Topic: PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN ROBERT JOHNSON 78 FOUND!!!!

[Bald Melon Jefferson]

PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN ROBERT JOHNSON 78 FOUND!!!!
Blues collector Dave Clarke was astonished, when, during a record hunting trip to London, he trawled up a previously unknown record ?What Noise Annoys An Oyster? by Delta blues legend Robert Johnson. ?I really hadn?t had much luck in the junk shops and markets, so I decided to call it a day and go home.? He told Document. ?I got to the railway station much earlier than I had expected to, so I decided to kill some time by having one last try. I wondered into Billingsgate Market and after only a couple of minutes of looking at what was in there and there it was. I couldn?t believe my eyes. I just stood there staring, hardly able to take it in.? Clarke went on to say that this amazing find only adds more credence to the idea that Johnson was far more than just a bluesman by having a much wider repertoire. ?It is common knowledge that Johnson was playing far more than just blues. His recordings reveal the work of a young, ambitious, entertainer, equally at home playing popular music, ragtime, ballads etc. In a way it didn?t really surprise me that Johnson had decided to cover this well know Vaudeville (or Music Hall, as we call it in Britain,) song.? Asked how much he had paid for the record, Clarke smiled somewhat sheepishly. ??1.10? he replied. The conscientious of opinion, among the few collectors that have already been told about the discovery, actually puts the record into the ?10,000 to ?15,000 bracket. Document Records is delighted to announce that Robert Johnson?s ?What Noise Annoys An Oyster? along with its flip side ?Knees Up Mother Brown? will be released on a future volume in its ?Too Late? series.

 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Document-Records/160984497304624
 

[waxwing]

Looks like "Copyright 1924" on that maroon label Romeo. Romeos went black in 1931 so the date would be right. So who knew the preteen RJ had a recording career with uke and kazoo? Uh-hunh.

Wax

[waxwing]

4/1!

Wax (currently working too much)

[oddenda]

A relative of The Big Sunflower 78!

pbl

[Pan]

When it rains, it pours.

https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/blue-note-missing-over-fifty-years-discovered/

Cheers

Pan

[Bunker Hill]

A relative of The Big Sunflower 78!
pbl

Love it Peter.

[Bed Bug Bill]

If you listen very carefully...you can hear Patton and Son House in the background.......I think they're playing cards.

[iwbiek]

I know this is blues heresy but I'm sorry, Robert Johnson makes me yawn.  He's like the B.B. King or Eric Clapton of country blues: nonthreatening, smooth, popular, a good name for dilettantes to drop.  Now my intro to country blues came from Blind Lemon's "Black Snake Moan" (ironically on the recommendation of B.B.).  I was 17, had no idea what was in store for me (figured it would be a somewhat scratchier, acoustic incarnation of B.B.), popped the CD into my old IBM desktop, and out of my speakers came a couple guitar strums and then "OOOOOOHHHHH!!"  I immediately stopped it.  I didn't even get to "Ain't got no mama now."  The hair on my arms was standing up.  It was just too much.  After that I bought the same Columbia Robert Johnson boxed set everybody has and I liked it, sure I did.  But it was milktoast, man.  Soon after that I was on Patton, Rube Lacey, Sam Collins, Skip, Tommy Johnson, Willie Brown snappin' that bass string on "Future Blues"--pretty much the heroin of the blues, you know.  Robert Johnson is a gateway drug.  If you started on the hard stuff right away, the gateway drug just doesn't do it for you.

[big joe weems]

iwbiek,

Dude, man, serious?  Not so much heresy as just sad.  Comparing RJ to Clapton?  Whaaat?  Obviously the commercialization of RJ has been disgusting and lame.  But the music is lovely baby!  I mean original and delicious!  And bad mouthing BB King?  Friend, get yourself an early BB 78 and put the needle of an old tube record player in the grooves.  You won't hear anything more heavenly!  Have you seen pics of a young BB playing his old electric on a small stage in front of a bunch of jitterbugging black girls in skirts and high socks?  Too cool for school!  BB was the man, and his early lead lines cut like a hot knife.

These guys were awesome!  I have a feeling one day you'll come back to them and fall in love.  One of my favorite all time albums is Coltrane's "Giant Steps."  But when I first bought it I hated it and traded it in the following week.  Keep on rockin' in the free world and don't put BB in a corner!

Joe

[Bald Melon Jefferson]

iwbiek iwbiek iwbiek, if you've ever compared the YouTube videos of Johnson's 'Knees Up Mother Brown' with Jefferson's take, it is clear that RJ was a vastly superior ukulele and kazoo player than Lemon!

[iwbiek]

I guess it's just a matter of R.J. being too clean for me, or maybe it's overexposure, considering there are plenty of smooth blues artists I love (Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, Big Bill, Muddy).  One thing I will say: I think as far as blues lyricists go, Johnson was the greatest, and I'm including Willie Dixon and Leroy Carr in that too.  His original blues are self-contained, coherent, at times surrealist masterpieces.  He doesn't stitch together cliches out of the common stock like so many of them, even Charley Patton, do.  I won't deny his guitar virtuosity either.  It's just for me he lacks a raw, scary element that I love.  For example, when it comes to the great Chicago Muddy/Wolf rivalry, I fall squarely in the Wolf camp, much as I love Muddy.  Virtuosity for me isn't the main thing.  Charley Patton will always be my be-all end-all, and, contrary to what Gayle Dean Wardlow et al. might say, he was no virtuoso.  If I can teach myself "Maggie" anybody can.  But playing "Maggie" and playing "Maggie" like Patton are two different things, and even if your fingers find the exact same spots, the spirit will not be there.

As for Lemon, his lyrics are often as original and coherent as R.J.'s.  He just had that greatest misfortune of recording for Paramount.  I won't comment on his kazoo and uke playing.

No disrespect to B.B., not even older B.B.  I was talking about the marketing, not about the man.  "Why I Sing the Blues" was my first blues album and is still one of my favorites.  I've always liked the other "Kings" more, though, especially Freddie.  But again, when it comes to latter-day blues, for me the Kings are always just a hiatus from John Lee, Junior Kimbrough, Hound Dog, etc.  I just like to live on the edge of madness I guess.

[big joe weems]

iwbiek,

I love your passion for the music!  Blues is life, baby.  Keep rockin'.

Joe