Knowling's tuba playing on the Dr Clayton recordings were originally listed in the company ledgers as 'brass bass". Can anybody hazard a guess as to why this might have been?
Afterthought edit: A quick skim through the index to accompanists in B&GR4 offered up another accompanist who doubled on bass and brass bass, Wellman Braud.
He accompanied Blue Lu Barker; Lee Brown; Rosetta Howard; Alberta Hunter; Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon; Lether McGraw; Ozie McPherson; Tiny Mayberry; Helen Proctor; Ollie Shepard; Eva Taylor; Leola B. Wilson And Kid Wesley Wilson.
Haven't got the energy to look up each artist to discover which sessions had the bb accompaniment.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2006, 12:20:37 PM by Bunker Hill »
The CD "Boom Chang" by Steve James has blues tuba by Mark Rubin (who also plays a bowed 3-string cello) - one of the tunes with tuba is Bo Carter's "Country Fool".
Brian Rust, and Dixon & Godrich use the term "brass bass" for tuba or Sousaphone in their discogrophies.
The blues record that uses brass bass that first comes to my mind is Emma Wright, "Lonsome Trail Blues", Columbia 14413, Dallas, Tx. 12/7/28. I know there is brass bass on some of Rev. D. C. Rices' records. I'm sure there are quite a few blues records that use brass bass, I just can't think of them at the moment.
thanks to all that have responded - meanwhile I found a few others and will add some of your findings asap ... and Bunker Hill: I went through those Wellman Braud accompaniments (in my 3rd ed.) 'by hand' and found that except for Ozie McPherson all others were sb, not bb (and I won't add those because in connection with the Duke Ellington Orchestra I doubt that bb is more than a background noise - the big fat tuba solo is what I crave !!!
One more guy who played brass bass on blues records was Ocatve Gaspard (cool name, huh?) of Texas. He is listed in Dixon & Godrich as playing on records with Lillian Glinn, Biliken Johnson and Gertrude Perkins. I think all were recorded in Dallas Texas for Columbia.
I can vouch for that having seen them live and heard their recordings. The modest Mr. Mando does not mention that he also makes a great contribution to the line-up, being a superb instrumentalist himself.
There's quite a thriving country blues scene down there in southern Germany. Apart from the Sons of the Desert, there's British ex-pat. Barry Denyer, plus the likes of Willie Salomon, Hannes Gerber and Rainer Brunn.
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