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The blues is the roots. Everything else is the fruits. - Willie Dixon

Author Topic: We should have heard more from them  (Read 16355 times)

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Offline btasoundsradio

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Re: We should have heard more from them
« Reply #75 on: October 07, 2020, 05:22:21 AM »
bobo thomas!
Charlie is the Father, Son is the Son, Willie is the Holy Ghost

Offline dj

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Re: We should have heard more from them
« Reply #76 on: November 27, 2020, 08:40:26 AM »
Walter Roland.

With the recent Sonny Scott and Lucille Bogan lyric threads, I've been listening a lot to them, which inevitably leads to listening to a lot of Walter Roland.  Roland could do it all - great singer, great pianist, really good guitar player.  The July 1933 session he did with Bogan and Scott is, to me, one of the greatest pre-war blues recording sessions.

Roland lived until 1972, but never recorded after 1935.  It's a shame he wasn't part of the post-war blues rediscovery.  Maybe Alabama was a bit too far off the beaten track.

Offline Blues Vintage

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Re: We should have heard more from them
« Reply #77 on: November 27, 2020, 10:28:49 AM »
Agreed. Such a great versatile musician.
I contacted Allmusic Guide a while ago and told them he didn't vanish in 1935;

After 1935, however, Roland seems to have dropped off the face of the earth -- his subsequent activities and ultimate fate remain unknown.

At least they added his birth and death date previously stated undetermined.


Walter Roland - Allmusic

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/walter-roland-mn0000813231/biography
« Last Edit: November 27, 2020, 10:33:48 AM by harry »

Offline Johnm

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Re: We should have heard more from them
« Reply #78 on: November 27, 2020, 11:40:03 AM »
Thanks for reviving this thread, dj. Walter Roland is certainly a great choice. There are certainly a lot of musicians I'd put in this category whose work I was not familiar with when the category was started. I'd especially like to have heard more from Dennins McMillon and Sonny Jones, too East Coast players whose only solo titles (four apiece) can be offend on the "Blind Boy Fuller, Vol. 2" set on JSP. I sure wish Romeo Nelson had recorded more titles too.
All best,
Johnm

Offline dj

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Re: We should have heard more from them
« Reply #79 on: November 27, 2020, 04:50:12 PM »
Quote
I sure wish Romeo Nelson had recorded more titles too.

Agreed.  Nelson lived on well into the LP age - he died in 1974 - and was visited by researchers and interviewed in the 1960s and 70s.  It would have been nice if someone had recorded an LP or 2 of his work than.

Offline dj

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Re: We should have heard more from them
« Reply #80 on: November 27, 2020, 05:21:55 PM »
Just a bit more on Romeo Nelson.  According to an article in Frog Annual Number 5 (thanks, btasoundsradio, for inspiring me to pull that off the shelf) by Michael Hortig, Pete Welding and Erwin Helfer made an attempt to record him in 1964, but he was out of practice and the 3 tracks recorded were unusable.  Welding touched base with Nelson again in 1965, and though his playing was much improved, it still needed a bit more work.  A final attempt to record Nelson was contemplated in 1966, but nothing came of it, apparently for lack of money to cover costs.  So we came close to hearing more from him.

Offline taft

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Re: We should have heard more from them
« Reply #81 on: November 28, 2020, 04:18:49 AM »
Pete Welding's recordings, and other documents, are held in the archive of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. The Romeo Nelson tapes are probably among the 700 tapes in the collection. See: https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=1929&recCount=25&recPointer=0&bibId=17244296

Offline dj

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Re: We should have heard more from them
« Reply #82 on: December 04, 2020, 01:51:45 PM »
Another thought prompted by recent lyric posts:

Josh White

Okay, I know that he survived and recorded prolifically well into the LP era, but...

After moving to New York and becoming a bit of a studio regular for Vocalion, with sessions with Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell, Buddy Moss, and Walter Roland and Lucille Bogan, White severely injured his left hand in early 1936, severing a tendon, with gangrene (or some other infection) eventually setting in.  He stopped playing for a few years, and when he returned to performing, he was more of a strumming/simple picking folksinger.  He probably would have moved in this direction anyway, as that's where the money was in New York City at the time.  But I can't help wishing and wondering what he would have done had he never injured his hand.  So in his case, it's "I wish we could have heard more of an uninjured Josh White, at least occasionally playing as he did in 1935."   


Offline Johnm

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Re: We should have heard more from them
« Reply #83 on: August 26, 2022, 04:37:51 PM »
Hi all,
I have a bunch to add to this list: Smith Casey, Dennis McMillon, Roosevelt Antrim, Sonny Jones, Tarter & Gay, Little Buddy Doyle, Allen Shaw, Mattie Delaney, Rosa Lee Hill, John Lee Ziegler, Robert Diggs.Any other under-recorded favorites out there?
All best,
Johnm

 


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