Topic: Country blues legends that you just don't like

[Rambler]

...am pretty surprised to hear distaste for what I regard to be some of the most startingly powerful musicians that ever graced the planet. But that's just me.

This is music, er soul, appreciation. Not a wine tasting. I'm late to the ball, but this country music, so-called, has layers and layers to it, with amazing variations within the stylistic constraints, and so many quirky, very individual voices. Nothing cookie cutter here, tho god knows the records execs were trying to move a lot of cookies.   

[HunkyPicker]

I also find it surprising to see some of the names bandied about in the "don't care for" category.  But then again, we have a wide variety of aficionados and a large supply of players.  I'm always surprised when somebody tells me that they listen to "metal" or "reggae" or whatever.  I love Led Zeppelin and Bob Marley but I can't take Ozzie, Manson, Jimmy Cliff or Peter Tosh.  I love Billie Holiday but I don't like most swing.  I would find it very odd to like an entire category of anything.

Some of the names bandied about really aren't even country blues.  RGD is at that elusive ragtime/blues/gospel/dixieland jazz intersection... really kind of a one man New Orleans melting pot and I think he's just a phenomenal technical, expressive and emotional player and singer.  Mississippi John Hurt is a national treasure but he's at the other end of the spectrum... very simple folk style pattern picking and no blues at all.  But he is equally a favorite of mine... something about him is just so wonderful to hear.

One thing that I've found is that the artists that I had the most difficulty listening to at first have become my favorites, and here I'm referring to Blind Willie Johnson and Charlie Patton come to mind.

[doctorpep]

Sorry, I just don't think there are enough great Tommy Johnson recordings out there to justify his reputation. Richard "Rabbit" Brown also has five songs that are amazing, so why isn't he mentioned as often as Tommy Johnson? I'm not saying I wouldn't love to see him perform, have more songs available from him, etc. I'm just saying that we have to go by what we have. And what we have is a guy with an excellent voice, who plays similar guitar accompaniment on many songs, and is, in my opinion, very, very good, but not one of the best of the old Bluesmen. What I said had nothing to do with the recordings not being recorded digitally. Let's please keep in mind that we're ALL used to listening to Paramount recordings from the 1920s, that are full of pops and hisses. I will gladly re-evaluate my opinion of Tommy Johnson.

[waxwing]

Well, you are wrong, Pep. There are plenty out there by the reckoning of so many true blues researchers and adherrents over many years. And we all feel just as strongly about Rabbit Brown, too.

Your statement is about as wrong-headed as you misinterpret Dick Waterman's to be. And it clearly indicates that you do not really get the point of the discussion here at Weenie Campbell. We are not here to second guess the pop culture as created by Pop blues magazines in their praise of pop stars such as Clapton, the Stones or any other pop blues distillation. We are not here to argue who is best and who deserves the pop notice they are getting and who doesn't. The pop culture and its misconceptions doesn't really concern us, and your over eagerness to decry the inequities in the pop culture belie your relative inexperience here. There are many forums out there that love to dwell on this stuff, but Weenie Campbell is not one of them. This thread is somewhat of an aberration here, started by another youngster who has now gone to one of those other forums.

You will find that we discuss Rabbit Brown just about as much as we discuss Tommy Johnson, so I take offense at your inference that we are just as lame as the pop culture's view of these issues. Get a clue.

All for now.
John C.

[HunkyPicker]

Hey thanks you guys.  I never knew of Tommy Johnson or Richard Rabbit Brown but a quick trip to eMusic tells me that I love 'em both.  I'm learning that I've done little more than scratch the surface of these country blues.

[doctorpep]

Waxwing, I do not know why you've become so angry at me. I never said that you guys didn't know about Richard "Rabbit" Brown. You are all very knowledgeable about Blues; probably much more so than me. I simply meant that the general Blues-listening population isn't terribly aware of the man. I thought that the point of this thread was to discuss Country Blues legends whom we just don't like and/or feel are as great as others feel them to be. To me, and it is just my opinion, one of these men is Tommy Johnson. I could care less about a popularity contest and Rolling Stone magazine, etc. I'm just glad to be here, talking with people who share my musical interests. Also, please take the time to read my latest post in the Waterman thread. It's quite possible that I misinterpreted the quote, and I didn't mean to come off sounding like I was attacking Waterman. At the same time, I feel that his statement was too much of a generalization. I certainly do not think that you guys are as "lame" as pop culture's view(s) of the Blues, and I am personally offended at you telling me to "Get a clue", as I regularly post on this website, and look forward each day to reading what you guys have to write. I hope that you can better understand my position now. I didn't join this website in order to fight with people or say which Bluesman is the best and who is terrible. And I do not think that I have "relative inexperience" here, as I spend long hours on this website, reading through everything, as the webmaster of this website can probably testify, if he has access to knowing users' log-in times.

[Richard]

There are a few comments in this thread that made me think that sometimes we may all have strong opinions on certain things and maybe we might get a little bombastic, but it doesn't mean we are "right"...... we are all entitled to our opion.

  peace boys and girls.

[oddenda]

Hey -

          "Spike" hit the nail on the head (no pun intended) regarding different cultures, different times, different intended audience, et al. One additional fillip not mentioned is the physical "product", the 78: three minutes in length, with two songs. Firstly, they were not meant to be listened to in quantity one after the other - it ain't just Peetie Wheatstraw who suffers if treated so! This artificial parenthetic technology gives W.E. a biased picture of what constitutes a "blues performance", and how long it had to/should be.

          On that matter, I recount some things that the late Kenny Goldstein told me back in the 80s at Penn (University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia). Gary Davis told him that musicians played, sang, spoke all within the same performance of a "tune"/"song". The early A&R men asked him to cut out the talking and focus only on singing and playing... within the sacred three minutes! NOT what went down in a performance in true context, as I can vouch for in my decades of field work. So to criticize Gary (or anyone like that) for playing "too long", y'all are imposing YOUR aesthetic on someone else's artistic production. Not appropriate, if difficult to avoid, for W.E. are products or our own environment's aesthetic norms and expectations... hard not to apply that to others, but wrong.

          Pushing one's listening envelopes is a good thing, if often initially painful(!) to the aural orifices. Keep trying. May the farce be with you.

yrs,
     Peter B.

[blueshome]

Is it just me, or do others just not really like the music of some of the so-called greats of the music? Not that I don't think that they are bad musicians, but that, in the main, they don't push the right buttons.

For me - Leadbelly does nothing but irritate me with his singing, the Rev. Davis' guitar tone and singing get my goat, and I can't listen to more than 2 or 3 Mance Lipscomb songs without trying to find something else to do. All great musicians I can clearly see, but not for me.

[Prof Scratchy]

Anything Tampa Red plays....on the kazoo!

[Slack]

I've merged you guys with the rest of the 'do not like' crowd.   Maybe we're just getting grumpy in our middle age? 

[dj]

For me - Leadbelly does nothing but irritate me with his singing...

Hey, Phil, 10 years ago I was right with you on that.  Also Blind Lemon Jefferson.  A few years of listening to the Weenie Juke, where their music would pop up with other stuff I liked better, got me to the point where I finally "got it", and really like them now.  The Mississippi Sheiks were like that for me, too - for years I couldn't listen to more than a few songs of theirs before I had to change the record/CD/mp3.  But I finally saw the light there, too, and for the last year I've listened more to the Sheiks than to just about anyone else. 

I've said it before in this thread, but I think it's worth saying again:  I'm finally smart enough to realize that there's no music that I just don't like, only music that I haven't learned to appreciate yet.

[frankie]

For me - Leadbelly does nothing but irritate me with his singing...

It took me a while to come around to Leadbelly - longer than it probably should have.  I came to the Sheiks comparatively lately.  In fact, most of the ensemble stuff I like was discovered later - like most people that come to it, I was drawn in by the singer-guitarists.  I didn't appreciate the ensemble music until after I had been exposed to old-time music, when it all made more sense to me.

Can't imagine a world where I wouldn't like Lemon, though - I felt like he was speaking to me directly the first time I heard him!

[Mr.OMuck]

I don't like that guy who....... ya' know! 

[Pan]

On another forum, a while ago, some young SRV wannabe said something like: "the old stuff is unlistenable anyway"...