Topic: SOTM February 2017 CC Rider

[Thomas8]

I Tried Prof!

https://soundcloud.com/thomaslucas/see-see-ridermp3

[Prof Scratchy]

Nice to hear that piano! Keep em coming!


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[Pan]

Thank you professor for a nice topic. Been listening a good while.

Congrats on the fine versions from fellow forumites as well!

Here's another piano version by Otis Spann:



and a live version by Paul Geremia:



Cheers

Pan

[Prof Scratchy]

Will there be a Pan version?


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[harriet]

Well here's my attempt at it -
https://soundcloud.com/lilhat/see-see-rider

[Johnm]

Thanks for that Harriet, and it's great to hear you put together your own version of C C Rider, and get it up and running so quickly.  Neat to hear the piano version, too, Thomas, and it's cool that you took on Ma Rainey's verse as well as the better-known chorus.
All best,
Johnm

[Prof Scratchy]

Yes, thanks for all these fine versions! There must be more out there?

[Lastfirstface]

Big Joe Williams with Jimmy Brown and Willie Lee Harris:

[Prof Scratchy]

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[Johnm]

Hi all,
Here is a version by Eugene Powell that was just posted (2 views):



All best,
Johnm

[DavidCrosbie]

There are Easy Rider songs out there that have a completely different melody, i.e. a circle of fifths ragtime progression and not 12 bars. Are they in the scope of this thread? I'm thinking Sam & Kirk McGee, Scott Dunbar etc

Although those artists' recordings were titled Easy Rider, the version by Barbecue Bob was given the distinctive title Easy Rider Don't You Deny My Name.

All three versions are similar to Salty Dog. Indeed, Sam McGee's record conflates the two songs.

I won't post links unless somebody asks me. I do recommend searching YouTube, though. For Scott Dunbar, choose the field recording made by Frederic Ramsey with Scott's wife Celeste joining in the singing as their daughter Rose dances along.

[DavidCrosbie]

It was first recorded as ?See See Rider? by Ma Rainey in New York on 16 October 1924. She was accompanied by her Georgia Jazz Band featuring Louis Armstrong on cornet, Charlie Green on trombone, and Buster Bailey on clarinet.

Not to mention Fleeter Henderson ? or 'Smack' as Armstrong calls him ? on piano.

Louis recalled this in his 'autobiography' album as an intro to this version with Velma Middleton.

[DavidCrosbie]

I wasn?t aware that Big Bill played the violin, and I don?t think their are other recorded instances of his violin playing. Anyone else know otherwise?

Bill gave several versions of his early days in Arkansas ? including the odd folk-tale dressed up as family history. But he was consistent on his musical history. His first instrument was the fiddle, and the only money he made was with another fiddler (or possibly guitarist)  playing for white folk. Interestingly, he said that the musician who inspired him and taught him to make a fiddle and  play it was known as See See Rider ? named after the song.

A white man saw Bill and a friend playing home-made fiddles, took them under his protection and bought them two instruments. Accounts differ as to whether they were two violins or a violin and a guitar. So Bill may have learned to play the guitar then. But his repertoire was manly waltzes, reels, two-steps and ragtime. He also learned from his uncle some songs 'they didn't exactly call the Blues'.

He also learned See See Rider, as he told a Dutch audience in 1956. In this version of the story, the teacher is unnamed and mysterious. But as in other versions, he taught Bill to make and play a rough fiddle.



He took up the guitar seriously when he moved to Chicago, taught, he said, by Papa Charlie Jackson.

I think you're right in thinking there are no other recordings purporting to be of Bill on fiddle. The songs and tunes he played as a teenager in Arkansas would not be of any interest to Black audiences in Chicago.. Assuming that it really was Bill, he must have worked up a Blues fiddle style ? quite possibly for just the one party piece.

At the end of his life he was playing for white audiences again, and included non-Blues 'folk' stuff such as Blue Tail Fly and Crawdad. They would have loved it if he'd payed the fiddle tunes and songs of his youth. But presumably he'd been too long too far away from the instrument to take it up again.

Even for See See Rider, he worked up a guitar accompaniment, and a great one at that.

There's a new book The Invention and Reinvention of Big Bill Broonzy by Kevin D Greene. It's laced with sociological theory and hard-going much of the time, but also full of interesting stuff. Much more readable is I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy by Bob Riesman..

[DavidCrosbie]

I've just stumbled on Mama Yancey reminiscing with Little Brother Montgomery in her old age. She'd lost much of her voice, but what was left is still very impressive. After singing Trouble In Mind, she performs See See Rider starting at about 5:21

[Johnm]

Hi all,
Here is a version from Jack Owens and Bud Spires:



All best,
Johnm