Topic: Mandolin Blues

[uncle bud]

I really like Everybody's Blues, which also seems to be modelled slightly on Black Snake Moan. You're right John, all these tunes would be great to play. I also like the idea of Lemon on mando. I may try some experiments to get me playing that a bit more.

[Johnm]

Hi guys,
Another Lemon tune that I think would be great on mandolin is "Prison Cell Blues"  I can just hear the mandolin tremoloing on that great series of notes Lemon sings  at the end of the line, "So tired of sleeping in this lowdown lonesome C-E-L-L".  And a guitar just doing boom-chang behind it might really work nicely.
All best,
Johnm

[GhostRider]

Hi all:

For all you mandoaholics. On Guy Davis' most recent CD (Legacy) he does a great mandolin-guitar duet cover of Tampa Red's "Things is 'Bout Comin' My Way" (according to Elijah Wald, the first recording of the "Sittin' On Top of the World" melody). Strangly enough, in the notes he mentioned he learned the song from a Jerry Silverman book, and doesn't know who did the original (Weenies to the rescue).

On the CD he does great covers of Hurt's "Payday", Estes' "Drop Down Mama", W. Davis' "Come Back Baby"and James' "Cypress Grove", as well as his own stuff (blues and old tyme music).

My Mama don't allow,
Alex

[uncle bud]

Guy Davis didn't know who did Things Is 'bout Comin' My Way?

[GhostRider]

Hey:

Yup, and I quote

"THINGS ABOUT COMING MY WAY - author unknown, from a book by Jerry Silverman
upright bass - Mark Murphy: mandolin - T-Bone Wolk; 6-string guitar & vocals - Guy Davis"

They do a good job of it.

Alex

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I came across a couple of other good prospects for people looking for good mandolin/guitar Country Blues duets to figure out:  "Leavin' Town Blues" and "Brown Mama Blues" featuring Ishmon Bracey and Charlie McCoy on guitar and mandolin (possibly mandolin-banjo?) respectively.  They are both G tunes and are quite similar to each other, though not identical.  The guitar on "Leavin' Town" gets into some wilder stuff.  Ishmon's guitar parts sound a little bit like Mattie Delaney's on "Down The Dirt Road Blues", and even more like they are precursors of Tommy McClennan's sound in G standard.  Great singing, as you would expect from Bracey in this period.
All best,
Johnm

[Stuart]

I'm a little behind re: going through the posts, so bear with me if this has already been covered. There's a book length work on Yank:
 
"Blues Mandolin Man: The Life and Music of Yank Rachell," by Richard Congress? (University Press of Mississippi, 2001)

I have a copy and have read it--it's quite good. In addition, some of Yank's last performances are on the CD: "Chasin' Gus' Ghost" by John Sebastian and the J Band

[Johnm]

Welcome to Weenie Campbell, Stuart!  I don't believe the Yank Rachel biography has been mentioned on the site previously, so thanks for bringing it to everyone's attention.
All best,
Johnm

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I was wondering if any of you mandolin players had worked out any of the songs recorded by The Two Poor Boys, Joe Evans & Arthur McClain.  For many years, the only tunes of theirs that I had heard were "Two White Horses In A Line" and "John Henry Blues", both of which appeared on an old Alabama Blues anthology on Origin Jazz Library.  When Phil put together the Weenie I and Weenie II CDs, taken from his collection, to be given to people who make donations to Weenie Campbell, he included two tunes by Evans & McClain (issued, apparently, as being by Colman & Harper).  The two tunes, "Old Hen Cackle" and "Sourwood Mountain" are standbys in the Old-Time tradition, and Evans & McClain's versions are just stellar, really outstanding playing by both mandolin and guitar.  The duo must have been fairly popular, because they recorded enough titles to fill up an entire Document re-issue, DOCD-5044.  It seems one of the great things about listening to this music if you are also a player is scouting out potential material for playing, and these guys seem like a good possibility.  When I mentioned them to Rich DelGrosso at Port Townsend this year, he was unfamiliar with them.  Who knows, maybe he'll have some stuff by them for his class next summer.  It would be great to hear some of their material performed.
All best,
Johnm

[frankie]

I've only heard Old Hen Cackle and Two White Horses.  I was turned on to these guys by Scott Prouty, a fiddler I know from Washington D.C.  He was pointing out to me the harmony singing on Two White Horses and the funky mandolin got my attention - the way that repeating riff is used over the chord changes is neat!  Thanks for the heads up on the Document CD - I had no idea that they recorded so much.  It would be very interesting to hear more of them.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I was listening to "Everybody's Blues" today, Furry Lewis's first recorded title, and noticed for the first time that the mandolin part, credited to Charles Jackson (or Johnson), closely tracks the melody of the accompaniment that Furry played on "I Will Turn Your Money Green".  "Everybody's Blues" was played in C, Furry played "I Will Turn Your Money Green" in Spanish, and Joe Callicott played his "Lonesome Katy", which shares the same melody, in G, standard tuning.  Ishmon  Bracey's "Suitcase Full Of Blues", played in Spanish, shares some melodic similarities in its guitar part, too.  It will be interesting to see if the melody turns up elsewhere.  Of the four songs mentioned here, Joe Callicott's is the only one in which the voice sings the same melody the guitar is playing; in the others the voice sings a counter-melody to the accompaniment.  None of the sung melodies in the other songs match up with each other, either.  It's something to think about, I suppose.
All best,
Johnm

[arbarnhart]

I haven't seen Rich DelGrosso's new CD mentioned in this thread:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/richdelgrosso

You can hear samples there.

[Bunker Hill]

The banjo-mando tune is Charlie McCoy's "That Lonesome Train Took My Baby Away,"

Which in itself is based upon the piano blues that Dora Carr and Cow Cow Davenport recorded in 1925 as Cow Cow Blues. Yes? No?

[uncle bud]

The banjo-mando tune is Charlie McCoy's "That Lonesome Train Took My Baby Away,"

Which in itself is based upon the piano blues that Dora Carr and Cow Cow Davenport recorded in 1925 as Cow Cow Blues. Yes? No?

I'm going to answer Yes. ?That's at least what the Document liner notes say on the Charlie McCoy disc, also mentioning that McCoy first recorded an instrumental version (a great one) of Cow Cow Blues as Jackson Blues (which should actually read Jackson Stomp). There's also a version of Cow Cow Blues I know of from 1930 by Jed Davenport and His Beale St. Jug Band. I don't actually have the original Cow Cow Blues in my collection, being woefully understocked in the piano blues dept.

[Bunker Hill]

The banjo-mando tune is Charlie McCoy's "That Lonesome Train Took My Baby Away,"

Which in itself is based upon the piano blues that Dora Carr and Cow Cow Davenport recorded in 1925 as Cow Cow Blues. Yes? No?

I'm going to answer Yes. ?That's at least what the Document liner notes say on the Charlie McCoy disc, also mentioning that McCoy first recorded an instrumental version (a great one) of Cow Cow Blues as Jackson Blues (which should actually read Jackson Stomp). There's also a version of Cow Cow Blues I know of from 1930 by Jed Davenport and His Beale St. Jug Band. I don't actually have the original Cow Cow Blues in my collection, being woefully understocked in the piano blues dept.

You got there before me. I've just listened to the Carr/Davenport 1925 recording as on a 1979 Magpie LP of early Davenport and played the McCoy from a 1966 RBF compilation (Blues Roots Mississippi) the insert of which contains a lyric transcription but the writer doesn't comment on the origin of tune/lyric which, when heard/seen, is obviously. How wonderful hindsight is!