Topic: Introductions: When the Roll is called...

[Slack]

Welcome FJ!

[Longsands]

Hi all,
I?ve been lurking on this site for years, picking up a wealth of information and pointers to great music, and thought it was about time I joined in.
My name?s David and I live on the North East coast of England.  I started getting into blues in the late 80?s, partly through a radio show where the folk singer Ralph McTell played records by some of his inspirations including Willie McTell, Blind Blake, Robert Johnson and Joseph Spence.  Sometime in the 90?s I wanted to try making some of those sounds, so I bought a junk shop Hokada guitar and sawed some copper pipe off a lab furnace I was working with.  I have been slowly learning ever since, although the guitar soon got upgraded a bit.
So, I?m no expert and no great player, but I enjoy the music and hope I can chip in something constructive here and there.
Cheers, David

[Slack]

Welcome David!  Thanks for de-lurking!

[creinsch]

I am the archivist for a defunct radio station, KRAB of Seattle.  Bob West, who passed away July 31, 2016, produced a radio program on KRAB from 1966 until 1984.  He went on to create Arcola Records.  A number of his programs are now in the archive and posted on the web site.  The most recent post was Bob's interview of Furry Lewis in May of 1968.  There is also a tribute to Bob written by a close friend.

In the realm of post-war blues, we also have some of Richard Shurman's Urban Blues programs.

If you are curious, please take a look at  www.krab.fm

[Johnm]

Hello creinsch,
Welcome to Weenie Campbell, and I'm very sorry to hear that Bob passed away.  He did a lot for the music and the interviews he did with musicians during the period you describe are fascinating.  Thank you for pointing out their availability.
All best,
Johnm

[lindy]

Thanks for telling us about the archive and the sad news of Bob's passing. I am one of many hundreds of volunteers who did occasional shows at the Firehouse and at 23rd/Jackson.

For those of you with some free time, check out the archives. In addition to Furry Lewis, there are interviews with Son House, Pinetop Perkins, Big Joe Williams, Bukka White, Mance Lipscomb and Fred McDowell.

Lots of great material that's not country blues-related: recordings (some live in Seattle, some taped elsewhere) of Allen Ginsburg, Aldous Huxley, Theodore Roethke, Jean Shepherd, William Buckley debating Giovanni Costigan--a snapshot of cultural stuff happening 50 years ago and more.

Lindy

[StoogeKebab]

Thank you for the information creinsch. Mr West was a wonderful influence on me and always up for a chat via email, sent me a lot of great CDs at his cost and I was gearing up to purchase his guitar (though it would have taken me a while to save to buy it). I wondered why I hadn't heard from him last month as I sought out tips before a recording trip I took over the past week and am deeply saddened to hear of why. I keep the letters he wrote me as readily available as all the CDs and I'll truly miss him as a mentor in both the learning about the blues, performing and in my passion for archiving and recording. In my neck of the woods, there aren't any places where a 14 year old kid with a guitar can just show up and have a chat with someone that met his blues heroes dead long before he was born, but for the past few years I've been in direct contact with Bob (and been a member of the site of course) and it's been fantastic. May he rest in peace. Also sorry for writing all this in this part of the forum.

[Stuart]

Bob West - In Memoriam:

http://seattlefloatinghomes.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Bob-West.pdf

(It will open or download as a PDF file)

[creinsch]

I am glad to hear that Bob West is remembered fondly here.  My first encounter with Bob was in 1967 when he started doing a program of pre-war blues on KRAB.  He would come into the station Sunday afternoons to tape the show, and I would engineer.  Seventeen years later KRAB went off the air and I left Seattle.  It wasn't until 2013 that we met up again, back in Seattle, at the 50th anniversary of KRAB's first broadcast.  Then I started the KRAB archive, and Bob shared tapes and CD's he had digitized.

I see a copy of John Och's "Remembering Bob West" has been shared here (just above this post). If you are curious why it comes from the Floating Homes Assn, Bob was a long-time resident of a houseboat on Seattle's Lake Union.  You can also find John's article in the KRAB archive on the http://www.krab.fm/KRAB-has-the-Blues-King-Biscuit-Time.html page, where there is also a 2006 piece by Jann McFarland about him and houseboat life.

[Stuart]

Thanks for your posts, Chuck. I heard about KRAB back in '78 when I was in Seattle for a few months, and after I returned in '83. I probably crossed paths with Bob at music events in Seattle, but unfortunately never met him.

Perhaps we should have a separate thread for posts about Bob and KRAB, but I'll leave that to the moderators.

Thanks for all your work on the KRAB site. There is plenty of listening ahead. 

[Rivers]

Several of us met Bob at Port Townsend, was it 2008? What a character. There was so much going on on officers' row, in terms of the many other strong characters and scenes happening, that Bob just kind of had to become part of that whole patchwork quilt. I believe he was not used to that. I had several good interactions with him myself, directly and also just observing.

That year the whole thing, it seemed to me, and I'd been away for several years, seemed to be in danger of sliding naturally into chaos. Just part of the natural cycle.

RIP Bob West.

[waxwing]

Very sad to here about Bob West passing.

That was an incredible week at PT. "The best" I heard it said. The Weenie house was a house party almost nonstop from about Wednesday until Sunday morning. Bob was a part of that, blowing jug with a half gallon whiskey bottle, reminiscing about players he had recorded, almost coming to blows with an equally inebriated Lightnin' one night. It was quite the mix of faculty that year. I think Elijah's first. I remember jamming my washboard and jug on a rack with him, Suzy, Del and Steve in the pantry. Seemed like every room had a small jam going on, not like those 30 player jams. Farren managed to get a musician from town (with the same last name as me) to donate a cool vintage wooden electric piano (with a modesty panel) that I carted up to the Weenie house that enabled a great jam by Johnm and Erwin.

My favorite memory was of the then raven haired, pale skinned Pilar McCracken at 6am, as I was telling a few youngsters they could keep playing in the yard but I was gonna lock up the back door for a couple hours, in that gravelly McCracken growl, just like her old man, "Waxwing, you Weenies know how to Party!"

You'll be missed, Bob. Thanks for a handful of great memories.

Wax

[Toni Vines]

Hello all, New member here. My name is,Tony and I'm in Ipswich, UK. Been playing blues guitar (electric, acoustic & resonator) for years and I've now decided to try some blues mandolin.
I particularly like a clip of Ry Cooder from the BBC Old Grey Whistle Test where he's doing Going To Brownsville on a Gibson mandolin. It's on YouTube if anyone wants to check it out. I'd love to learn this version, anyone know it?
All the best,
Tony.

[Johnm]

Hi Tony,
Welcome to Weenie Campbell!  I don't play the Ry Cooder version you cite, but as I remember he plays it in G.  it should sit pretty easily, just copy the video.
All best,
Johnm

[Parlor Picker]

Welcome Tony. How about a trip across country to the Euroweenie Weekend in Somerset in April? There will doubtless be people there with a similar interest in blues mandolin (I'm interested but don't play mandolin). We're a mad lot, but very friendly.