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

[mmpresti]

Chezz is right about this listening outside your comfort zone (although I don't understand this aversion to the Shieks)

I just couldn't get into Bessie Smith until I heard, "At the Christmas Ball" and "Yellow Dog Blues". Now I can't get enough of her. Same thing with McTell, couldn't like him until I had heard, "Southern Can is Mine" and "Experience Blues". I didn't listen to Ma Rainey until I heard "Lost Wandering Blues" and "Shave 'em Dry".

[mississippijohnhurt1928]

Chezz - you simply cannot not like 'Sales Tax'. Especially the wonderful line in the hastily produced intro sequence: "Why they're lotsa things sold the government knows anything about....."!!

haha, I love that tune, it's my favorite Shieks song and The Mississippi Shieks are definitely my favorite string band.

[Chezztone]

Yes, I do love "Sales Tax" and have performed it with several groups. Although note that that one has strong Bo Carter input; he is one of the singers/speakers. It was even included on one of the Yazoo Bo Carter compilations.

[Cooljack]

Everyone has their favorite musicians in the Blues spectrum, though it dosen't say anywhere that you have to like everything..

Thought it might be interesting to hear what musicians people don't like?

personally Im not a big fan of Blind Boy Fuller, I find it quite hard to enjoy listening to his music for some reason though he has one or two songs im fond of the vast majority of his work I find I dislike. Kokomo Arnold is another musician i find hard to listen to, I get the impression that he is a musician who would have been amazing to witness live though comparitavly sounds weak on a low fidelity record.

[Johnm]

Hi Cooljack,
Since there was already a lengthy thread addressing the very issues you brought up, I merged your new thread with the pre-existing one.
All best,
Johnm

[Cooljack]

ah thanks didn't see the exsisting thread

[doctorpep]

John Lee Hooker has some good stuff and some horrible stuff. I'm in South Korea right now on vacation, and I just picked up a Little Walter disc for 10 bucks, which I haven't listened to yet, and a Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis cd, which I'm listening to now. The Davis disc is putting me to sleep. This guy's lousy. Lightnin' Hopkins in the 60s recorded a lot of garbage, but I sort of attribute it to the band setting he was placed in. Bobby "Blue" Bland does nothing for me. It took me a long time to get in to Jimmy Reed. Gary Davis stretches his songs out for too long a lot of times. It took me a long time to get in to post-World War II Son House recordings, simply because his guitar skills had deteriorated so much; but what lyrics and what a voice! J.B. Lenoir is horrendous in my opinion. My favorites, by the way, are McTell, Johnny Shines, Jimmie Tarlton (not strictly Country Blues), and Richard "Rabbit" Brown. Blind Lemon and Luke Jordan are also great.

[Bob B]

Okay, here it comes, absolute heresy.  While I like Charlie Patton's guitar skills, I just can't get next to his vocals--they absolutely irritate me.

This being said, it took a while to appreciate the Rev.'s vocals--powerful stuff.

I wish you all a fine day

Bob

[Richard]

BB, I'd probably join you on your the Charlie Patton comments and will probably get shot for saying so but that also goes for a few other of the other "classic" players of that ilk who to me have a pretty rough and incomprehensible vocal style. I want to hear and understand what is being sung, a gutteral mumbling is not it.

However the artist that really does turn me right off and is the total epitomy of doom, however musically brilliant he may be is..... Skip James. Some time back I bought a CD and have yet to progress past the first four or five tracks....

[doctorpep]

I love Tommy Johnson's voice, but feel that there's a shortage of (good) recorded material of his to justify his huge reputation. I don't like Howlin' Wolf's Memphis recordings at Sun, but his Chess stuff is great. I have Hubert Sumlin's "Healing Feeling" and it's totally whitebread. Ah, and Toby Walker is an AMAZING acoustic guitar player but an absolutely horrendous singer and songwriter. Bukka White's 1940 recordings are great, but he attempts to ruin the greatness of Son House and Johnny Shines on all those Vestapol dvds he's with them on; Bukka didn't rehearse his lyrics or pronounce words correctly or rhyme, etc. Just plain awful!

[dave stott]

here is my list.... load your guns and shoot at will

Rev. Gary Davis
Skip James
Charley Patton
John Hammond Jr


Awesome guitar players, but their each of their voices grate on my nerves like chalk on a blackboard.

Dave

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I'm sure this thread gets at something, but I'm not sure what it is.  Who we like and dislike has more to do with who we are than the people we're discussing.  Re Rev. Davis playing too long, you don't have to ponder things too deeply to realize that it would be very difficult for him to anticipate and tailor the length of his renditions to accommodate the attention spans of persons still unborn at the time he was playing his pieces.  I reckon he was still engaged by what he was doing, and so kept on doing it.  One always has the option of avoiding listening to the work of artists who don't appeal.  Once that option is taken, what is there to say about it?  It would seem to be a given that we all like some people's work more than that of others.  Yes, and?
All best,
Johnm 

[dj]

Hi, John,

One always has the option of avoiding listening to the work of artists who don't appeal.

Or one can take it the way I've finally learned to do:  If there's an artist (especially a major artist) whose work doesn't appeal to me, I take it as a signal that I need to listen to that artist until I find what it is in his/her work that's appealing.  And I think that appeal is always able to be found, if one tries enough. 

[CF]

This thread is blasphemous! I can understand the uninitiated to find fault with say Patton's vocals or James' moodiness but members of a country blues forum? Hmm. I say this mostly tongue-in-cheek but am pretty surprised to hear distaste for what I regard to be some of the most startlingly powerful musicians that ever graced the planet. But that's just me.   

[uncle bud]

I've been avoiding this thread -- mainly because, like John, I think 'what's the point', though in less gracious language. Like Cheapfeet, too, I'm rather surprised by some people's dislikes. However, I despise eggplant and understand that it is not the eggplant's fault. But I think some of youse should have your country blues licenses revoked. 

I do have to take issue, however, with some of the attempts at critical comment (i.e. not expressions of personal taste). To say that Tommy Johnson's reputation is not justified because of a lack of good recordings seems particularly wrongheaded to me. It's like complaining that they weren't recorded digitally or something. The quality is what it is and we're lucky to have it (and it's better on Yazoo, so seek them out). Johnson was a goddamn genius whose songs have influenced and been performed by bluesmen ever since he recorded and performed them. Alongside Patton, he shares the glory in having recorded two of the greatest blues touchstones ever, Maggie Campbell (c.f Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues et al) and Bye Bye Blues (cf. Pony Blues). And as far as I know, the jury has never come in decisively on whether one or the other bluesman is the definitive originator of these, at least as far as who was copying whom. Add to that songs like Big Road Blues (again, hugely influential), Canned Heat Blues, and even Big Fat Mama (you can still hear Honeyboy Edwards perform this) and I think Tommy Johnson's reputation is not in danger of being diminished by a lack of good recordings. Add to THAT the lesser known but fabulous songs like Button Up Shoes, Lonesome Home Blues and Cool Drink of Water Blues, and Tommy Johnson comes out on top in most of the blues smackdowns one might care to arrange.