Topic: 52 Weeks of Blues

[amanojaku]

Hi everyone!

Just want to take this opportunity to introduce myself.

I've been playing acoustic guitar for 20 years and have been a blues fan ever since I heard Taj Mahal's "De Old Folks at Home" album. It made a massive impression on me, and I stopped wanting to be Hendrix and started wanting to just  be able to sit on a porch and just play for hours. I've never really been any good, but you learn a trick or two if you've been playing that long.

A few months ago, for my birthday, my lovely girlfriend decided to surprise me with a new guitar. I only had one guitar  - a Maton acoustic that I got 18 odd years ago - that still holds up so I decided to get something with a  different sound. I was originally thinking about getting an electric to make some noise, but in the end I walked out with a resonator because even after all those years I still just want to sit on the porch and make music.

Realising that I'm getting older and that I've never really taken music seriously, I decided I was really going to dedicate myself to learning the language that my soul speaks. I would hear bits of it in the music of guys like Taj, Muddy Waters, Lightning Hopkins but the more I looked into it, the more I was finding it in the music of guys I'd never heard before or never really listened to - Ishmon Bracey, Gary Davis, Skip James, Tommy McClennan, guys like that. I started listening to a wider range of music than I had ever before.

I decided that I would learn one song a week for the next year, week in and week out. The first was Gary Davis' "Death don't have no Mercy". I looked around but couldn't find a tab or even the chords anywhere on the net, so I ended up working it all out by ear. I became intrigued in learning as much as I could about the people who were making the music that I loved, which lead me to weenie campbell.

I thought that maybe there were other people like me out there who would like to learn some of these songs, so I started writing out the tabs and I made a website to hold all the songs I was doing: www.52weeksofblues.com. (For the record it cost me about $100 to have it up for the next 3 years and everything in the site - design, coding, content - is done by me. There's no advertising or anything like that - just a labour of love!)

So far I'm up to week 14, and I realise my ear is better than my playing - I can only play about half of them without making a mistake big enough to make me stop and start again! All the tabs have been worked out by listening to the songs, and a lot of them are youtube recordings of old 78s so there's bound to be some mistakes. I do a little write up about the life of the artists but for some of them there is just not that much info out there. I think telling the story of these pioneers is as important as working out the music they created. I started off with just a few paragraphs on the musicians, but lately I've been writing essays about these guys.

So the site again is http://www.52weeksofblues.com/ Check it out, if you like, and if there is anything wrong in there please let me know. Especially about the lives of the artists - I really want that part to be as accurate as it can possibly be. And if you have any songs you'd like to see a tab for please let me know, and I'll see what I can do

Thanks!



 

[Blues Vintage]

Hi Amanojaku,

Site looks great (who's the bluesman in the left corner?). You've tabbed out some obscure songs. I've never heard of Will Batts.
There are some songs I've always wanted to learn but that are not available in tab books. I might ask you for a tab on those.

On a quick view I saw an error in the Robert Johnson bio.

 "Those 29 songs, 41 versions, makes up the entire discography"
There are 42 versions. There is one further alternate (Traveling Riverside Blues).

[Bald Melon Jefferson]

Wow!  Looks impressive at first glance. Will check it out for sure when I am off the clock! Think I will bookmark it as 52 Months of Blues.
Thanks,
 Gary

[Prof Scratchy]

This looks like a great resource! And a labour of love!

[Rivers]

Wow, cool!

[StoogeKebab]

My goodness that's incredible. Is there anywhere/way to donate to you? If I ever come into any spare money I would love to somehow give back. I can tell I'm going to have a lot of fun with this 

[pete1951]

Great Stuff! I have tried (but failed ) to do something similar.....Hope to follow your fantastic lead
Pete T
(love the picture of Robert Belfour? )
Anyone who goes to a regular `jam` should do this, I`m off to learn a new song ..............

[Vermonter]

This is great! Thanks so much.

[EddieD]

Man! This is awesome. It really shows your passion for this music.

[laurapeach]

Wow, you have a great ear. I am really impressed. Thank you for sharing your work.

And nice picture of Robert Belfour -- R.I.P.

[hms]

Superb, many thanks.
For week 11, Geeshie Wiley, I assume you have seen this:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/13/magazine/blues.html?_r=0
Thanks.
h

[Blues Vintage]

I asked for a transcription of Blind Blake's Hard Road Blues. Looks very accurate


http://www.52weeksofblues.com/?song=hard-road-blues

[1234567]

Hi everyone!

Just want to take this opportunity to introduce myself.

I've been playing acoustic guitar for 20 years and have been a blues fan ever since I heard Taj Mahal's "De Old Folks at Home" album. It made a massive impression on me, and I stopped wanting to be Hendrix and started wanting to just  be able to sit on a porch and just play for hours. I've never really been any good, but you learn a trick or two if you've been playing that long.

A few months ago, for my birthday, my lovely girlfriend decided to surprise me with a new guitar. I only had one guitar  - a Maton acoustic that I got 18 odd years ago - that still holds up so I decided to get something with a  different sound. I was originally thinking about getting an electric to make some noise, but in the end I walked out with a resonator because even after all those years I still just want to sit on the porch and make music.

Realising that I'm getting older and that I've never really taken music seriously, I decided I was really going to dedicate myself to learning the language that my soul speaks. I would hear bits of it in the music of guys like Taj, Muddy Waters, Lightning Hopkins but the more I looked into it, the more I was finding it in the music of guys I'd never heard before or never really listened to - Ishmon Bracey, Gary Davis, Skip James, Tommy McClennan, guys like that. I started listening to a wider range of music than I had ever before.

I decided that I would learn one song a week for the next year, week in and week out. The first was Gary Davis' "Death don't have no Mercy". I looked around but couldn't find a tab or even the chords anywhere on the net, so I ended up working it all out by ear. I became intrigued in learning as much as I could about the people who were making the music that I loved, which lead me to weenie campbell.

I thought that maybe there were other people like me out there who would like to learn some of these songs, so I started writing out the tabs and I made a website to hold all the songs I was doing: www.52weeksofblues.com. (For the record it cost me about $100 to have it up for the next 3 years and everything in the site - design, coding, content - is done by me. There's no advertising or anything like that - just a labour of love!)

So far I'm up to week 14, and I realise my ear is better than my playing - I can only play about half of them without making a mistake big enough to make me stop and start again! All the tabs have been worked out by listening to the songs, and a lot of them are youtube recordings of old 78s so there's bound to be some mistakes. I do a little write up about the life of the artists but for some of them there is just not that much info out there. I think telling the story of these pioneers is as important as working out the music they created. I started off with just a few paragraphs on the musicians, but lately I've been writing essays about these guys.

So the site again is http://www.52weeksofblues.com/ Check it out, if you like, and if there is anything wrong in there please let me know. Especially about the lives of the artists - I really want that part to be as accurate as it can possibly be. And if you have any songs you'd like to see a tab for please let me know, and I'll see what I can do

Thanks!

PLEASE bring 52weeksofblues.com back online!  I discovered it recently, fell in love with it, and now it's disappeared.  We need this back and we also need a way to pay OP for the hard work put into the site.  Please don't let this amazing piece of knowledge disappear from the public eye.

EXCELLENT site, we need it back.

Thanks.

[Rivers]

Just wondering, how do you pronounce your user name.

Should it be 'one two three four five six seven', or 'one million, two hundred and thirty four thousand, five hundred and sixty seven'?

[dorfenheimer]

Hope the 52 Weeks of Blues site is revived. Can anybody provide the TAB for Catfish Blues? I wish I had downloaded that before the site disappeared.