Topic: Who's the most underrated country blues musician?

[Mr.OMuck]

equivalent to the subgenres you mentioned of European Classical Music.

That's what I thought I was saying. I mean I was choosing the work of twentieth century artists because it seems to me that whatever forces were generating the tsunami of creative activity at the turn of the 19th-20th century were also at work in pushing along the Blues it seems to me.
But if I understand your point correctly Chezz , it is that seen as a whole African American music of that period constitutes a literature equal to the greatest European musical works of that and past centuries, and I guess I agree particularly in the case of religious music. There's Bach and Blind Willie Johnson, Thomas Tallis & Gary Davis. Of course they're also not clearly separate to begin with. Some of the Hymn tunes that migrated into gospel were authored by European composers, so.....
Don't know who I'd match with Mozart or Beethoven though. Patton has some of that Beethovian brutality and brusqueness mixed with the exquisite.
But here I'm succumbing to the desire to codify and systematize when increasingly my senses tell me that different things have far LESS in common than I once thought.

[dj]

Impressionism (the musical kind, Debussy, Ravel, Satie)

Country blues has more in common with the classical canon than you imply, O'Muck.  Nobody knows who those guys are anymore, either.  You'll get the same blank stare whether you ask your average 20 something about Gary Davis or Debussy.  I've verified this by experiment.   

[Mr.OMuck]

Ha!

[JohnLeePimp]

Impressionism (the musical kind, Debussy, Ravel, Satie)

Country blues has more in common with the classical canon than you imply, O'Muck.  Nobody knows who those guys are anymore, either.  You'll get the same blank stare whether you ask your average 20 something about Gary Davis or Debussy.  I've verified this by experiment.   

As a representative of the "20something punk" demographic... I'd like to express outrage at this misconception - I know who Debussy is (he did the soundtrack for Twilight)

[jed]

I know who Debussy is (he did the soundtrack for Twilight)

  QED, none of us here is anything close to average... 

credentials...stated or implicit...a point system?  Are the CB artists with the more "popular" inclinations, historically popular or perceived as "popular" or evolving into popular music still ranked somehow lower or underrated?

Ah, the "greater the obscurity, the higher the rating" plank.  Guilty, guilty, guilty.  The challenge, then, is to relax and enjoy while being ready to include the music of, say, Bentonia in discussions about impressionistic music. 

Since we're mentioning a popular and underrated songwriter - each of whose songs are unique gems of three-minute (and under) art, I'll submit his guitarist and reputed teacher, Eddie Taylor, to the list of most underrated, both as to name recognition and as an unheralded link between country and city blues. 

Whereas Reed wrote the songs (always the prime factor) whose format the Stones used to start themselves up, the Stones sound would have been different had, say, Louis Myers or even Pat Hare been backing Reed.  Further, Reed's flop-down chord sound may be at the root of the Stones' rhythms, but (Eddie) Taylor's mix-it-up picking and heavy attack practically predict the Stones' evolving sound.  If Reed's book reasonably corroborates assertions that Taylor taught him how to play, Taylor's influence is broader still. 

[Mister Steve]

Just to add: brush strokes.  Probably any CB artist with a style based on brush strokes/rhythms.  Check out the notable strummers thread...and add Snooks Eaglin here?

[Mike Billo]

 After all these years, I've never tired of listening to the two Document volumes of Leecan and Cooksey.
 I think they were the greatest Guitar/Harmonica duo ever and yet, so many seem to be completely unaware of them.

Perhaps a bit Jazzy and Raggy to be truly classified as CB, but everyone I've ever turned on to them, has loved them 

[Bunker Hill]

I think they were the greatest Guitar/Harmonica duo ever and yet, so many seem to be completely unaware of them.

Oh I don't know, someone in Copenhagen must have held them in high regard. In 1974 the Collectors Classics label released a 17 track LP - 5 were previously unreleased alternative takes. 

[jpeters609]

This is a long thread, so perhaps he's already been mentioned, but Bo Weavil Jackson has always fit this bill.

[Stefan Wirz]

Oh I don't know, someone in Copenhagen must have held them in high regard. In 1974 the Collectors Classics label released a 17 track LP - 5 were previously unreleased alternative takes. 

... looked something like this (from [some day ;-] forthcoming CC discography):

[Mike Billo]

  I'm happy to see that Leecan and Cooksey are more well-known than I thought.

  I've been a fanatical admirer of them from the first listening. 

[y2karl]

Late to the party as I am, I would pick Robert Petway for this list.

And depending upon underrated by whom, add Tommy Johnson and Sleepy John Estes.

Much like the remark about Gary Davis, that ''...feeling combination of sleepy john estes. jayne mansfield. humphry bogart/morti-
mer snerd. murph the surf and so forth'' from the liner notes of Bringing It All Back Home makes much less sense to most of those who read it now, I would suspect. 

And, certainly, Tommy is by far the underrated Johnson.

[ceemonster]

mick jagger and keith richards, circa 1964-1972. seriously.  of course, it's their own fault that their country-blues mojo is under-appreciated, having bagged on it for more commercial shenanigans, but they were as obsessed with it as any weenie devotee, and very good at it in the first decade of the RS.....

[Dr. G]

I agree with the Cryin' Sam Collins votes. That being said...

...I am astonished that no one has mentioned King Solomon Hill -- but then that goes to show how underrated he is.

King Solomon Hill only recorded a few sides, but they are masterpieces that no one else -- and I mean NO ONE else -- has come close to before or since.

Whoopie Blues? I rest my case.

Dr. G (reclaiming his membership after a sabbatical)

[Rivers]

I see the underrating process within Country Blues as an extension of the folk/blues revivals' hierarchy of credentials...stated or implicit...a point system?  Are the CB artists with the more "popular" inclinations, historically popular or perceived as "popular" or evolving into popular music still ranked somehow lower or underrated?

I'd agree except it happens in every single artistic form and their underlying genres so it must be human nature. The language has evolved to describe it, "style setters", "cult", the "I was into them before they were famous" thing.

I could go on about the psychology involved but it's obvious. Except to say people with passion are driven to differentiate themselves from the herd whom they discern as being force fed pap by people wanting to make $$. And they are 100% correct in that.

I was in a band once that started getting a small following. As soon as we found out about it we disbanded immediately! Plus I couldn't stand the bass player, he hated the singer, and the drummer was sick of the whole damn thing.