Topic: Why the lack of love for Blind Lemon

[wreid75]

I have always wondered why there appears to be a lack of love for Blind Lemon.  I know that he has his fans, I am one, but he tends to get left out of discussions for someone who would surely be on the Mount Rushmore of country blues artists.  His life seems to have it all.  Disability check, influential check, people lying about leading him around or playing with him check, unusual and disputed demise check. 

[tinpanallygurl]

well it could be because he su cks 

[Slack]

Who are you talking about Wreid, the general public?

[Mike Billo]

  I've wanted to like him, because he is highly regarded and I've thought of reasons why I should(And they have nothing to do with disabilities or any other biographical data) but I've never been able to warm to his recordings in the slightest.
 Of course, as we know, musical likes and dislikes are the most subjective topic there is, but I've never been able to muster anything stronger than "pretty OK" for anything of his.
  Granted, he's got a lot of "pretty OK's" to his credit, but he's just not my cup of tea.

 

[wreid75]

Mike Billo does a good job of making my point.  The general public might, might have heard of him.  I know that personally I had a lot of other artists before I bought my first Lemon.  Dont get me wrong I know that there are people here that like him but other artists are discussed far more frequently and I think a bit of lack of love is at play.

[wreid75]

and he doesn't suck 

[Prof Scratchy]

Why the lack of love? My guess would be the sound quality of the reissued recordings, taken as they often were, from beat Paramount 78s. If you are prepared to listen through the scratches, Blind Lemon's playing is always top drawer, often miraculous; and his singing is hard to beat, with a pitch that would have carried a fair distance when he sang on the streets. But yes, hard listening at times because of the quality of the originals, presumably recorded down a horn onto the original masters, pressed on inferior materials, then played to death by the original purchasers before being re-recorded and reissued in the present day. Another possible reason for the 'lack of popularity' is that his accompaniments were so complex behind his singing, that very few revivalist players have attempted to play his stuff. (Frankie and Ari are exceptions that spring to mind). So with Blind Lemon you don't get the added 'popularity' that might come from folks touring and performing his music to present day live audiences. Just my opinion.

[bnemerov]

And a very good opinion it is, professor.

Kind of ironic--the most popular country blues recording artist of the 1920s is penalized in his legacy because of that popularity.
When I was overseeing the recorded sound collection at the Center for Popular Music, I noted how beat the BLJ discs were. And not just on one side. Both sides were grey in the grooves.

Had the Pm metal parts survived to the CD era, we might be talking about Leman in a whole different way.
best,
bruce

[wreid75]

I wonder how Patton was able to overcome poor sound quality of his records and the fact that sometimes you cant figure out what the hell he is saying?  I can't think of anyone this side of Robert Johnson that gets more affection than CP.................................which is well deserved I must add.

[Blind Arthur]

His style is indeed by far not as imitable as many others, especially for guitar beginners (for example, Robert, or Muddy), so you are less likely to have your guitar teacher "by accident" introduce you into an example of his songs than, say, Muddy, or Robert, which might then get you hooked.

Plus, as was said, the original quality of his recordings, has made many reissue producers radically erase all the high tones and some have even added background hall to them. This muffling treatment of the originals (not the "Paramount sound") was what put me off a little 25 years ago at first listening, I must admit, and if it had not been for the Document series I might never have discovered him at all. I have only discovered the wealth in his music when the Document Completes came out.

Probably the biggest reason, in my understanding, is: The music of the latter half of the 20th century has developed NOT from the pre war Memphis artists, NOT from the pre-war Texas artists, NOT Atlanta etc but from the Mississippi players going North and founding electric blues bands in Chicago (bands+small combo play). So he is not exactly in a direct tradition line towards rock?n?roll and neither towards the 1960ies blues revival era, thus not covered, he has simply left fewer traces in the music that came after him

[CF]

I think Lemon's singularity & oddness keep him somewhat marginal. His music, to my ears, is the most experimental & 'different' of the early country blues stars. He's an alien 

[bnemerov]

Blind Arthur and cheapfeet have hit on a prime factor, I think.
The lineage to and through rock & roll is through Mississippi, Chicago, (and England), and on.
And, again, I think the reason is found in the rhythmic idiom....Lemon's broken rhythms just didn't work as well as those of the Mississipians who
added drums, bass and piano.
Elmore James did something with Dust my Broom; hard to imagine him doing much with most of Lemon's stuff.
best,
bruce

[jpeters609]

This thread is timely for me, as I have only recently rectified my own "lack" of Blind Lemon Jefferson. I often felt that I talked about Blind Lemon more than I actually listened to him. After picking up the Black Swan collection of his Paramount sides (which I highly recommend) and listening to it at length in recent days, I think Lemon's virtues are also what make him difficult for general listeners to appreciate. His vocal lines are so independent from his guitar parts -- and yet somehow so integrated, I admit with awe -- that it is difficult to think of his recordings in a real melodic sense. Patton, on the other hand (whose diction was challenging and whose records suffer the same noisy sound quality), played guitar in a way that clearly responded to his voice (or vice versa), making for easier listening -- relatively speaking, of course.

What really surprised me were the similarities I heard between Blind Lemon Jefferson and Bo Weavil Jackson, another exceptionally difficult and unsurpassed prewar blues musician whose singing and guitar playing seemed to come from different halves of the brain. 

[eric]

Hmmm...I can't speak for his popularity, although outside of RJ, popularity seems relative in the world of pre-war vernacular music.

For my money, Lemon is brilliant on a couple of levels.  He's a great guitarist, and seems to be able to improvise an infinite number of variations, like a good jazz player.  Check out Big Night Blues for example.  He plays with complete mastery of rhythm.  His lyrics are creative, unique, funny.  The tenor voice that rang like a bell.  His contemporaries that saw him were in awe of his playing.  Wouldn't it have been great to see him some Saturday afternoon busking for the crowds on Deep Ellum?  My two cents.

[tinpanallygurl]

Well the poor sound quality on old 78s will soon be a thing of the past for most records.  More than one school is working with lasers and Dupont chemicals to improve old recordings.  I am a layperson so this is how it was explained by friends of mine that are working on this.  A chemical is used that works kind of like a scratch cover on auto paint jobs where the clear coat is scratched.  For deeper scratches a laser is used that can pull sounds that the tiniest needles cant get to.  Another laser can not only pull the sounds out with less static than the one before but it can differentiate between the instruments and voice and static, putting each sound in its own track.   They are getting so effective that each individual string can sometimes be put in individual tracks which in the future will allow for HD remastering.  If there are two guitar players then there would be ten tracks (unless Big Joe is playing). They can simply delete the tracks with the static sounds.

A recording made it Jack Whites music store using 78 technology from the 30s was scraped with a nail and ran over by a car on gravel and they were able to restore the sound to before.

They can even pull sounds from warped and bubbled recordings.  Here art and science come together.  They have to use a program not unlike autotune to return the pitch to where it likely was before the warping took place, which will eventually contribute to debates on sites like weenie.  So to everyone that didn't take the records nailed to the walls of sheds, we will all be weeping in the future over that.  Just kidding, no one could have known in the 60s that technology would allow records like that to be playable.

[Mike Billo]

 The poor sound quality of the recordings isn't a factor for me. I'm in love with a lot of stuff that was taken off of Edison Wax Cylinders. 
  A *lot* of the Document catalog (Pre-Jack White era) is very difficult to listen to and yet I love it.
  Neither is the degree of difficulty of his playing (Not entirely sure I agree that his licks are all that inaccessible) a factor.
  I love Blind Blake and Lonnie Johnson, but harbor no illusions about being able to play their stuff.

  I don't know if I'd agree with the absence of a direct lineage to Rock 'n Roll being significant either.

  I suspect that it's just that there are others, like myself, who simply find him, not our cup of tea.   

[dj]

I was one of those who, for a long time, found Lemon not my cup of tea.  I don't mind surface noise, and it's definitely not a Mississippi/Chicago thing.  For me, it was the pitch and timbre of Lemon's voice that put me off for a long time.  It was only after listening to the Weenie Juke for a couple of years, hearing Lemon mixed in daily with other artists that I really liked a lot that I gradually "got" him.  He's still not numbered among my favorites, but at least I finally appreciate and enjoy him. 

[Johnm]

Hi all,
If I imagine some sort of dopey hypothetical situation in which I could only listen to one Country Blues musician, Lemon is the one I would choose.  His singing just kills me, a voice like a bell, and his guitar skills are other-worldly.  In a genre in which set pieces are more often the norm, he was, as Eric pointed out, an improviser like a Jazz player, just spritzing all over the place, and coming up with great ideas that you may never hear repeated.  I think Lemon is virtually unique among players who busked a lot in having a crystal-clear playing touch and tone--usually the demands for sound projection in busking result in a crashy, sloppy tone and a flat (loud) dynamic range, but Lemon played and sang with a huge dynamic range, often moving instantaneously from really quiet singing or playing to just popping out at you. He's just the most musical guy to me, and I really love the music of a lot of players in the genre.
All best,
Johnm

[Stuart]

I'm with John. His expressive voice and singing, along with his musical inventiveness, place him among the few that I would have a hard time crossing off of my list, if it ever came down to that. Tens-plus years ago when my kids were at home, I remember them both being captivated by him, something that doesn't happen too often with teenagers in the modern era.

[banjochris]

Lots of great points here. I would just add that Patton's records have in general much better sound quality than Lemon's. Surface noise is there on both, but Lemon's sound quality really doesn't reach that of Patton's until his last session.

[uncle bud]

Yeah, Lemon was almost done recording just as Patton was getting started. And Lemon's early recordings, some of his most brilliant, were acoustically recorded, making matters even worse.

Perhaps the lack of love is partly just perception, though? Here on Weenie, the Lemon lyrics thread is the most viewed topic in all the forums. The number of times Lemon is tagged is likewise roughly equal to Patton.

The information we have about Lemon has also been limited, and a lot of the research that has been done has not made it to publication for various reasons. But there have been innumerable re-releases of his recordings, the JSP boxed set of CDs was one of their earliest of their new boxed set era, the video lesson by Ari Eisinger was one of the earliest of Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop videos focusing on note-for-note interpretations, an entire issue of Black Music Research Journal has been devoted to him.

Musically, his influence has been enormous, though perhaps not acknowledged enough. The Influence of Blind Lemon Jefferson thread on Weenie does trace all sorts of examples of that legacy.

Like John and Stuart, it's a no-brainer for me. Lemon is basically the top of my list, by a country mile. I think I have listened to him more than any other musician in my life, even Patton. At any given time I am working on one of his songs. And forgetting how to play even more.

[Mr.OMuck]

Another important aspect is that his music is not yet exactly Blues as we have come to know it but not unlike Henry Thomas (though very UNLIKE Henry Thomas) an older hybridizing form, and perhaps a unique one. I think the point about the difficulty of playing his works, which stems as much because their spareness and quirky rhythm as their complexity is also a major factor. But there's another, the "What the Hell am I doing? " factor. His music is SO individual that even when you're not setting out to copy him exactly, there is a sense for me with his stuff of a kind of invasiveness. I don't know how else to describe it other than to say that I always end up feeling..What the hell am I doing? Its probably for that reason that I tend to shy away from playing his songs, even though he is an all time cosmic favorite.


Regarding street singing, and having had some experience doing it I can say that Lemon's outdoor voice, meant to pierce the local traffic is the ideal voice for the job, and if you listen to Gary Davis fresh off the streets you will hear the same high pitched and penetrating tone. Speaking of which, I may have already bored you with my theory that artists always "hide" the artist who has had the most influence on them, they may even disparage them, Matisse's rejection of Gauguin's influence is a perfect example in another art form. Rev. Davis had harsh things to say about a lot of his contemporaries, and no one more so than Lemon, but Lemon's imprint is ALL OVER Rev. Davis' playing AND singing imo. And all to the good. The good Reverend's hidden greatest influence.

[frankie]

He's just the most musical guy to me, and I really love the music of a lot of players in the genre.

Completely, totally agreed. Lemon was the catalyst for me to look deeply into this music, and remains top of my list today. I've found a lot of other music along the way, and music I care about deeply, but none more so than Lemon's.

Rev. Davis had harsh things to say about a lot of his contemporaries, and no one more so than Lemon, but Lemon's imprint is ALL OVER Rev. Davis' playing AND singing imo. And all to the good. The good Reverend's hidden greatest influence.

and couldn't agree more, here. I've always felt that way about a lot of his music - it might be interesting to get down to specific examples...

[CF]

WONDERFUL STUFF everyone. Hearing such eloquent praise for such a talented & STILL underrated musician is heart-warming.
I feel really lucky to GET this man's music. When I hear, for example, Lemon play in the A position on MATCHBOX BLUES . . . it's ridiculous!! I usually just sit there shaking my head with a huge grin on my face, almost unbelieving of what he did, his musical logic, it's just . . . beautiful.
Although he is well known for his street performance, I don't know, some of the gentleness & subtlety of his playing, I just picture him in a room with his guitar, alone, inventing a language that was so original & novel & overwhelming.

[Mr.OMuck]

One of the most obvious is Hot Dogs and Candy man...very, very close.

[Norfolk Slim]

On the surface noise point, much of the joy in lemon's playing is in fairly intricate and nuanced riffs and passages. Patton's music is in a sense far more primal and is better suited to carrying a casual listener through the surface noise with its immediacy and timbre.

Personally I didn't really get lemon until after I heard ari doing his songs and was prompted to go back and listen to lemon with a much better idea of how the songs really worked which made it much easier to listen through the crackles.

[harvey]

Just had to join the Lemon love in

He is top of my list... I don't think there is a week goes by when I don't listen to one of his songs and try and play it. Emphasis on the try !

I think I have become almost immune to crackles bar the songs where parts are just not audible.

Also like to say apart from Ari who introduced me to Lemon's music in a big way, I have to say one of people who has influenced me via their youtube channel (and CD's) has been Frankie

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL44EA21798C6D3D47

[Shovel]

I wonder if there is anyone who ranks Lemon tops that isn't also reeeeally into guitar?

At any rate, as others have touched on, I do think its a flow thing.  His playing was great.  His singing was great.  His mix of the two was unparalleled.  He just didn't have the sing-songability of a Patton on most of his songs. 

Lemon was way out there man.

[Bed Bug Bill]

Ignorance......poor recording quality.....I think it's the Patton syndrome again,it' just too real..too black ..too old time, for most blues fans and even for most country blues fans.
It's also harder to market a fat,drunken ,sex crazed lout,which is how he's usually portrayed, compared to haunted young man who sold his soul at the local intersection.
If not the greatest ever bluesman,he's certainly up there with them.
Probably the hardest guitar style to learn,and if you can manage to get close,try to sing at the same time........thats why his material isn't covered much.
He was extremely popular,amongst the record buying public.Every 78 that I've come across has been played to death ,and beyond.
A one of a kind genius.....to state the bleeding obvious.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I remember Nick Perls telling me that when he was canvassing for 78s in various Southern cities, when he came across someone who had a Lemon record, he would say, just making conversation, "Wow, wasn't Lemon a great guitar player?"  Nick said as often as not, the response to that would be, "Oh, did he play guitar?".
I don't think the folks were putting Nick on, but rather it may be taken as an indication of what the original audience for the music bought the records for vs. the present-day audience:  back then-SINGING, nowadays-guitar-playing.  And I do think that Lemon would have been one of the greatest Blues artists ever, even if he had never played the guitar.
All best,
Johnm

[banjochris]

And I do think that Lemon would have been one of the greatest Blues artists ever, even if he had never played the guitar.

Agreed. I love those records where he's singing with the piano backup; he seems totally at ease doing it. (The later "How Long" is a whole other thing.)

Also Lemon's lyrics are amazing. And pop up in some unlikely places later on.

[Prof Scratchy]

QED:

[Slack]

 

I love those records where he's singing with the piano backup; he seems totally at ease doing it.

He does, and it seems to me that stops and starts taht you would expect from his guitar pieces are smoothed out on the piano pieces.  Or am I imagining that.

Great comments.  I just want to add that some of us in Texas are lucky enough to have him on our license plates. 

[frankie]

I love those records where he's singing with the piano backup; he seems totally at ease doing it.

He does, and it seems to me that stops and starts taht you would expect from his guitar pieces are smoothed out on the piano pieces.  Or am I imagining that.

The exception being 'How Long' where it's a guitar/piano duet....  lots of push and pull there, and they don't really ever seem to find any genuinely common ground (besides the key - oboy...)

On the other piano/voice recordings, I think Lemon just defers, generally speaking, to the accompanist's sense of time.

Rising High Water Blues is one of my favorites - great singing, great piano playing, lovely melancholy mood and best opening line EVER:

[banjochris]

On the other piano/voice recordings, I think Lemon just defers, generally speaking, to the accompanist's sense of time.

In the main he does, and I think that shows even more what an incredible musician he was in that he was able to do that. I can think of other great singers, Jimmie Rodgers for instance, who sometimes had real trouble time-wise singing to other accompanists.

[frankie]

On the other piano/voice recordings, I think Lemon just defers, generally speaking, to the accompanist's sense of time.

In the main he does, and I think that shows even more what an incredible musician he was in that he was able to do that.

Absolutely - the word "just" was a poor choice and I didn't mean to imply that there was anything at all trivial about his ability to adapt in that way.

[frankie]

Also like to say apart from Ari who introduced me to Lemon's music in a big way,

Ari's the bomb when it comes to Lemon!

I have to say one of people who has influenced me via their youtube channel (and CD's) has been Frankie

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL44EA21798C6D3D47

Thanks! Looking at that playlist, I think the parade of facial hair styles is at LEAST as interesting as the music, no?

[banjochris]

Maybe some people don't like Lemon because they can't stand not knowing what a "follybug" is.

[frailer24]

Lack of knowledge about the follybug hasn't stopped me! Seriously, though, I believe Lemon's guitar work to be as challenging as Blake, in its own sweet way. As for the singing, no comparison.

[tinpanallygurl]

" lot of the research that has been done has not made it to publication for various reasons"

So is the reason this info is still being withheld due to the fact that it is hard to make a buck on it? 

[Bunker Hill]

2005 witnessed some discussion concerning BLJ and the published word.

http://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=1760.msg13436;topicseen#msg13436

[Gumbo]

Can you dance to it though? 

[uncle bud]

Maybe some people don't like Lemon because they can't stand not knowing what a "follybug" is.

I think it's an L.A. thing.

" lot of the research that has been done has not made it to publication for various reasons"

So is the reason this info is still being withheld due to the fact that it is hard to make a buck on it? 

Bunker Hill might be able to give a more informed opinion. I wouldn't say withheld though. But anyone working on a book about a blues musician who is not Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters is doing so as a labour of love and knows that even if it did get published, it may only sell a few hundred copies, if they're lucky.

Paul Swinton has been working on a book about Lemon for some years. Still no word on that, that I'm aware of.

Paul Oliver produced a manuscript on Texas Blues that was potentially to be a collaboration with Mack McCormick and that has never seen the light of day.

I can't recall whether David Evans has more to come on Lemon.

[Slack]

I think it's an L.A. thing.

LOL!

No one is biting Chris.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I wouldn't worry too much about the research on Lemon not being available.  The music is available, and that's worth more than any amount of biographical research.  I'm dubious as to whether any major discoveries could be made about Lemon's life at this juncture in any event.
All best,
Johnm

[Bunker Hill]

Paul Swinton has been working on a book about Lemon for some years. Still no word on that, that I'm aware of.

Paul Oliver produced a manuscript on Texas Blues that was potentially to be a collaboration with Mack McCormick and that has never seen the light of day.

For "some years" read "four decades", most of which was spent Stateside interviewing and researching.

As for the Texas book, Paul Oliver's health isn't what it used to be and I believe he's passed this on for others to pull into shape. I spoke to Paul on the phone last month and said his priority was to finish his autobiography. His interests have been many and varied.

http://www.earlyblues.com/Interview%20-%20Paul%20Oliver.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Oliver

[banjochris]

Maybe some people don't like Lemon because they can't stand not knowing what a "follybug" is.

I think it's an L.A. thing.

[ArthurBlake]

well it could be because he su cks 

Oh I truly hope you are jesting 'cos that is blasphemy I tell you.

[ArthurBlake]

  I've wanted to like him, because he is highly regarded and I've thought of reasons why I should(And they have nothing to do with disabilities or any other biographical data) but I've never been able to warm to his recordings in the slightest.
 Of course, as we know, musical likes and dislikes are the most subjective topic there is, but I've never been able to muster anything stronger than "pretty OK" for anything of his.
  Granted, he's got a lot of "pretty OK's" to his credit, but he's just not my cup of tea.

 

The man was a genius, i think it's the rather poor (actually extremely poor) recording equipment that Paramount used to record him that gives you that impression not Lemon himself. Fact is Lemon was hard done by in that Paramount had this fantastic and incredibly unique guitar player and singer and yet they couldn't have used decent equipment to record him on. I myself had trouble hearing Lemon's work through all the scratches but one day I saw and purchased Ari Eisinger's Blind Lemon guitar lessons videos and suddenly after picking up my jaw off the floor at what I was hearing my next reaction was, "oh so that's what he is playing and Jesus how good is this little white guy ?" From that day on I hear lemon's music in a completely new way, before then every note and chord of his was a mystery but since learning songs from Ari's tape I know at least what is going on in at least 6 Lemon tunes. Then later I saw our very own Weenie, Frankie Basile doing "That Crawlin' Baby Blues" and after that the case is closed and the verdict is out. Blind lemon Jefferson has been judged by the jury and the verdict is...... THE MAN WAS A GENIUS.