WeenieCampbell.com
Country Blues => Weenie Campbell Main Forum => Topic started by: Bricktown Bob on January 05, 2008, 08:41:02 AM
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I had to sell my soul to the devil in order to learn to play like [Tommy Johnson]. Only the fellow who called himself the devil offered to teach me guitar in ten easy lessons, fifty dollars down and ten dollars per lesson. And he wasn't a man, exactly, but a transvestite who called himself "Peetie Wheatstraw's mother-in-law."
-- Steve Calt, attributed to Shirley Griffith
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Honey, honey, do you think I'm a fool
Think I'm gonna quit you while the weather is cool
-- Will Bennett, "Railroad Bill"
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Hi Bob,
I'd say that first quote was Steve Calt putting words in Shirley's mouth, to satirical ends, of course. The chain being yanked there is that of credulous blues fans who buy the "selling the soul to the devil" stories. The "interview" in that album's notes is a work of fiction. It is a funny quote, though, it's just that Steven should get the credit for it.
all best,
Johnm
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Ah. Thanks, John. Will change.
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"What's slidin' mean?" "Well, it means 'bout the train is so slow, until it almost slides, like a turtle."
J.D. Short explains the Slidin' Delta
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Hi all,
Here's a nice one off of the new JSP "A Richer Tradition" set.
Sometimes these dreams, just like being awake (2)
I saw another man eating up my chocolate cake
Emery Glen, "Back Door Blues"
all best,
Johnm
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"i could tell that her mind was changing, by the way that she wore her hair."
haywood county ramblers -'all bound down'
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* * * U p d a t e d * * *
Thanks all, quotes database is now up to date. Please keep them coming.
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Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.
Dale Carnegie
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I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
Duke Ellington (1899 - 1974)
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From lindy's post elsewhere:
Define swing? I'd rather tackle Einstein's theory - Cootie Williams, trumpet, Ellington Orchestra
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"I know my crown gonna fit me well, 'cause tried it on at the gates of hell" - Reverend Gary Davis
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"Well they kidnapped my baby, and she was all I had (2)
And they held her for a ten thousand dollar ransom, ooh well well, you know that made me feel so bad."
- Peetie Wheatstraw, "Kidnapper's Blues"
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This is a cracker from cheapfeet in another thread:
"When I was 15 I thought Heavy Metal & Punk music were 'hardcore'. And then I heard Muddy Waters."
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I hesitate to bring this up, as it's such a minor, nitpicky thing, but it's just driving me crazy. The Magic Quote Machine keeps throwing things up in this form:
I never saw him drunk, just feelin' good all the time, the better he felt the better he played - Blind Arthur Blake, remembered by Bill Williams
implying that Blake said it, when it's really about Blake. Seems to me the more nitpickily proper way to ascribe this would be "Bill Williams, remembering Blind Arthur Blake."
Again, sorry; I love the quotes, and I suppose a bit of cognitive dissonance every now and then won't do me much harm. Now where's my shotgun?
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Um, don't understand BB... it does say 'remembered by', meaning Williams is recounting Blake's behavior. Easy enough to change. The former English teacher in me prefers your version since it avoids the passive voice, but they both mean the same.
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Hi, Rivers.
Well, no, they really don't mean the same, at least to me. When I read a quote, I expect the first name following it to be the person who said the quote, not the person the quote is about. That's the only necessary part of the ascription. The rest, following a comma (to show that it's not really necessary), merely places the quote in context.
And yeah, avoiding an unnecessary passive is a plus.
But as I said, it's probably excessively anal on my part, and if it doesn't bug the sheep dip out of anyone else, I can live with it.
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Hi all,
Here's one of my long-time favorites:
"I'm gonna get drunk one of these nights, and tell my sober thoughts"
Bill Gaither, "Georgia Barrelhouse"
All best,
Johnm
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"I'm gonna get drunk one of these nights, and tell my sober thoughts"
Bill Gaither, "Georgia Barrlehouse"
Now that's a great quotation!
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I agree, Mike. My mother's version of the same sentiment is, "Drunk men speak sober mens' thoughts." I reckon it's an old saying, but I like the way Bill Gaither put it. Speaking of which, here is another beaut from him that I've been meaning to post for a while:
"If you don't know what you're doing, stop and ask somebody who knows"
Bill Gaither--"You Done Ranked Yourself With Me"
All best,
Johnm
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Also, I think the missing words in "Tooten Out" also conveniently explain the title of the song. I'm about 95% sure he sings:
She's a long, tall woman and she toot way out behind.
I think he means that there's a shelf there, not that she has an intestinal problem.
banjochris discussing Ed Bell's Tooten Out Blues.
Chris, you are a master, at hearing lyrics, and glibness of explanation. This really deserves to be in the quote generator.
All for now.
John C.
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Women are like wet bars of soap. Hold on to em too hard and they pop outta your hands.
-- John Lee Hooker
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"Now it's important that you understand that there were three things I never wanted to own when I was a kid: a dog, a cane, and a guitar. In my brain, they each meant blindness and helplessness. Seems like every blind blues singer I'd heard about was playing the guitar."
Ray Charles
from Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story (http://www.amazon.com/Brother-Ray-Charles-Own-Story/dp/0306814315/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201129997&sr=8-1)
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"I never did consider myself no fancy guitar player." - Tampa Red, quoted in the liner notes to Don't Jive Me.
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"There's some fellows -- I shouldn't say nothing because I made some of those jive records, too -- but they should have at least two meanings to what their song is. There is going to be little children hearing those songs, you know." - Tampa Red, quoted in the liner notes to Don't Jive Me.
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Whilst with Tampa Red, what he said to Jacques Demetre and Marcel Chauvard in October 1959 for not wanting to talk to them in any great detail has always tickled me:
"You know, I want to write a book about my life...I don't want to tell you too much until I've got a chance to have it printed. Apart from my music, my main interests are fishing and making bicycle rides".
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hello friend,
this has absolutely nothing to do w/ country blues, it's actually something tom waits said he read on a bathroom wall. :D
"i'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy."
it's just too good to not repeat.
sort of off subject, would it be better to start another quote drive - that has nothing to do w/ blues per se, in the 'jam session', or would that just confuse things? i'm sure we all know a few, & learn a few throughout the year others would like to know. just a thought.
chris
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"i'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy."
Jam Session material, but staying in the thread...
It's been around for a while. Barry Hansen put it on his top ten list years ago when it was done by Randy Hanzlick (M.D.) as "I'd Rather Have A Bottle In Front Of Me (Than A Frontal Lobotomy)." Supposedly it's origin lies with Dorothy Parker, but who knows for sure. From what I can gather, it also was Fernwood 2 Night / Tonight material. --memories of "Baby Bottle Blues"--Here's a link to a Tom Waits YouTube vid in which he speaks the line.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_0E7x3Nqys
Anyone catch the PBS show last week on the doctor who performed lobotomies? Gruesome.
Keep Smiling
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The Woodpecker flew to the school house yard,
He wanted to peck because his pecker was hard,
The Woodpecker flew to the school house door,
He pecked so long 'til his pecker got sore,
The Woodpecker, he pecked so all night 'til the break of day,
When the sun rose up he flew away.
Howard Armstrong - from Terry Zwigoff's film Louie Bluie
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hello friend,
these are taken from steve calt's notes in the yazoo release, 'bo carter - banana in your fruit basket.'
" 'Race' records of the 1920's revealed only too obviously that the chastity projected by spirituals or groups like the Fisk Jubilee Singers did not truly reflect black social values, any more than Pat Boone represents the typical American male."
"It is a strange reflection on our own society that the country blues of rancor & belligerence should be touted for their sincerity of expression, while the easy-going & relatively innocuous songs of Bo Carter can be written off as 'trite pornographic ditties.' "
the latter a friendly jab at Stefan Grossman's comments in his 'the country blues guitar' instruction book ???
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Some intro raps taken from Mance Lipscombe Live At The Cabale, great record.
Tom Moore, yeah! [chuckles] Yeah! Let's see, oh well he can't hear me. 'Looked up and see how close the wall was to me, it ain't goin' out there... - Tom Moore Blues
Cocaine, what is that? Some kind of bad habit? - Cocaine Done Killed My Baby
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No 'e' on Lipscomb, Rivers (in case you're editing the quotes for the Oracle).
Here's one from that article on Skip James I just posted about:
"Like everybody else in the Delta, they listened to phonographs, jukeboxes and the radio, and they sang country music, popular songs of the day, even jazz, for both blacks and whites. Singer Johnny Shines, who knew [Robert] Johnson well, said that the singer of the doomy 'Hellhound on My Trail' was also 'a polka hound.'" David Gates on the bluesman stereotype, Newsweek magazine
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How about this short but sweet one from Papa Lightfoot,
RJ
[?come on baby talk some trash to me.?]
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"I don't drink whiskey but I'm a fool about my home-made wine" -- Blind Lemon Jefferson, "Chock House Blues."
"I ain't doin' no good, haven't even got a lousy dime
the woman I love is way down in the Delta Pines" -- Johnny Shines, "Delta Pines"
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c'mon baby squeeze my lemon, til the juice run down my leg - you know what I'm talking 'bout - RJ
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Blues is a natural fact, is something that a fellow lives. If you don't live it you don't have it. Young people have forgotten to cry the blues. Now they talk and get lawyers and things.
Big Bill Broonzy
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Anybody singing the blues is in a deep pit yelling for help.
Mahalia Jackson
(so true, so true...sob, snivel, snurkf....!)
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I started a guitar school. It was called Home of the Blues, on 125th Street in New York. I did that for five, six years and had a lot of students.
Brownie McGhee
Blues are the songs of despair, but gospel songs are the songs of hope.
Mahalia Jackson
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)
All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.
James Baldwin
If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.
Albert Einstein
"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."
- Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."
- Mel Brooks
"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."
- Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
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Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that?s creativity - Charles Mingus
dang Andrew you got me on the Mance spelling again >:(
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"Doctor told me to quit drinkin'. I said 'Why, I'm gonna die anyway.'" -- traditional joke.
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If you wanna go to Heaven around the great white throne, you'd better tend to your business and leave mine alone - Golden Gate Quartet, Every Time That I Feel The Spirit
And if anybody asks you who's singin' so straight, just tell 'em it's a quartet called the Golden Gate - Golden Gate Quartet, Every Time That I Feel The Spirit
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Not a new quote, just a correction. There's a quote in the Quote Oracle from good old Henry David Thoreau, where his name is spelled Thoureau. No u in the correct spelling.
On a Thoreau note, Paul Geremia has a song done as a play on Johnny B. Goode called Henry David Thoreau. "Go -- Go Henry David Thoreau..."
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"He liked the sound of the cash register" - Columbia A & R man Frank Walker's wife, commenting on Walker's taste in music, quoted in Paul Oliver's Songsters & Saints
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< < < U p d a t e d > > >
... with 557 quotes, and suitable corrections as above, thanks to all contributors, please keep posting as you find them.
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The title alludes to a Southern Pacific train that left Houston every night a few minutes after eleven for San Antonio and points west. As it rolled westward and entered Fort Bend County about twenty-five miles from downtown Houston, it crossed the Brazos River bottomland and passed near the buildings of the prison farm. Often its lights flashed through the cell windows and its whistle echoed across the prison farm. To the men who nicknamed the train the "Midnight Special" it became a cruel, tantalizing and regular reminder of life beyond the Sugarland fences - The Life And Legend Of Leadbelly, Charles Wolfe & Kip Lornell
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"I am Peetie Wheatstraw, the high sheriff of hell." - Peetie Wheatstraw sings about himself in the "Peetie Wheetstraw Stomp"
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"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." Albert Einstein
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They'll bite the hand that feeds them, spend all the money you can save. From your heartstrings weave silk garters, build a doghouse on your grave - Dock Boggs, False Hearted Lover's Blues
Take a butcher knife, cut off your head, send me a telegram that your body's dead. If you want me to love you that's what you've got to do - Tampa Red, If You Want Me To Love You
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Just heard this one, so somebody check to make sure I'm hearing it right.
Say you may be brown skinned, Woman, praise God, your hair long as my arm (2X)
Can't do the bed spring polka, you sure done lost your home.
Will Batts - Country Woman
All for now.
John C.
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I think it's "bed spring POKER." I've heard that in other songs.
My favorite line from that tune is the next one:
Now a short haired woman waiting for to carry your troubles on
Make you think through the daytime, trouble you all night long
She make you think you right, when you know darn well you wrong
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Poker? Hmmm? Makes it a game, not a dance? Could be.
I thought that one was "DRINK through the daytime", but I haven't given much of a listen. It sounds kinda like he went to the third line early and then after being prompted "why?" might have extemporized the last line, altho' he's pretty clear on what he's saying. Yeah, that's a killer, too. Put 'em both up, Riv.
Sure like the simple but effective two guitar work on that and several other songs, Cool Iron Bed, Highway 61, etc., by Jack Kelly's band.
All for now.
John C.
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Bill Monroe, at the Bean Blossom Festival, in response to someone in the audience repeatedly yelling out a request for "Rocky Top":
"Now I've been hearing somebody hollering for "Rocky Top", and I'm very sorry, the Bluegrass Boys don't do that number, but in a little while the Osborne Brothers will be up here, and they'll play it, not once, but several times."
Del McCoury, still fiddling with the tuning of his guitar half-way through the second set of a concert: "You know, folks, I haven't been able to get this thing in tune all night. That's all right, though, it makes it sound like there's more of us."
Lester Flatt, introducing the members of the Nashville Grass: "Now Bill, over here on bass--I'm sure you've heard of people who don't know nothing--he don't even suspect nothing."
All best,
Johnm
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John C.
On this side of the pond a poker is not a card game but a metal rod used to "poke" a fire to make it burn better. Maybe that's what was meant.
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Sounds like 'polka' with a Memphis drawl to me.
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It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive characteristics.
-James Weldon Johnson
"Ain't never a white man had the Blues.....nothin to worry about!"...Huddie Ledbetter
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The Mississippi Sheiks do a song called Bed Spring Poker, where they are clearly referring to a "game" and not throwing in extraneous 'r' sounds or anything. While polka conjures amusing images of bedtime gymnastics, I'd be putting my money on "poker" here. I agree, Wax, great sound on this tune.
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Ah, swing, well we used to call it syncopation -- then they called it ragtime, then blues -- then jazz. Now, it's swing. Ha! Ha! White folks yo'all sho is a mess. Ha! Ha! Swing! -- Louis Armstrong, asked by host Bing Crosby to explain swing on a national radio program
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Just got finished with my fifth watching of "Ain't Gonna Worry No More," as an antidote to worrisome times. I love this lyric, does it qualify for Weenie quotedom?
Bought some slippers, bought some socks,
Came back home to find my back door locked.
I'll hold back from attributing it to Sleepy John Estes, since it sounds like a lyric that could be from lots of different songs, although this is the first time it's graced my ears.
Lindy
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Hi all,
Carl Martin's response to Jack Hansen's observation that he had never seen a mandolin with the pairs strung in octave courses, as they were on Carl's mandolin: "Where you been?"
All best,
Johnm
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"I'm a man, not a jackass." - Reverend Pearly Brown, I'm On My Way to the Canaan Land
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I told a white fellow once, ?If you were black for one Saturday night and on Beale Street, never would you want to be white again.?
?Rufus Thomas
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I've just seen the following quote displayed:
"I saw Johnny Shines with Robert Lockwood in London many years ago - a two night stint. ... At the end of the second night, some fool in the audience shouts, "Johnny Shines, you are a sexist!" Shines says, "What?" Guy repeats it. Shines says, "Texas? I don't know nothing about Texas." Collapse of interlocutor - Johnny Shines, by Chris Smith on prewarblues list"
I too was present at that incident and for what it's worth it took place at the 100 Club, Sunday 28th October 1979.
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Anywhere I'm wanted, I'll go. I've got to be wanted, though.
Brownie McGhee
Everybody would grab a guitar and listen to somebody else and call themselves a folk singer. When they didn't know no more songs, they'd run out of them.
Brownie McGhee
From then on in, me and Sonny started makin' records. My first records, Sonny was backin' me up. Sonny wasn't singin' natural at the time; he was singin' falsetto.
Brownie McGhee
I don't sit here and dream because I don't care about the future. I wouldn't take nothin' for my past and I've got enough behind me that I can write forever.
Brownie McGhee
I got Sonny up to Harlem, and we started street playin' in New York. We did that for three or four years and survived. We brought it back to the streets again.
Brownie McGhee
I met Sonny after (Blind Boy) Fuller died, and me and Sonny played in the streets like everybody else.
Brownie McGhee
I only write about what I do, what happens to me.
Brownie McGhee
I was playing with steel picks on a steel guitar, and there was no amplification needed.
Brownie McGhee
Logically, when you talkin' about folk music and blues, you find out it's music of just plain people.
Brownie McGhee
Long made it possible for me to get on records, so what little money he did take from me, if any at all, he was entitled to it. He didn't take something from me.
Brownie McGhee
My guitar was loud as hell, and I had no sympathy for anybody else.
Brownie McGhee
Something is better than nothing. Doin' anything for a man, there's investments involved, there's time and production. It's better to give him ten bucks and get a record out than to never record the cat.
Brownie McGhee
That's what I liked about hitch-hiking. If a crowd wasn't big enough, I kept walkin.'
Brownie McGhee
There's a lot of good musicians who are unheard of. Get it down before they pass away.
Brownie McGhee
When I was hitch-hiking, people had to follow me, 'cause I didn't stay long.
Brownie McGhee
When somebody blazes a path to a highway that never end, you should appreciate 'em some.
Brownie McGhee
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Nice quotes, O'Muck. What's the source?
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I too was present at that incident and for what it's worth it took place at the 100 Club, Sunday 28th October 1979.
What a memory! Do you recall what colour socks you were wearing at the time? I'm terrible with dates.
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I too was present at that incident and for what it's worth it took place at the 100 Club, Sunday 28th October 1979.
What a memory! Do you recall what colour socks you were wearing at the time? I'm terrible with dates.
Nah, not all down to memory, I've kept every pocket diary back to 1966, so it was just a case of thumbing through the 1979 one until I spotted the Shines/Lockwood.
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Nice quotes, O'Muck. What's the source?
Teriyaki or Hollandaise. (ba dum dum!) >:D
The web sees all, reveals all!
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Nah, not all down to memory, I've kept every pocket diary back to 1966, so it was just a case of thumbing through the 1979 one until I spotted the Shines/Lockwood.
[/quote]
Surprised they let you in, Alan. After all, you were only a babe in arms then... :)
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As a self-described blues purist, Jorma Kaukonen never had any ambition to play in a rock band. Invited to attend a Jefferson Airplane rehearsal by founding member Paul Kantner, Kaukonen found his imagination excited by the arsenal of effects available to electric guitar and later said, "I was sucked in by technology."
...from Wikipedia
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"Blues" music was created to chase away gloom... The Happy-go-lucky songs of the Southern Negro we call "Blues" - W. C. Handy, 1919. "The Father of the Blues" points out that you've got to be happy if you want to sing the Blues. Quoted by Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff in "They Cert'ly Sound Good To Me: Sheet Music, Southern Vaudeville, And The Commercial Ascendancy Of The Blues" in Ramblin' On My Mind, David Evans, ed.
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ALBERT SCHWEITZER:
There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
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ALBERT SCHWEITZER:
There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
Ahem. Not to fly in the face of the great Dr. Schweitzer. But...
Dogs. Always, dogs. Cats are simply malodorous coyote food...
Unless he meant music cats.
>:D
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He was! Referring to music cats I mean. He had a swell little combo comprised of thirteen pipe organs and a washboard. Swung some shit too! ;)
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ALBERT SCHWEITZER:
There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
Ahem. Not to fly in the face of the great Dr. Schweitzer. But...
Dogs. Always, dogs. Cats are simply malodorous coyote food...
Oh, hell no! I won't eat no stanky pu -- can I say that in here? >:D
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SENTENCE BLIND MUSICIAN FOR ASSAULT - Columbia, S. C., July 17. - (A. N. P.): Simmie Dooley, blind musician, has been sentenced to serve two months in the State penitentiary having been found guilty of a charge of assault and battery. Dooley's chief instrument is a guitar which he plays so well that while being brought to jail he earned nearly ten dollars from people along the way. -- Norfolk Journal and Guide, July 19, 1924.
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Simmie Dooley, blind musician, has been sentenced to serve two months in the State penitentiary having been found guilty of a charge of assault and battery. Dooley's chief instrument is a guitar
Was the guitar also the weapon used in the assault? It is his chief instrument, after all.
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I seem to remember hearing that Son House apparently said one of the most useful things about a National guitar was that it was great for rendering an adversary unconscious!
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Simmie Dooley, blind musician, has been sentenced to serve two months in the State penitentiary having been found guilty of a charge of assault and battery. Dooley's chief instrument is a guitar
Was the guitar also the weapon used in the assault? It is his chief instrument, after all.
I'm just impressed he made 10 bucks on the way to the hoosegow...
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My goodness, what's with 60 days in the state penitentiary? Didn't they have a local jail in Columbia? That is some weird sentencing.
All best,
Johnm
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I'm just impressed he made 10 bucks on the way to the hoosegow...
What would that be in today's $$?? How about in Canadian $$??
I'm surprised that the scholars over at the PWBG didn't do the conversion.
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?More bass.?
--Response from Jerry Wexler, producer of hits by Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and Bob Dylan, among others, when asked what he would like to have written on his tombstone.
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"The blues come from behind a mule." -- Bukka White (told to Hawkeye Herman -- he mentioned it recently on the Blindmans Blues Forum)
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"Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic, and so am I."
Oscar Levant
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"The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the more it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons."
Imamu Amiri Baraka
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They said, You have a blue guitar, you do not play things as they are. The man replied, Things as they are changed upon a blue guitar.
Wallace Stevens
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"The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the more it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons."
Imamu Amiri Baraka
Damn that Jelly Roll Morton for taking piano lessons. Fats Waller, shame on you for learning from James P Johnson (not to mention - I can barely bring myself to say it - studying at Juilliard. I mean, really!!). Miles Davis, son of Dr. Miles Davis, Illinois dentist, who sent you to Juilliard, I'm tossing my copy of Kind of Blue (and Birth of the Cool, and Milestones, and Miles Smiles, and even Somethin' Else - sorry Cannonball, blame Miles...) 'cause I found out you're middle class on Wikipedia...
Imamu Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) - Zzzzzzzzzzzz........
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Well Uncle Bud..I guess he would argue that the musicians you mentioned ARE part of or immersed in "the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life" (love the phrase stark blue continuum!).
I think its more an indictment of the academisation of the music rather than a blanket repudiation of any middle class practitioners, no? At least that's how I interpreted it. In my un-humble opinion the effects of academe on the arts is questionable at best and often demonstrably negative as in the visual arts. The rise of university art departments funded by returning soldiers on the GI bill after WWII created a system antithetical to the production of serious work. The emergence of these departments and the subsequent appearance and domination of Pop art is no coincidence. There has never been an artist of the first rank with an MFA. None of the titans of the preceding generation had degrees.
And don't get me started on Julliard! I look out my window and see Julliard's grotesquely ugly high rise every goddamned day (irrelevant, I know but for an institution that's supposed to uphold some kind of aesthetic standard?...know what I mean?). One of my closest friends now deceased, taught there for forty years and felt that for the most part it creates soulless technicians, incapable of responding to the profundities of great music (with the exception of an occasional Midori).
I have friends who studied there as well and the picture is much the same. Careerism and ferocious competition were the primary considerations. There were a small handful of inspiring teachers you could work with privately.
It was the private lessons either with Julliard faculty members or non faculty members that were most important to people.
And its all coming to a theater near us soon folks! Its only a matter of time (and a short time I'm afraid) when
we'll be seeing college courses like "Blind Willie Johnson 101" bottle neck guitar techniques, or "Pre-Johnsonian
guitar techniques of the Mississippi River Delta Area"
Technically perfect nine year old girls will mount the stage at Blues festivals and blow us all away, and then...it'll all be over..it will become...an academic subject,,,glecccchhhh.
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Well I'm not launching a full-on defense of Juilliard or the academy in general, or university music programs. But classical music needs to be studied somewhere, and a university seems like the best option we've got. Much of what I've heard about Juilliard sounds fairly grim in fact, but there are other programs out there that are more about the music than the climb to the top. The long history, diversity and complexity of jazz seems to lend itself to at least some academic study by some musicians as well. All music needs soul in the end, and I don't know if that's something one can ultimately teach. But having a good foundation will at least help you take a shot.
(I'm reminded by this topic of one of my favourite quotes about writing, from Flannery O'Connor. "Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.")
My point about the Baracka quote is that it seems politically motivated and not based in the realities of musical performance and creation. The playing of Jelly Roll Morton or Fats Waller is in part a demonstration of music lessons, sustained practise and study -- in a significant way -- in addition to their own personal genius, what they bring to the music from their culture, how their culture shapes their approach to music, how commerce shapes it etc. Culture alone does not guarantee musical genius. From my very limited knowledge of the area, it seems to me that lots of the early 20s jazz performances were songs composed for the sheet music, music hall and musical theatre industry, written down by people who had studied music, composition etc., churned out for the stage and for people to play music in their parlors. They were trying to make money and would probably look at us as if we were insane if we tried to engage them in a discussion about the cultural purity of the music.
Blind Willie Johnson techniques at university? Nah. :D But I did do ear training classes to Ray Charles music in CEGEP (sort of pre-university community college). Some of the best learnin' I got.
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Good points uncle Bud. Its just one o' them Susquehanna Hat Co. trigger things for me, dontcha know, hence all the irrelevant digressions. AND.............
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSp0sMHVEpQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSp0sMHVEpQ)
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LOL... speaking of genius...
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Damn that's good!
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'25 cents?! Ha! No, no . . . I wouldn't pay 25 cents to go in nowhere!' - 1933's "Gimmie A Pigfoot" by Bessie Smith.
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"Pete, any damn fool can mash a string and holler!"
- Homesick James
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"Am I afraid of high notes? Of course I am afraid. What sane man is not?" - Luciano Pavarotti
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If the blues was whiskey, and trouble was a bottle of gin
I'd buy me a 38 special and that's where trouble would begin"
--Roosevelt Sykes, "Trouble and Whiskey Blues"
That whole song is full of gems.
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This one just popped up and boy did I misread it!
"I love women but I'm not crazy about them - Sam Chatmon, sharing his personal views on relationships with a young John Miller"
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Hi all,
Here's one from harmonica player and singer Robert Diggs, to George Mitchell:
"Blues strike your heart just like church songs do. I've played blues at churches before and had the preacher patting his foot. 'Cause music ain't but music, and a song ain't but a song."
All best,
Johnm
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Some people say money is talking, but it won't say a word to me.
- Robert Hicks, "Bad Time Blues"
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hello friend,
"monkey got his tail caught up on a street car line, honey
didn't think about it till i started twistin' mine, honey
run back to the track, lay his head on the rail
lose his head about a little piece of tail.
oh sail, oh sail away"
funny papa smith, "honey blues"
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"For decades, practically every big circus on the road had a black band and minstrel company attached to its sideshow, performing on the streets and inside the sideshow tent before people of all races, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the southern reaches of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. During the 1910s, these companies constituted a significant pathway for the dissemination of ragtime, blues, and jazz." - Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, Ragged But Right: Black Traveling Shows, "Coon Songs", And The Dark Pathway To Blues And Jazz
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Added 46 new quotes since the last update, total is now 603. Very cool.
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An obscene observation to me by Baby Tate:
If I had a dick as big as Pink (Anderson), I wouldn't have to work for the rest of my life!
Further comment is unnecessary, don't you think?
yrs,
Peter B.
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Always educational, WC.com...
Very happy to see the steady stream of great quotes still emerging. Would be nice to hit 1000, I'm sure we can do it with some dedicated digging expeditions. I remember when there were around 50 in the database and we thought how cool that was.
PS, make my life easy gang - follow this standard format and I can just cut and paste:
No line breaks
No quotation marks unless somebody is quoting somebody else in middle of sentence
Type the quote first followed by a dash, then the attribution, as in:
A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled - Sir Barnett Cocks, 1907 - 1989
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At his first performance, in the Empire Theatre in Glasgow on August 1, the audience went wild when Waller made his entrance wearing a kilt. When he sat down at the piano and swung "Loch Lomond," he had them in knots. - Fats Waller tours the UK in 1938, from Spreadin' Rhythm Around, Jasen and Jones.
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Added 46 new quotes since the last update, total is now 603. Very cool.
Good work Rivers!
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That Baby Tate quote is, well, let's just say it's going to be difficult listening to Pink Anderson for at least a few weeks. :D Too funny...
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What I wondered was "how did he know?"
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Rivers -
I wondered the same thing! I just reports them as I heard them!!
Peter B.
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George wanted to take Lonzie to record with Albert Macon and Robert Thomas, and the daughter was hesitant to let Lonzie get in a car with George, or with anybody, but George reassured her. So George helped him in the car, and put the car in reverse, and drove directly into a nearby ditch. Lonzie turned and said, "Man, George, you may as well let me drive!" - Fred Fussell describes George Mitchell chauffeuring the blind Lonzie Thomas to a recording session, from notes to The George Mitchell Collection.
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What I wondered was "how did he know?"
Maybe he got so bold, he just couldn't keep it hid.
:D
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OT but to good to pass up:
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
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Old Yank's wife, when she seen me and John coming, she'd start throwing Yank's clothes outdoors. - Hammie Nixon, in The Voice of the Blues
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I heard them bring that old Iron Curtain down on me. - Sleepy John Estes visits eastern Europe, The Voice of the Blues
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I tell you, all them scounds could play good; I don't know which one was best. I liked that Lonnie - he was the big fat one - I liked his violin playin', but that other one, what played violin and piano, too, and everything, I believe it was Bert. They both played so good, it'd be hard to tell how to judge which one played the best. - Houston Stackhouse remembers the Chatmon brothers, The Voice of the Blues
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The piano may do for lovesick girls who lace themselves to skeletons, and lunch on chalk, pickles, and slate pencils. But give me the banjo... When you want genuine music?music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whiskey?ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose?when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo! - Mark Twain, Early Tales and Sketches, Vol 2 (1864-65)
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He been dead so long he near about ready to come back. - Furry Lewis addresses whether Jim Jackson was still alive in 1959.
(Thanks to Jeff Harris' sundayblues.org for that one.)
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When the tide goes out on Wall Street, all kinds of flotsam and jetsam are revealed in the mud flats - John Coffee, professor at Columbia University School of Law
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Some of these quotes have me scratchin' my head wonderin' how they're blues related. Some of 'em are interesting but a bit of a stretch for a blues quote...
I am a cool driver, and I know my way around. -- Johnny Shines, "Cool Driver"
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There've always been a few that aren't blues related since day one.
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Oh man, I just wish you people had come along twenty years ago; I was in my prime then. - Mance Lipscomb to Paul Oliver, Chris Strachwitz and Mack McCormick, 1960
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Among the blues singers who have gained more or less national recognition, there is scarcely a man's name to be found. -- Howard Odum and Guy Johnson, 1926
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Well, from the standpoint of commercial recordings issued through 1925 (surely the book was "put to bed" before 1926!) they were spot on - that was the era of so-called "classic" blues performers from the Black vaudeville stages. Ed Andrews recorded in 1924 and is likely the first "country" blues artist to record (for OKeh). Odum and Johnson were doing field work in northern GA and NC in the 20s... mind boggling, isn't it. Blind Blake hadn't recorded yet, nor Lemon!
Peter B.
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When he was brought to Europe in 1951 he was a caretaker, a 'mopper', at the Iowa State College, and on his return resumed his menial work as a janitor. - Paul Oliver on Big Bill Broonzy, Blues Off the Record
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When they took me to the studio first - that was Joe McCoy and Mayo Williams - they let me wait about for hours because the studio wasn't free. So I said to myself "What the hell's the use of this; I better go home to see to my customers and give them that moonshine." - Kokomo Arnold, in Paul Oliver's Blues Off the Record
You know I was never interested in making records and I always preferred to live a quiet life; just unknown in my basement. - Kokomo Arnold, in Paul Oliver's Blues Off the Record
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Those who bite, shall be bitten. - Kid Prince Moore, Bite Back Blues
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When I sing of my mule bein' dead, they don't know. They never had no mule die on 'em.
Big Bill Broonzy
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Baby Tate again, on Willie Walker this time! "He played in all the keys with all his fingers!"
Peter B.
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Thanks everyone, weenies everywhere appreciate your work. Quotes are up to date for 2008, 18 more added for a total of 621. Expect to see them popping up in the quotes box at the top of the page soon.
I'll close this 2008 thread, please feel free to be the one to grab line honors by starting a new Quotes thread for 2009