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We wanted to play the blues, so we got some stuff we recorded that's almost a blues and it's almost a waltz - which I think would be nice for y'all to learn about... Don't ever say "I can't do something because I don't have this..." I learned to play fiddle on a cigar box - Canray Fontenot

Author Topic: Introductions: When the Roll is called...  (Read 221478 times)

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Offline GhostRider

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #30 on: November 10, 2004, 10:27:55 PM »
Hey Steve:
Yup, you've hit the country blues motherlode. You've got lots of fun reading ahead as you go through the threads, new and old. Jump right in!

Good to have you aboard.

Yes, baby yes,
Alex

Offline Slack

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #31 on: November 11, 2004, 07:47:15 AM »
Welcome Steveo!  Glad you found us!

Offline Rivers

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #32 on: November 11, 2004, 10:32:53 AM »
Hi BG,

Welcome to the list. I personally have been slightly worried by the take-up of roots/fingerpicking by younger (well younger than me anyway) players, and it has always been a minority of females that find their way into it. We need more people like yourself so more power to you. The stuff you're working on is an excellent set to get your playing in the groove.

Rivers.

Offline Bluesygirl

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #33 on: November 11, 2004, 11:11:31 AM »
Well at 43 I can't say that I'm all that young!  But if people younger than me are picking up on country blues picking, maybe that's good in terms of keeping the music alive.
Bg

Offline Slack

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #34 on: November 11, 2004, 02:51:54 PM »
BG, you fooled him.  You said graduate student and he jumped to conclusions.  :P

cheers,
slack

Offline Rivers

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #35 on: November 11, 2004, 03:38:14 PM »
Younger than a lot of us anyway !

Offline Bluesygirl

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #36 on: November 11, 2004, 09:33:11 PM »
Strangely enough, there are a lot of us middle aged grad students around!   >:D
Bg

slim

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #37 on: November 28, 2004, 09:54:11 AM »
Hi, My name is slim,
Im a new member
Nice to here some people ho still love old blues.
I still need to find out how this all works.
Im not really great with computers!!

Offline Slack

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #38 on: November 28, 2004, 12:34:37 PM »
Welcome Slim!

Looks like you are doing fine so far!

Cheers,
Slack

lebordo

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #39 on: December 02, 2004, 08:08:43 PM »
Hey, all.

I'm Paul -- just turned 59.  Got interested in the blues in the mid-60s in North Carolina and have played off and on since.  That's the very short "executive summary".

The long version is probably much more than anyone wants to read.  Feel free to skim, stop when you get bored, or skip entirely.  I enjoy writing, and use it as a vehicle to stimulate both my thoughts and memory.  The same free-thought process I use when writing songs.  But I've never been any good at editing out the fluff.  To me, it's either all important or all fluff.  Anyone who finishes will probably know me as well as I do.  Won't be a novel, but might be a short story.

Born in the LA area, across from Walt Disney studios.  Mom  said I was born the same day as one of the Disney comic characters, but I long ago forgot which one  (not Mickey, for sure -- he'smuch older).  Spent my first 12 years in a racially mixed LA suburb where I was a minority. Learned a lot about other cultures (much of which I promptly forgot).  Won a YMCA basketball tournament, then almost lost my life to the loosers.  The local Junior High called the police 300+ times in ~180 school days.  One of my 6th grade classmates was pregnant.  Fun place :-(.

Moved to rural Pennslvania for grades 7-12.  Closest thing to another culture at my rural school were a few Menonites and Dunkards.  Played football.  County shot put champ.  Chorus.  School plays.  A little basketball too.  I trace most of my joint ailments to those days. Liked Jazz.  Everything from Monk and Jamal to Ellington, Kenton and M. Ferguson.  Hitchiked 50 miles to the Hershey Ballroom for concerts.  Also spent time on the streetscorners of York PA doing doo-wop harmony with black friends.  12 year old Steevie Wonder.  Diana Ross and the Supremes. Gladys Knight and the Pips, Martha and the Vandellas. Great time of innocence.  Still sing many of those songs.  Some I remember parts of -- can't remember the artist or find the lyrics on the internet.

Drank Blue Ribbon and Black Label by the quart sitting on porches in the black neighborhood because they didn't care how old I was.  And because it was more like my neighborhood in LA.  Probably heard blues, but don’t remember it.

Dad bought an old upright piano at auction. $15.00, I think.  Learned to play Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata by looking at the sheet music, finding one note at a time on the keyboard, then listening to the music and playing till it sounded right.   Ssight-reading music never stuck in my brain.  I still remember EGBDF and FACE, but never could rreadily turn what was on the sheet into a tune.

Went to college in Chapel Hill, NC.  Traumatic freshman year -- the Birmingham church bombing occurred during freshman orientation week, and the Kennedy assasination was a couple of days before my birthday.  Became a civil rights and anti-war activist.  Met Dylan and Biaz.  Met Doc and Merle Watson at a small concert in the student union.  Went to the Union Grove NC fiddlers convention several years.  Had a friend named Dave who played a mean blues guitar.  His version of Poor Boy is the first blues I remember.  First blues LP I owned was a limited production Dave did with help from friends in the RTVMP department.  Bought four records for 50 cents each at a fire sale:  Singer/Songwriter Project with Richard Farina, Patrick Sky, Bruce Murdoch and David Cohen; Dave Van Ronk's Gamblers Blues; Blues at Newport, '63; and Big Bill Broonzy Sings Country Blues.  Still have all, though they's damaged so I remastered them and them to CD.

My first guitar was an old Harmony acoustic my junior year.  Straightened out the neck many times, till the nut had no further to turn.  First two songs were Blowin' In The Wind (fingerpicked) and Gambler's Blues (strummed in the style of Van Ronk, but I liked mine better).  Moved to an appartment my senior year.  Lots of parties, lots of playing and singing.  Got married quickly, then divorced just as quickly.  That, too, happened just before my birthday.

After my senior year, went back to PA -- 1 course short of graduation.  Helped a friend move one morning.  My “afternoon” last exam turned out to be that morning, so I took an incomplete.

Worked  a few weeks, sold most of what I had (not my guitar), and moved to San Francisco.  First airplane ride. The summer of '67.  Never did see any of my Carolina friend.  Or find a job.  Too much play time.  Didn’t even pick my trunk up from the bus station.  Lived from a bag I carred on the plane.  Moved back to PA that fall.  Worked at the new Sears store in Hanover.  Went from salesman thru several manager positions in a year.  Played guitar and sang at a York PA coffee house almost every night for a year.  An eclectic mix of Leadbelly (a number of selections from the Leadbelly Songbook by Asch and Lomax), Buffy St. Marie (Cod'ine, Now That The Buffalos Roam, Cripple Creek without the mouth bow), Dylan (Masters of War was always on the bill, along with Ballad of Hollis Brown--a bit blusier than Dylan's version) and others I no longer remember.

Got married, again.  This time just after my birthday.  Wierd.  Lasted longer, too.  Went back to school at Carolina.  Took a computer course.  Wife got pregnant.  Got a draft deferment.  She had a miscarriage.  The intern was pissed because we woke him at night in the middle of a snowstorm.  Scary for me, more so for my wife.  Lost my deferment.  Finished school and returned to PA to find Uncle Sam wanted me.  Applied for conscientious objector status.  Local board turned me down; won an appeal.  Did my alternative service in the print shop at Children's Hospital in Washington, DC. (not good for my hearing).  Wife bought me a Martin D-45 our first Christmas in DC.  Gave the old Harmony to a thrift shop near the hospital so some young kid could learn on a real guitar instead of a piece of bailing wire strung between nails on the wall of his house.  OK, slightly distorted memory -- all the houses in the area were dilapidated civil war era brick houses.  Hard for a kid to put nails in brick walls.

Got several Grossman guitar books (Country Blues, Delta Blues and Ragtime).  Learned Hurt's Candyman, Willie Brown's Future Blues, Barefoot Bill's Squabblin' Blues, Fred McDowell's Gravel Road Blues and Buddy Boy Hawkins' Awful Fix Blues, among others.  Note for note mimics at first.  Later relaxed and played them so they felt comfortable to me – similar, identifiable, but not mimics.  Easier than learning Moonlight Sonata.  Tabulature was a godsend, but still one note at a time.

Finished my alternative service but stayed at the hospital, transferring from the print shop to the IS department.  Nice raise.  Learned to love French wine -- Bordeaux, Rhones, Burgandy primarily.  Became IS Director.  Bought a house.  Growing middle class responsibility severly reduced my guitar playing times.  Singing was relegated to the shower.  Or when we had friends over.  Got divorced.  Helped open the new Children’s Hospital.  Rember registering a patient with a bad head injury because staffing was tight.  Mom's whole demeanor changed when I noticced it was her birthday.  Amazing what "happy birthday" can do.  Don't remember a lot from those days.  I do remember throwing my Martin across the room one night in a fit of drunken self-pity.  Scared me, 'cause I usually am consistently mellow.  Maybe that's why the trim is now loose along the bottom edge of the guitar  Maybe some day I’ll fix it.  Maybe.  Wrote a blues song -- Divorce Court Blues - not my first song but probably my best.  Tune sort of reminds me of Leadbelly's National Defense Blues.

Moved to an appartment.  Spent lots of nights drinking wine and playing the guitar.  Quit my job in disgust over the way my boss was acting.  Played a few nights at a local Holiday Inn bar.  Did independent hospital consulting for a year plus, but hated marketing myself.   Played a lot of tennis.  Tennis was free, but my money was running out.

Found a job with NCR in Dayton OH designing healthcare software.  Spent my spare time either at a local oldies bar, playing tennis, or playing guitar and drinking wine.  Married a local girl.  Got involved in local camera club and put down the guitar.  Bought another house.  Started breeding and showing persian cats.  Big expense (time and money).  The red cat one of our breeding, Lebordo is the cattery name.  Wanted Les Bordeaux, but it was too long, so it got anglicised.  Named our cats after French Bordeaux wines.  Put up the first cattery web site in 1994.  Bought CDs including Complete Robert Johnson, Complete Willie Johnson and Son House's Father Of The Delta Blues sets.  I hadn't lost interest in the blues, just wasn’t singing and playing.

Lost my job with NCR in early 98.  Became Y2K coordinator at a local hospital.  Loved the hospital but had troubles navigating the huge complex due to arthritic hips and knees.  Sadly, the hospital closed during the summer of 2000.  I stayed on for another year, shutting down the IS systems and providing information to the liquidators and management team trying to sell off the hospital assets.  My last day was the Friday before 9-11.  Computer jobs dried up here almost immediately.  Currently I’m "semi retired”, waiting for the job market to improve.  Stopped breeding and showing cats.  Too expensive.  More time for music.  Started to collect blues MP3s on the internet to match the Grossman tablatures I didn’t already have my in my LP and CD collection.  Artiritis in my fingers started worsened, so I really can’t play much.  Did a project for an internet friend in California who had a Blues web site and wanted to expand his "listening room".  I also did CD inserts with complete discographies for him -- more than 70 Audio CDs of old blues and gospel.  Lots of new artists and new songs.  That led me to Gorgen Antonson's Online Blues Discography (last I looked, it wasn't there anymore) and eventually to my own copy of Goodrich, Dixon and Rye's pre-war blues discography Blues & Gospel Records 1890-1943.

I also discovered Ebay's blues 78 auctions (that’s how I learned about WeenieCampbell – member Okeh78 included a plug about this site at the bottom of his blues auctions).  My third divorce should be finalized in a week or so, thank goodness.

When not searching for job prospects, I spend time tracking ebay blues, gospel, old time and jazz auction prices.  Also collecting 78 label scans/photos and tracking/reporting inconsistencies and errors in B&GR 4th edition.  I have a small "entertainment" budget, so I buy a few 78s each month. Ones I like, can afford, and feel are good buys.  Mostly blues.  And I buy an occasional CD.  I listen to a lot of blues.  I’ve got about 200 blues CDs, including those recorded/remastered from LPs.  Here and there I spend a few hours looking for good pre-war photos on the Library Of Congress web site.  They have digitized about 160,000 FSA/OWI photographs to date by photographers like Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Gordon Parks, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Roy Stryker, and Marion Post Wolcot.  I digitally clean them up and use them for CD covers.  Surprising how many of the Yazoo, Document and other commercial CDs used the same source.

I still pick up the guitar when my fingers allow.  But I must admit, I don't have the dexterity I once had.  Allergies (cats and dust, mostly) make my voice very nasal most of the time.  But on those rare days when my head is clear, I actually like my voice now better than ever.  I still do a good version of Hurt's Candyman and a few songs from my coffe house days, but have forgotten most of what I once knew.

My apologies for all the typos I didn't find.  Also partly due to artihritis.  I warned you it would be long.  I actually had to do some editing since I originally exceeded the 12000 character posting limit.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2006, 02:40:07 PM by lebordo »

Offline Richard

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #40 on: December 03, 2004, 01:51:26 AM »
Paul

That amazing and a bit of tough thing to write. I just couldn't do that, not on paper anyway.
(That's enough of that. Ed)

Offline Slack

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #41 on: December 03, 2004, 08:40:18 AM »
Hi Paul, nice to meet you. :-)? ?Thanks for sharing some interesting tidbits (the good and not so good) from your life.? The thing I like about your post is that you feel comfortable enough with this forum (and yourself obviously, age does have its privledges.. ) to share quite a bit of your life.? Good luck in the job search - IT is certainly not what it was in the 90's - but I think there will always be opportunities - if you can get along with the boss that is.

Cheers,
slack

lebordo

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #42 on: December 04, 2004, 06:38:19 PM »
Well, Slack -- not sure if "comfortable" is the right word.  I think it was Popeye who once said "I am what I am what I am...".  Perhaps there was a time, years ago, when I could have changed myself.  Now, I wouldn't even know where to begin.  So, for better or worse, I am what I am.  As for talking about myself, that not really difficult.  I think every time I ever put my foot in my mouth, it was because I was yacking about things I knew very little about.  So now I try to talk about things I know at least something about.  And, after all, I am the world's leading expert on "me". :-)   Plus, I don't think I ever got in trouble because someone else knew too much about me.

boots

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #43 on: December 10, 2004, 12:27:39 PM »
Hi! I'm Boots, have been so to everyone (except parents & taxman) for 50 of my 58 years.

I learned to play the wind-up gramaphone early on, but my musical education ended there. Some of us just don't have it. This

puts a little of centre of the Juke, but I listen well.

The blues first appeared on the radio in the early 60's for me. We had a couple of very good programmes at that time. One of

which was early on Sunday evening and we could not leave before it finished and so missed the start of many films. I spent

most of these years chasing steam locomotives rather than buying records. On a trip to my Grans in a secondhand shop I found

a copy of Lightnin' Hopkins "Hootin' the Blues" on Stateside.

First tried Internet radio when I had dial-up, not very successful. However after going Broadband I tried again. Started

with Winamp and the Blues stations there, much to enjoy. I Found Weenie Campbell somewhere on the Web. I've been listening

pretty regularly for a couple of months now.

To quote (or misquote) Slack "that's probably more than you need to know.

Offline Slack

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Re: Introductions: When the Roll is called...
« Reply #44 on: December 10, 2004, 02:52:26 PM »
Welcome Boots!  It's nice to have you folks from the UK join us (fascinating use of spelling and English.  8) )

The saying I believe is: "At the risk of telling you more than you want to know."  ..which I use to try and warn some poor soul that I'm about to blab away.   ;D

Cheers,
slack

 


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