Topic: If there was one song....

[Blind Dawg]

...that summed up them old Mississippi Delta blues, it would have to be Rube Lacys....Mississippi Jailhouse Groan. Which makes me wonder what song would best describe them old St.Louis, Texas, Alabama, Piedmont, Georgia, Memphis blues. Not sure it can be done.

[Blind Dawg]

  What you don't know, don't care...sheesh!

[waxwing]

No offense, BD, but I think for most folks here at Weenie it's gonna fall into the "don't care" column. Those style classifications were created by the record industry long after the fact and the players had no knowledge that what they were playing would be classified "Delta" or "Piedmont" or whatever 20 or 30 years later, so, to most of us here they seem uninteresting as a way to discuss the music.

Also, you'll find we tend to shy away from the purely subjective arguments about who's the best.... or in this case, what song is the best.... etc. Everybody has their own favorites, and that's fine, but we leave the heated arguments about who is right about which is best to some of the other forums.

Don't get me wrong, we still express lots of emotion over the great work of many of the individual artists, and we always get excited over finding the more obscure artists that we may not have heard much. It's just the polls and favorite picking that other forums seem to relish arguing judgmentally about that we stay away from here. (Not pointing any fingers)

Hope you understand where we're coming from. Mississippi Jailhouse Groan is a very cool tune. So are literally hundreds of songs created by other players in a similar style, mostly from around the broad, flat, cotton plantation dominated area between the Mississippi River and the Yazoo River.

Wax

[Edit] Of course somebody's gonna prove me wrong now by listing their choices for most exemplary song in every category they can think of, right? -G-

[Richard]

Of course somebody's gonna prove me wrong now by listing their choices for most exemplary song in every category they can think of, right? -G-

Sodt's Law says they will 

[GhostRider]

OK:

I'll disagree a bit. I think the ultimate delta blues is "Future Blues" by Willie Brown.
But I'll play the game:

St. Louis - Cairo Blues - Spaulding
Piedmont - Diddie Wa Diddie - Blind Blake
Georgia - Mamma 'Taint Long 'Fore Day (slide) - Blind Willie McTell
Georgia -  Georgia Rag - Willie McTell (non-slide)
Memphis - Nehi Mama Blues  - Frank Stokes

Bu thousands would disagree with  me (justifiably)
Alex

PS: Waxy is right!

[jed]

Going by type is the English-to-Latin way.  What about Latin-to-English?  For example, of what category is Minglewood Town the best example?  How about Molly Man?

Done this way, the focus goes to a song's uniqueness, which may be easier to discuss, enabling comparisons without having to declare styles.  Even so, it's normal to quantify songs' sounds by categorizing them geographically or otherwise - "That's more of a North Delta (or Texarkana) sound."  In fact, isn't that process what drove many of us to study and learn this stuff in the first place - "Where did this sound come from?" "Why do these songs have the same kind of [whatever]?"  One thing leads to another - we all followed the dirt road and ended up in Bentonia or wherever... 

And no, Ghostie, don't go starting to discuss which song is the best example of Songster style!

Cheers,
Jed

[Blind Dawg]

No offense, BD, but I think for most folks here at Weenie it's gonna fall into the "don't care" column. Those style classifications were created by the record industry long after the fact and the players had no knowledge that what they were playing would be classified "Delta" or "Piedmont" or whatever 20 or 30 years later, so, to most of us here they seem uninteresting as a way to discuss the music.

Also, you'll find we tend to shy away from the purely subjective arguments about who's the best.... or in this case, what song is the best.... etc. Everybody has their own favorites, and that's fine, but we leave the heated arguments about who is right about which is best to some of the other forums.

Don't get me wrong, we still express lots of emotion over the great work of many of the individual artists, and we always get excited over finding the more obscure artists that we may not have heard much. It's just the polls and favorite picking that other forums seem to relish arguing judgmentally about that we stay away from here. (Not pointing any fingers)

Hope you understand where we're coming from. Mississippi Jailhouse Groan is a very cool tune. So are literally hundreds of songs created by other players in a similar style, mostly from around the broad, flat, cotton plantation dominated area between the Mississippi River and the Yazoo River.

Wax

[Edit] Of course somebody's gonna prove me wrong now by listing their choices for most exemplary song in every category they can think of, right? -G-

While I agree that the artists themselves weren't trying to play delta, Texas, Piedmont etc blues. We do have these guys coming from a specific area that did play a particular brand of blues. I'd say it's pretty save to say that the bottom artists listed do represent the region...

Delta

Charley Patton
Son House
Ishman Bracey


Memphis

Jim Jackson
Furry Lewis
Frank Stokes

St.Louis

Roosevelt Sykes
Peetie Wheatstraw
Lonnie Johnson


Texas

Blind Lemon Jefferson
Ramblin' Thomas
Texas Alexander

Alabama

Ed Bell
Jaybird Coleman
Boweavil Jackson

Georgia

Blind Willie McTell
Pegleg Howell
Barbecue Bob

Piedmont

Blind Blake
Pink Anderson
Blind Boy Fuller


As we know each of those regions has another 10 (at least) or so that are considered "Delta players" etc. That's if you go by what we've read in all those books on them old blues. While it might not be 100% accurate it's all we got so might as well go with it. King Solomon Hill, Oscar Woods and Jesse Thomas...Louisiana. Buddy Boy Hawkins-Arkansas. I don't see any reason to fight it or question it. If all I've read is wrong....oh well. The thing is you think St.Louis and it's not jug bands. You think Texas and it's not piano blues. Not that there weren't Texas piano players. You don't think Mississippi Delta and female piano players, yet there was at least one. I think gruff vocals and high percussion when I think of the delta blues. Piedmont blues we find more coherent vocals and complex guitar work. Memphis is where we find the jug bands, not that we didn't see jug bands in other areas.

Not looking to argue or even debate just curious as to what others thought.

[Blind Dawg]

OK:

I'll disagree a bit. I think the ultimate delta blues is "Future Blues" by Willie Brown.
But I'll play the game:

St. Louis - Cairo Blues - Spaulding
Piedmont - Diddie Wa Diddie - Blind Blake
Georgia - Mamma 'Taint Long 'Fore Day (slide) - Blind Willie McTell
Georgia -  Georgia Rag - Willie McTell (non-slide)
Memphis - Nehi Mama Blues  - Frank Stokes

Bu thousands would disagree with  me (justifiably)
Alex

PS: Waxy is right!

Good stuff So was Willie Brown and Kid Bailey one and the same?

[dj]

You think Texas and it's not piano blues.

I think that represents more the guitar-centric interests of the post-1960 blues fan and the huge importance and popularity of Blind Lemon Jefferson and Leadbelly than what was actually recorded, especially in the early days.  Without too much strain, I can think of the following Texas pianists:  Alex Moore, Big Boy Knox, Black Boy Shine, Black Ivory King, Curtis Jones, Hersal Thomas, Kitty Gray, Pinetop Burks, Son Becky, and Andy Boy.  I know I've missed some.  And that's just pre-war.  Post 1945 you get Amos Milburn, Floyd Dixon, etc.

I don't know if it was chance, or where the field units of the major companies chose to record, or actual distribution of players, but there were sure a lot of Texas pianists that recorded.

When it comes to the blues, Texas had it all.

   

[Bunker Hill]

You think Texas and it's not piano blues.

Somebody in Britain was certainly thinking Texas piano blues. Between 1977 & 79 Magpie released iat least three compilations with titles such as Dallas, Texas Santa Fe and Texas Seaport. See here for futher details 
http://www.wirz.de/music/magpifrm.htm

[GhostRider]

Big Boy Knox,
   

 

[Parlor Picker]

Big Boy Knox,
   

 

Was he your Dad, Alex? 

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I don't think of Blind Blake as being Piedmont Blues at all.  As far as I know there's no evidence that he was from or ever resided in the Piedmont.  I think of him as an early Chicago blues musician who, for the most part, influenced other musicians via his recordings.  I think of Piedmont Blues (over-simplified) as the music in the Carolinas that influenced Blind Boy Fuller, then Blind Boy Fuller, then the music that was influenced by Blind Boy Fuller.  That having been said, there's plenty of music that came out of the Piedmont, like that of Virgil Childers, that doesn't appear to bear any obvious relationship to Fullers' music at all.  

I question the efficacy of trying to draw musical conclusions as to what was archetypal of a particular style based on where people came from; where people came from is interesting, but mostly for its own sake.  If you try to make musical inferences based on where people came from you end up spending all your time trying to explain away the exceptions to the supposedly archetypal sound.  But to return to the original issue cited, I think of Blind Blake, who supposedly came from Florida as no more a Florida musician than I think of Tampa Red as a Florida musician.  I think they were early musical professionals who developed their sounds independent of any regional style of playing that we have access to at this time.
All best,
Johnm  

[dj]

Between 1977 & 79 Magpie released at least three compilations with titles such as Dallas, Texas Santa Fe and Texas Seaport.

A little off-topic, but it bears saying here that those Magpie piano blues compilations were really wonderful.  I guess they've been superseded in this digital era by various Document CDs, (Piano Blues volumes 1 - 6, Texas Piano volumes 1 & 2, etc) which are also wonderful in their own slightly different way.  As a fairly late convert to the worthiness of piano blues (I spent the first 30 years after my discovery of the blues listening 90 percent of the time to guitar and harmonica players), I guess I feel I have to put in a word for the genre whenever it comes up.   

[Bunker Hill]

A little off-topic, but it bears saying here that those Magpie piano blues compilations were really wonderful.

The 78s used all came from Francis Smith's amazing piano blues collection and the LPs were mastered by John R T Davis. Add to that the literate and informative sleeve notes and in their day made for an absolute "must have" and go broke!