Topic: Nobody Knows My Name - Blues From South Carolina And Georgia 1924 - 1932

[dj]

I think the Document website is wrong.  The tracks listed for DOCD 5599 are actually the tracks from DOCD 5664, Leadbelly: Private Party November 21, 1948.  The photo of the cover of DOCD 5599 clearly shows the artists as Unknown, Georgia Field Hands, Hannah Bessellion, etc. 

Looks like I'll have to add this one to my wish list.   

[a2tom]

I've had this spinning (at least metaphorically, in the electronic age...) over the weekend.  Interesting stuff in here, aside from the issue of the accuracy of the dates.  Three stand out for me:

Boogie Lovin'  - just a great piece, makes me want to learn jazz chords.  I think probably the most compelling of our jazzy guitarist's songs.   Really works.  After having listened more, I do take the point that this fellow's playing gets pretty repetitive.  As the MP3 player switched from song to song, it was sometimes almost impossible to tell the song had changed - it was as if the guitarist just kept going from one into the other...

Black Woman - this song is awfully compelling, as much for the vocal style as anything.  I am a relative beginner to the genre, but the vocal style, and sung melody and variations, are striking to me for the blues vein.  Something of a crooner.  And I love the verse "Dirty black woman, I used to be your flame.  But now you made me hate you, and I would rather see you in your grave".  Forceful countepoint to the "you made me you love" from earlier.

And then there's Nobody Knows My Name.  I love its feel.  It strikes me as being very similar to Down in the Chain Gang, although I haven't had a chance to compare them directly yet.  Does this remind anyone of any other great well-known songs in the genre?  Seems like there must be - its isn't that overwhelmingly distinctive, just a real nice bouncy bass line, and interesting interplay with the voice.

tom

[Pan]

Hi again

I listened a little to those jazzy chords in Boogie Lovin'. In one of the guitar breaks the player jumps between E13 and A7b9th (or A#dim7th, if you like), which are quite modern sounding chords to be played in a 1920's CB setting, in my humble opinion.

E13: x-x12-13-14-12 or D - G# - C#- E, or 7th - 3rd - 13th - root, fingering xx1342

A7b9: x-x8-9-8-9, or A# - E - G - C#, or b9 - 5th - 7th - 3rd, fingering xx1324

By the way my ear tells me there are two guitar players. The other is barely audible, but you can hear them changing solo turns right after the boogie part, where the 2nd guitarist starts also playing quite jazzy patterns from E9 to E6. They are propably moving closer or away from the recording mike accordingly.

E9: x-11-12-11-12-x, or G# - D - F# - B, or 3rd - 7th - 9th - 5th, fingering x1324x

E6: x-x14-13-14-12, or E - G# - C# - E, or root - 3rd - 6th(or 13) -.root
between the two chords you can play the inner 4-3-2 strings to connect chromatically.

These are quite modern sounds to my mind. The guitars would have to have clear access to the 14th fret, and to be able to play these chords as cleanly and effortlessly as the musicians do, they would have to be relatively good quality instruments. Would that be likely in the 20's, in your opinion? I'm not very well informed about the history and construction of commonly available American instruments of the period.

Yours

Pan

[Prof Scratchy]

Absolutely right - that's why I at first had great difficulty accepting these tracks as having been recorded in the twenties. That, and the recording quality. Also, the boogie bass thing on the guitar-this must've been it's first outing (of many!!) in the recorded blues, mustn't it? The other thing that strikes me is that these guys must've been fairly long in the tooth when they recorded these tracks. Firstly, from the point of view of prowess on the guitar, and secondly, because the singing voices don't sound to be those of young men. Thus you'd expect these guys to have been born, say, in the 1880's at latest, and therefore probably playing this stuff from the time of their own youths round about the turn of the century. Does this make sense, or am I conjecturing too much here? One thing is for sure, both they and, no doubt, Mr Gellert, would have been gobsmacked to think that eighty years on, people around the world would be puzzling over these fine recordings!

[Bunker Hill]

One thing is for sure, both they and, no doubt, Mr Gellert, would have been gobsmacked to think that eighty years on, people around the world would be puzzling over these fine recordings!

I like it, I like it.
The only difference between the furore that ensued when Bastin made then available 22 years ago and today is that now they are the subject of debate in a digital medium rather than a printed one...

[JohnLeePimp]

Countless times I read there's never been any blues songs which atually protest the situation of black peoples and such... or that they were simply hiding expressions of protest deep within their lyrics about their cheating womens etc... until pete seeger came along and showed them how to do it

...Yet apparently folksong collector Lawrence Gellert has assembled a collection that includes outspoken protests against the social conditions of african americans that, according to some reference book, is "so large that some folklorists have accued him of writing the songs himself. even though gellert was a political leftist, it seems a stretch to believe he could write 500 songs, teach them to singers, then record them"

Now here comes the rant:

500 songs! stored in some university archive...

What's the deal with basically nobody having heard of this? on wirz site it showed a few of em were made available but on out of print releases... ya'll know that' some bullshit right there

if by any chance you might have a copy of any could you please make at least some of em available online, I'd be very interested in hearing them

[JohnLeePimp]

We chewed this over five years back, check out the Lawrence Gellert entry in TAGS

could you link it for me

[lindy]

JohnLee:

If you go to any thread on Weenie, look at the very bottom of any page (not individual post) in that thread, and you'll see the word "Tags" in bold. You can click on any of the terms that follow, and you'll be taken to the appropriate thread or threads.

Look below this message and you'll see "Tags: lawrence gellert [X]".

Lindy

[uncle bud]

Actually, the existing tag was "Lawrence Gellert recordings", which I've now added.

Just a reminder, folks, if you're going to add a tag, please capitalize proper names. Here's some tag guidelines if you're bored: http://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?amp;Itemid=128&topic=3073.0  We are using tags more anal retentively than people may be used to, as more of an electronic index than random bits that make up amorphous internet surfing clouds.

[Stumblin]

From Time magazine, Monday Jun 15, 1936.

[uncle bud]

I've merged two of the Gellert threads, FYI. The other one I've left standing separate, as it was from a Gellert family member looking for information.

[Bunker Hill]

On a bibliographical note Negro Songs of Protest North And South Carolina And Georgia by Lawrence Gellert was originally published in three issues of The New Masses  - Nov 1930, Jan 1931 and May 1932. In 1933 British "socialite", Nancy Cunard, compiled her mammoth Negro: An Anthology which was published the following year and reprinted Gellert's Negro Songs Of Protest.

[Joe_Caithness]

Hello, first post here.

My name is Joe Caithness, I am a mastering engineer and music collector from Nottingham UK.

I am planning a little series of videos showing / talking about interesting records I find out digging. Mostly covering blues, folk, jazz and world music.

Mostly covering more obscure/not on modern CD compilations etc.

I was digging thru my blues comps and came across and old fave Nobody Knows My Name - Blues From South Carolina And Georgia 1924 - 1932 on Heritage.

I found some pretty good discussions online about this recording and just wanted to ask if any more information has come to the fore.

Especially in regards to whether this was really recorded in the 20s... I agree the style and chords sound later and the political motivation of the collector is as interesting as some of the music itself.

Also what a cool comp, just wanted to share if anyone hasn't checked it out. Amazing sleeve too.

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Nobody-Knows-My-Name-Blues-From-South-Carolina-And-Georgia-1924-1932/release/5535276

Scans are above ^

[Blues Vintage]

Hi Joe,

You aware of this;

https://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=1934.0

[lindy]

I found this while searching (unsuccessfully) for a recording of the title song, "Nobody Knows My Name"

https://sundayblues.org/?p=6986

It includes an interview with Bruce Conforth. Unfortunately, Jeff (the Big Road Blues producer) did not include the actual song "Nobody Knows My Name" on this show. If anyone can direct me to an online recording of it, I would appreciate it.

Lindy

ps I tried merging this thread with the "unknown artistes" thread that Harry provided a link to, but I kept getting an error message. Could someone else do the honors?