert Diggs.Any other under-recorded favorites out there? All best, Johnm
Tags: Baby Tate Alec Seward Hacksaw Harney Smoky Babe Harry Oster Snooks Eaglin Frank Hovington Robert Lowery J.C. Burris Guitar Slim Jelly Belly Alec Johnson Connie Williams L.C. Green Walter Roland Romeo Nelson Pete Welding American Folklife Center Library Of Congress
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