Topic: What'd I Say - Quote Drive 2008

[uncle bud]

"I am Peetie Wheatstraw, the high sheriff of hell." - Peetie Wheatstraw sings about himself in the "Peetie Wheetstraw Stomp"

[Mr.OMuck]

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." Albert Einstein

[Rivers]

They'll bite the hand that feeds them, spend all the money you can save. From your heartstrings weave silk garters, build a doghouse on your grave - Dock Boggs, False Hearted Lover's Blues

Take a butcher knife, cut off your head, send me a telegram that your body's dead. If you want me to love you that's what you've got to do - Tampa Red, If You Want Me To Love You

[waxwing]

Just heard this one, so somebody check to make sure I'm hearing it right.

Say you may be brown skinned, Woman, praise God, your hair long as my arm (2X)
 Can't do the bed spring polka, you sure done lost your home.

Will Batts - Country Woman

All for now.
John C.

[frankie]

I think it's "bed spring POKER."  I've heard that in other songs.

My favorite line from that tune is the next one:

Now a short haired woman waiting for to carry your troubles on
Make you think through the daytime, trouble you all night long
She make you think you right, when you know darn well you wrong

[waxwing]

Poker? Hmmm? Makes it a game, not a dance? Could be.

I thought that one was "DRINK through the daytime", but I haven't given much of a listen. It sounds kinda like he went to the third line early and then after being prompted "why?" might have extemporized the last line, altho' he's pretty clear on what he's saying. Yeah, that's a killer, too. Put 'em both up, Riv.

Sure like the simple but effective two guitar work on that and several other songs, Cool Iron Bed, Highway 61, etc., by Jack Kelly's band.

All for now.
John C.

[Johnm]

Bill Monroe, at the Bean Blossom Festival, in response to someone in the audience repeatedly yelling out a request for "Rocky Top":
"Now I've been hearing somebody hollering for "Rocky Top", and I'm very sorry, the Bluegrass Boys don't do that number, but in a little while the Osborne Brothers will be up here, and they'll play it, not once, but several times."

Del McCoury, still fiddling with the tuning of his guitar half-way through the second set of a concert:  "You know, folks, I haven't been able to get this thing in tune all night.  That's all right, though, it makes it sound like there's more of us."

Lester Flatt, introducing the members of the Nashville Grass:  "Now Bill, over here on bass--I'm sure you've heard of people who don't know nothing--he don't even suspect nothing."

All best,
Johnm   

[blueshome]

John C.
On this side of the pond a poker is not a card game but a metal rod used to "poke" a fire to make it burn better. Maybe that's what was meant.

[Rivers]

Sounds like 'polka' with a Memphis drawl to me.

[Mr.OMuck]

It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive characteristics.
-James Weldon Johnson

"Ain't never a white man had the Blues.....nothin to worry about!"...Huddie Ledbetter

[uncle bud]

The Mississippi Sheiks do a song called Bed Spring Poker, where they are clearly referring to a "game" and not throwing in extraneous 'r' sounds or anything. While polka conjures amusing images of bedtime gymnastics, I'd be putting my money on "poker" here. I agree, Wax, great sound on this tune.

[Chezztone]

Ah, swing, well we used to call it syncopation -- then they called it ragtime, then blues -- then jazz. Now, it's swing. Ha! Ha! White folks yo'all sho is a mess. Ha! Ha! Swing! -- Louis Armstrong, asked by host Bing Crosby to explain swing on a national radio program

[lindy]

Just got finished with my fifth watching of "Ain't Gonna Worry No More," as an antidote to worrisome times. I love this lyric, does it qualify for Weenie quotedom?

Bought some slippers, bought some socks,
Came back home to find my back door locked.

I'll hold back from attributing it to Sleepy John Estes, since it sounds like a lyric that could be from lots of different songs, although this is the first time it's graced my ears.

Lindy

[Johnm]

Hi all,

Carl Martin's response to Jack Hansen's observation that he had never seen a mandolin with the pairs strung in octave courses, as they were on Carl's mandolin:  "Where you been?"

All best,
Johnm

[uncle bud]

"I'm a man, not a jackass." - Reverend Pearly Brown, I'm On My Way to the Canaan Land