Topic: Buddy Moss

[Bunker Hill]

Does anyone know if Moss's 1965 Columbia sessions have ever been released?? Has any post-war recording of Buddy Moss been released other than the 1966 Folklore Society of Greater Washington concert that came out on Biograph as Atlanta Blues Legend?

I have a note that all but three of them were on Biograph CD139. I only own the 1969 LP so unable to comment as to whether this CD is the original LP with these items added or form part of another compilation:
Wee midnight hours(unissued)
Mamie   (ditto)
Chesterfield   (ditto)
Hurry home   
Red River   
Pushin? it   
Comin? back   
How I feel today   
That?ll never happen no more
Oh Lawdy mama   
(v/hca/g with Jeff Espina, hca/g.Recorded Nashville, 4 May 1966)

[dj]

I have a note that all but three of them were on Biograph CD139.

Thanks for that input, Bunker Hill.  The last 7 tracks you list are indeed the first seven tracks on Biograph CD139.  The notes to the CD don't clearly state where these 7 tracks came from, merely saying that they were recorded "the same year" (as the Washington concert, i.e. 1966). 

The tracks recorded at the Folklore Society of Greater Washington concert on June 10, 1966 which make up tracks 8 - 18 of the Biograph CD are:
I'm Sitting On Top Of The World*
Kansas City*
It Was In The Weary Hour Night
Chesterfield
I've Got To Keep To The Highway
Come On Around To My House*
Step It Up And Go*
Everyday Seems Like Sunday
I Got A Woman, Don't Mean Me No Good*
Betty And Dupree*
Every Day, Every Day*

Tracks marked with a * feature John Jackson (J.J. in the Biograph notes) on second guitar.

[Bunker Hill]

I assume the CD is at maximum playing time therefore leaving no room for the remaining three...or maybe questionable performance?

I must reacquaint myself with Robert Springer's "So I Said 'The Hell With It': A Difficult Interview With Eugene"Buddy" Moss in Blues Unlimited 117 (Jan-Feb 1976)

[dj]

The CD runs 63 minutes and 10 seconds, so there was plenty of room for the 3 unissued tracks.

[Chezztone]

Yes, Buddy Moss is great! There's some question as to whether he was an influence ON Blind Boy Fuller, even though he was younger and from a different part of the country. Certainly one of them listened hard to the other. I've just started listening closely to Buddy, after hearing his "Got to Give Me Some Of It" (which I'm now doing with my jug band) on a compilation. That one's a duet. vocally and instrumentally, and it is just one of those perfect recordings. I bought the Essential Buddy Moss twofer after that, but no track is as great as that one. Check it out. Chezz

[dj]

There's some question as to whether he was an influence ON Blind Boy Fuller, even though he was younger and from a different part of the country.

I've always felt that he was.  Moss started recording as a vocalist in 1933, two years before Fuller (he'd previously recorded on harmonica with the Georgia Cotton Pickers), and apparently his records sold fairly well.  Moss was based in Atlanta at the time, and Fuller was up in North Carolina, but people travel and records travel further.  And we know that Fuller spent a lot of time listening to and learning from records.

[Bunker Hill]

I must reacquaint myself with Robert Springer's "So I Said 'The Hell With It': A Difficult Interview With Eugene"Buddy" Moss in Blues Unlimited 117 (Jan-Feb 1976)

For information here's what Moss told Springer (12 Aug 1975) about that Columbia session:
RS: Did you stop playing because you weren't making any money or enough money with it?
BM: Yeah, that was one reason, and then another reason, they tried to play me for a sucker. So, to keep from making them damn rich . . .
RS: Who?
BM: Columbia. So, finally John (Hammond Sr.) come back here and he met me and he takes me out to dinner, he do this and do that and so finally, hell, I'm stuck again.
RS: How long ago was this?
BM: '56. Let me show you . . . (comes back with a recording contract with Columbia which he shows me).
RS: It says '66 here. You were supposed to record two sides per year. Did you do that?
BM: No.
RS: Why not?
BM: That's gonna be a problem . . .
RS: It says here you were supposed to record on the 3rd of May. Did you go up there or did they come down here[Atlanta]?
BM: Just didn't go. So . . .
RS: So this contract didn't mean anything anymore?
BM: No.
RS: So, what did they do wrong?
BM: Didn't do anything wrong. I can record a record but you cannot compel nobody to sell it.
RS: How many pieces did you record?
BM: Ten and none of tem came out.
RS: So you didn't make any money off this contract?
BM: Well, I got a draw down. So, that's all, they didn't lose nothin', I didn't lose nothin'. So, if it had been released, so my wife get it, if I don't get it, she get it, so what's the difference.
RS: Did you write them?
BM: Yeah, but I never got no answer . . .
RS: Did you see John Hammond again?
BM: About a year after. I was in New York. He said they was gonna do something with this label, that label and they never did nothin'.
RS: And you haven't heard from him since?
BM: No.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
The interview exchanges re Buddy Moss's recording career are pretty depressing.  What they seem to indicate is that no matter how strong musically, intelligent and tough musicians are (and I believe Buddy Moss was all these things), they tend to be in way over their heads when dealing with Music Business types, even those with good track records like John Hammond, Sr.  Part of the problem is that bad experiences with unethical types can taint all future dealings, so that a musician is disinclined to trust anybody, including people who have his best interests in mind.  When an all-encompassing distrust is combined with an exaggerated sense of the money available for good blues-playing in the marketplace, you end up with a recipe for a career that, in hindsight, seems inexplicably to have yielded less than it should have, based on the musician's gifts.
Reading about Buddy Moss's difficulties makes it so clear how fortunate the musicians have been who have been helped by managers who operated as strong advocates in their behalf.  I think the way Trish Byerly helped out John Jackson over the years and made sure that he received his due is one of the most striking examples of how an energetic and highly prinicipled manager could make sure that a musician wasn't unfairly used by the Music Business.
All best,
Johnm

[Bunker Hill]

I thought I'd revive this topic in light of that man in Hannover, Germany (who must never sleep) has a work in progress on Buddy Moss which includes some Bruce Bastin sleeve note scans:

http://www.wirz.de/music/mossfrm.htm

[dj]

Interesting.  What's up with that "George Mitchell Collection Vol. 2"?  Fat Possum doesn't show it on their website.  Is that available only via download from emusic?

[pbyhre]

It is available on emusic.  I downloaded it a couple weeks ago.  Sounds great to me.

[LB]

Great thread. I have an album called Rediscovery of Moss and it's so funny because lyrics, titles and facts get so scrambled in the mish mash of communications. I took a readable photo of the back cover because the notes are fun to read and thought others might like to read it. What is funny is songs like "Wee Midnight Hour" an Atlanta standard is called "It was the weary hour night". Wow, someone was working too late at the typewriter. I am currently trying to get about 25 albums of this stuff tranferred into my computer on MP3 so I can study everything on my laptop. Thought I'd share these digital images. Read this cover and you might enjoy it.

Click here to see the back of the album and notes

[pbyhre]

Hey dj, I just re-read your post and discovered I probably didn't answer your question.  I wasn't able to find it on Fat Possum's site either.  If you don't have a subscription to emusic, you can get a trial subscription for 50 free downloads and then just cancel right away.  I got the Buddy Moss, Robert Belfour's "What's Wrong With You", and some other stuff.

Emusic does have a terrific selection of blues and is probably worth the price of a subscription, but I'm a Po Boy!

pb

[Bunker Hill]

Hey dj, I just re-read your post and discovered I probably didn't answer your question.  I wasn't able to find it on Fat Possum's site either. 

I've been thumbing through blues mags of the 70s because I can visualise a published news item about these Mitchell recordings that gave the background to them and where recorded. Am currently drawing a blank but will persevere and report back.

[Rivers]

Speaking of Buddy Moss I always wondered what that funny shaped guitar was he is pictured holding in the old composite advert. Then I saw this while out surfing: http://www.williesalomon.com/kay_kraft.htm