WeenieCampbell.com
Country Blues => Weenie Campbell Main Forum => Topic started by: uncle bud on July 15, 2007, 05:48:09 PM
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The worst part of the demise of the Juke for me is the loss of the discovery of songs and artists I hadn't paid attention to before, or sometimes hadn't even heard before. There are so many greats tunes out there and the randomness of the Juke often brought specific songs to my attention that weren't from the obvious "country blues hit parade" or the artists that I obsess over. I thought I'd start a thread about tunes that catch our attention in our daily listening, now that the Juke is offline.
Today for me it was Booker White's "High Fever Blues." It's played out of C position, not something one would expect from Booker, I'd venture. It's a really cool and pretty simple tune that I intend to work out soon.
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'Let My Baby Ride"- R.L. Burnside
It's an interesting song, very....Not Burnside-ish.
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I was listening to the Mississippi Sheiks today and when the song "Sales Tax" came on it made me think about the fees being charged to internet radio and the Weenie Campbell radio specifically.
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I've been listening to the Document CD "Blind Alfred Reed--Complete Recorded Works." Two tunes, "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live" and "Money Cravin' Folks" seem apropos.
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The juke really got me into the music of Larry Johnson. I think he's great. I'm listening to him a lot these days.
It also introduced me to the great, too obsecure, ROY DUNN, who is one of my favorites today.
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I agree the biggest thing I miss is the Juke and the ability to learn about artists.
Mmy playing selection currently varies between:
Big Bill Broonzy JSP collection Vol 3 1940 - 1951
Lightnin Hopkins the complete Alladin recordings CD
Buddy Guy, Blues Singer CD
Buddy Guy & Junior Wells, Alone and Acoustic
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Glad people are exploring their CD collections as they deal with Juke withdrawal. For this thread though, I really meant are there specific songs you're listening to. While the old "what are you listening to" chestnut usually results in lists of albums, those can be limited if there is no detail about particular songs that are turning your crank etc.
On thing I can imagine about 78s is they would force you to listen the one song under the needle. 24-track CDs often seem to me to be the wrong way to listen to this music, though I do that all the time. And then boxed sets can quadruple or even quintuple that.
Anyway, back to the songs. This morning for me it's "Turpentine Blues" by Will Weldon. This is the Will Weldon who has been said to be Casey Bill, though I don't believe it, since the two sound nothing alike. Will Weldon in fact sounds stylistically like he's coming from St. Louis, and for the time of this recording, he would have been associated with the Memphis Jug Band. Turpentine Blues is a duet with the main guitar played out of E position, in a style that is in the Charley Jordan vein, though not as flashy. (The flip side of the record would have been "Hitch Me to Your Buggy and Drive Me Like a Mule", a similar sounding song.) This is a fun tune that would probably take about 10 minutes to put together if you know how to play any Charley Jordan.
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What a great idea. And while I'd usually go down to the Weenie Juke and request it, I guess now I'll just spend a lot more money on cds.
For me, lately I've been obsessing with two tracks by Robert Lee Westmoreland; "Hello Central" & "Good Looking Woman." I don't know if he recorded anything else, but I love these two. Also, Willie '61' Blackwell & Willie Brown doing "Four O'Clock Flower Blues."
And Kokomo Arnold's "Milkcow Blues," but that's probably familiar to most of you.
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I too spent the weekend with the Big Bill Broonzy Volume 3 JSP set. Not particularly listening to particular songs (sorry!), but listening to what Big Bill was up to at the time. I have to say, when I list my favorites, Big Bill usually isn't on the list. But, as so often happens when I'm listening to him, I was just floored by the strength and expressiveness of his singing. Bill was a GREAT singer. I'll have to go back to the earlier volumes to see when it started, but it seems that by the early 40s, Bill's singing was greatly influenced by Peetie Wheatstraw. I know that's true of a lot of blues singers of the time, but while Bill would come out with things that made me stop and say "That's Peetie Wheatstraw", he did that in the context of a style that was unmistakably his own.
I don't know why I tend to overlook Broonzy unless I'm listening to him at the time. I'll have to try to overcome that. :)
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For me, lately I've been obsessing with two tracks by Robert Lee Westmoreland; "Hello Central" & "Good Looking Woman." I don't know if he recorded anything else, but I love these two.
His only known 78 and by 1972 only one copy of which had come to light. Probably a few others around by now. Westmoreland made the recording for the Trepur label out of La Grange, Georgia circa 1953. The label owner was the white pre-war country singer Rupert McClendon and the only record he ever issued on the label. Bizarre. As for Westmoreland, he was last heard of in mid-60s.
But I guess all this information (from 1976 LP notes by Bruce Bastin) must now be in the booklet to whichever CD the tracks now appear on.
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Got the old 1929 remastered album of Yank Rachell, Sleepy John Estes, and Noah Lewis, and have been listening and playing along with the cigar box mando in Yank tuning. :D.. tunes like New Minglewood Blues, The Girl I Love Got Curly Long Hair, Divin' Duck', Milk Cow Blues, others. I followed Rich del Grossos observations of how Yank tuned his box down, so I did it, and will leave the box so tuned for a while to be able to play. 8) LEave the other mando in standard for all else. Also listening to older Steve JAmes, like Two Track Mind. Like his version of Milwaukee BLues, , which I want to learn.
I will be seeing my Weenie buddies in about 10 days or so, like Thursday of next week at pre-soak! I am already excited. :P
Cheers,
Buzz
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ahhh specifics is where you were headed
Lightnin Hopkins - Pet your Poodle.... he is all over the fretboard on that tune
Big Bill Broonzy - Worrying you off of my Mind.... I love that version
also, recent talk of Larry Doby, the 1st black baseball player in the Amercian League, got me playing Brownie Mcghee's tune "Roby Doby Blues"
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For me, lately I've been obsessing with two tracks by Robert Lee Westmoreland; "Hello Central" & "Good Looking Woman." I don't know if he recorded anything else, but I love these two.
His only known 78 and by 1972 only one copy of which had come to light. Probably a few others around by now. Westmoreland made the recording for the Trepur label out of La Grange, Georgia circa 1953. The label owner was the white pre-war country singer Rupert McClendon and the only record he ever issued on the label. Bizarre. As for Westmoreland, he was last heard of in mid-60s.
But I guess all this information (from 1976 LP notes by Bruce Bastin) must now be in the booklet to whichever CD the tracks now appear on.
Actually I got both tracks on mp3 over on the Honey site, so I didn't know any of this. Thanks! I googled him at the time I found them and came up with about nothing...
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The juke really got me into the music of Larry Johnson. I think he's great. I'm listening to him a lot these days.
It also introduced me to the great, too obsecure, ROY DUNN, who is one of my favorites today.
Check the Blindman's, you'll see in the Post-War section I posted a video of Larry.
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And while I'm here, I'll throw in a vote for Barbeque Bob's "Good Time Rounder." I guess it's fairly typical of his faster songs, but he does this falsetto thing in the middle that I just can't get over...
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As soon as the juke went down I rushed out and bought all the contemporary Sony/BMG product I could get my hands on. Mariah, Brittney, I couldn't give my money to the store clerk hand fast enough. Thanks SoundExchange, I didn't know what I was missing. ::)
Seriously, I stumbled on Memphis Minnie's Killer Diller From The South today while ipod shuffling, very infectious, had to play it three times.
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With the weenie juke and my ipod going down on the same day, I'm not listening to a great deal at the moment :'(
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On the CD front I?ve finally found a copy of Allen Lowe?s 9CD monster anthology ?American Pop: From Minstrel to Mojo: On Record, 1893-1946,? which I?ll devour over the coming weeks. Lately Josh White?s Beloved Comrade and Strange Fruit have been regular visitors to the old turntable. The former having a topical edge given the recent blip in Anglo-Russian relations, and the latter proving very poignant when reading Michael Gray's chapter on lynchings.
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I haven't purchased this one yet, but the 30-second samples are enough to make me want to.
(I've had my eye on it for quite some time.)
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Good choice, Calvin. The first five tracks alone are worth the price of the CD. Lofton's version of "Brown Skin Girls" has been one of my favorites for the last 39 years. Lofton was a great, if sometimes sloppy, pianist, and an underrated singer. His tracks with Big Bill Broonzy on guitar are just superb.
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Today my favorites have been "Wandering Blues" by Gene Campbell (the Document CD), "I'm A Rattlesnakin' Daddy" by Blind Boy Fuller from the JSP set, and "It's Tight Like That," Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, from the Blues Classics set.
Bottom line, though, I miss Weenie Juke!
Mike
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Not country blues sorry but Lonnie Johnson's album with Canadian trad dixieland band Jim McHarg & the Metro Stompers (good album) . . . esp. 'China Boy' which I've come to realize I completely ripped off with one of my own tunes . . . oops!
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Good choice, Calvin. The first five tracks alone are worth the price of the CD. Lofton's version of "Brown Skin Girls" has been one of my favorites for the last 39 years. Lofton was a great, if sometimes sloppy, pianist, and an underrated singer. His tracks with Big Bill Broonzy on guitar are just superb.
Yep, ya gotta love that barrelhouse boogie-blues.
And again I agree Lofton has a great voice, one of my favorite blues voices. (He's especially good on "Strut That Thing" and "I Don't Know")
Say... I remember a time when I had about a hundred more posts than you.
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Say... I remember a time when I had about a hundred more posts than you.
[/quote]
Or am I going crazy?
I don't remember, because I see you were registered about 2 years before me.
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A tune from one of my favorite barrelhouse bluesmen, who sounds to be classically trained, Herve Duerson.
"Avenue Strut"
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"Boll Weevil" Blind Willie McTell.
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"Ecstatic Rag"- Alonzo Yancey
It's a truly wonderful song, closer to brother Jimmy Yancey's sound than Alonzo's.
(For those who don't know Alonzo recorded 4 sides in 1943 and passed away soon after.)
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I've been listening to Tampa Red's "Don't You Leave Me Here." While the CD the "Guitar Wizard" has been in my collection for a long time, I haven't really listened to it until recently. There are some fine blues on that CD, and in particular "Don't You Leave Me Here" really grabbed my attention because of the melodic and lyrical content. I love how he says "cool can beer." Another song added to my repertoire. I don't really play in vestapol much, but every once in a while you've got to experiment and push yourself.
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Bon Bons, Chocolates and Chewing Gum - Josh White (Apollo)
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Great call on the tampa red song- I adore "if you want me to love you too" on that album, which is is pretty unusal- but the track Coyote refers to deserves more of my attention.
Ive spent a lot of time with my Blind Blake set of late- especially "you're gonna quit me"- my version heading for the back porch as soon as I can get to grips with singing over that syncopated riff. ;)
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Old Original Kokomo Blues - Kokomo Arnold
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I've been listening to Tampa Red too . . . same Cd C Slim mentioned & I'm loving 'Turpentine blues' & 'Western Bound Blues' . . . altho Tampa isn't usually regarded as a 'deep' musician I find his singing & playing & lyrics on these particularly stirring . . . even when he threatens to beat his woman with a brick-bat :D
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Pardon my one non-country blues post here but I've been listening to a A LOT of:
Miles Davis
"Bird"
John Coltrane
Dizzy Gillespie
Charles Mingus
Chick Webb
So Many Others...
Oh yeah and Son House's Complete 1965 Sessions.
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On JMM's recommendation, Boll Weavil Jackson. Ouch!
It seems that there is much work to be done getting any of this stuffdown.
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Black Girl - Josh White
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This can also be heard on the Jasmine 2CD set "From New York to London".
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Bottle It Up And Go - Tommy McClennan
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"Poor Coal Loader" by Springback James got quite a few replays in the CD player today. Recorded in Chicago on July 15, 1935 with Springback James on piano and vocals and Willie Bee James on guitar, it's a chorus blues played at a fast medium tempo with a nice semi-boogie bass line. Willie Bee James plays one chord repeatedly over the verse, then switches to more typical blues figures for the chorus. I don't have time now to figure out what exactly Willie Bee is playing over the verse, but it's the kind of chord that, in conjunction with Springback's piano part, makes you sit up and say "Hey, that's really nice!" The song ends with a few spoken lines where the verse would be and an instrumental chorus. It all adds up to a really outstanding piece of music.
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"I'm Gonna Keep My Hair Parted"- Washboard Sam ;)
I borrowed the Document set "Rude Dudes" from a local library and I've listened to this song about 15 times in 2 days, I love everything about it, especially Black Bob's piano and Sam's vocals.
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I just found 3 obscure prewar gospel 78's for 2 dollars each at a record shop in Baltimore. The Biddleville Quintette on Paramount from 1926 doing "Fight On Your Time Ain't Long" and the another one that I can't remember the name. Rev. SJ Worrell AKA "STeamboat Bill" w/ congregation, "Christ Healing the Blind" and "Noah Building The Ark" on Vocalion 1920's, and Ethel and Odette (?) on Columbia "Before This Time Another Year" and "When The Train Comes Along".
My friend bounght a mid 50's Folkways LP that has Mississppi String Band, and some raggedy Scott Dunbar stuff with his family chiming in, it's awesome.
I also just bought some mint out of print Yazoo LP's which include, Bo Carter "Twist IT Babe", "Banana In Your Fruit Basket", Blind Lemon "Best Of", Charlie Patton 2 LP with book, Blind Boy Fuller "Truckin My Blues Away"
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"I'se Gonna Break 'Em Down" (should be "We's Gonna Break 'Em Down") by Bumble Bee Slim, on Document CD 5267, "Bumble Bee Slim, Volume 7". Recorded August 21, 1937, with Honey Hill on piano, Bill Gaither on guitar, an unknown washboard player, and probably Slim himself on kazoo.
This is an uptempo pop song, with a long instrumental intro. Slim sings well, despite some problems with his intonation in the first verse. Honey Hill plays a fine piano, as usual. What made me sit up and take notice is Bill Gaither's guitar playing. He plays swing chords through the verses, then an instrumental tag at the end of each verse, and takes a solo before the last verse. If you, like me, think that Gaither is sadly underrated as a vocalist, this track alone will be enough to convince you that he's even more underrated as a guitarist. While he doesn't play anything finger-twistingly hard, his sense of timing and phrasing is spot-on perfect. I'll give it one of my highest praises and say it's "musical", and I wish I could be that musical some day. Gaither plays guitar on a further 11 tracks on the CD, and after that Big Bill Broonzy plays guitar on 4 tracks, and Gaither's playing to my ears is every bit as good as Broonzy's. But his playing on this track is so good that I wonder if in his non-recording life Gaither did more pop tunes than blues.
And speaking of underrated vocalists, if there's any prewar vocalist who's more underrated than Bill Gaither, it's probably Bumble Bee Slim. Actually, I'd put him just a notch below Gaither, but the fact that he rarely played an instrument has, I think, worked against his reputation. For some reason, singers who played guitar or harmonica almost always rate today above singers who played piano, and the bottom rung of reputation is reserved for singers who didn't play anything. Oops, I'm on a soapbox. :D At any rate, Bumble Bee Slim is well worth a serious listen.
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"Nobody Knows (What the Good Deacon Does)" by Hambone Willie Newbern can be found on the Never Let the Same Bee Sting You Twice 3-CD set from Document -- a very worthwhile purchase, essential, in fact, if you don't already have the material by Luke Jordan, Papa Harvey Hull and Long Cleve Reed, and others.
Hambone Willie Newbern is of course best known for Roll and Tumble Blues, which has turned into a Delta warhorse, but the bulk of his material is very songster-y, hence his inclusion on this compilation. I actually prefer his songster material, maybe because it is so much less familiar.
Nobody Knows (What the Good Deacon Does) is played out of C position by my ear (no guitar handy at present), with nifty riffs and is a really great tune. Newbern is another overlooked player, IMO, particularly for those interested in more songster material.
BTW, thanks so much, Great Bear, for posting the scans of those 78s with your tunes. I always love seeing the old labels, not having any 78s in my collection (a slippery slope, I'm sure).
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the lines from a movie keep ringing in my ears as I read the list of tunes people are listening to..
"I see dead people".... only in the case of weenie's it should be:
"I listen to dead people sing"
LOL
Dave
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BTW, thanks so much, Great Bear, for posting the scans of those 78s with your tunes. I always love seeing the old labels, not having any 78s in my collection (a slippery slope, I'm sure).
Several months ago I had started the task of converting my 78's & LP's to digital format, and had transferred about twenty 78's and a handful of Yazoo LP's, along with label scans, when my computer was struck by the dreaded blue screen of death. I lost everything I hadn't put on CD, including my note accurate Robert Johnson transcriptions, of which I had only printed a handful of songs >:(. Only Roosevelt Sykes' Yazoo LP and Brother Bones' version of Sweet Georgia Brown (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/thefullbrooks/sweet_georgia_brown.mp3) survived. Being completely deflated I lost the will to pick up the project again. A great shame. :(
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Great Bear, I do understand as I have lost stuff myself and also appreciate the fun (at first) of transferring 78s to digital. I have what seems like a few million jazz ones to do yet, but I have learnt to do a CD's worth at time lest the whole lot go down again and that way it also feels like progress ;D
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The fact that hard drives are a lot more reliable than they used to be is of course a positive thing but in fact it's got a very insidious downside. Backups tend to be less frequent and the amount of data you need to backup is increasing exponentially.
It's the main reason I'll always buy CDs and will not get into 'download everything' mode. Plus the price and quality of second-hand CDs is improving out of sight as people unload their collections after ripping them. I'm picking up Documents and Yazoos right now in the 2nd hand bins. Sweet! I think people are crazy to flick these things but maybe the $$ help their decision process. If you go that route better have a good backup regime or you could wind up with nothing.
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And speaking of underrated vocalists, if there's any prewar vocalist who's more underrated than Bill Gaither, it's probably Bumble Bee Slim...Oops, I'm on a soapbox.
That's a great soapbox to be on, dj. (Could you scoot over just a little? That's it. Much better. Thanks.) There are these "really obscure" guys like Gaither, Slim, Wheatstraw, Walter Davis, etc. who only recorded, oh, 100 or so sides each, and nobody knows or listens to them today. Ditto the the so-called "Blues Queens," who were equally prolific and arguably more influential. (See, e.g., the Springer article in Nobody Knows Where The Blues Come From.) They weren't guitar heroes, one may not be mesmerized by them, and one may not be interested in some of the formal stuff these guys were doing to stretch the idiom (Johnm writes a lot about this stuff), but if one ignores them, one is resigning oneself to ignorance about a LOT of the tradition (and the place of ones, e.g., guitar hero du jour therein). And, imho, one is missing a lot of good music to boot. If you don't believe me, I dare you to check out, e.g., Lucille Bogan's version of "Sloppy Drunk" (free at www.redhotjazz.com) and compare that to Carr's and Bumble Bee Slim's later and (you fill in the adjective after you listen:_______________) versions of same and truthfully tell me othewise.
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If you don't believe me, I dare you to check out, e.g., Lucille Bogan's version of "Sloppy Drunk"
I took that dare :) , and Bogan's version is certainly a good one, well worth checking out. It's basically the same lyrics that Leroy Carr, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Jimmy Rogers sang, and that are still sung today. But it's slower, and the tune is firmly in the "Rollin' And Tumblin'" family. It's worth checking out just to hear Charles Avery do the familiar "Rollin' And Tumblin'" riff on piano. And, of course, for Bogan's singing.
Does the more familiar melody to "Sloppy Drunk" originate with Leroy Carr?
Thanks for pointing that one out, MTJ3! I really must get some more Lucille Bogan recordings some day. I only have a few on some compilation disks.
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Josh White (Ace of Hearts AH65)
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Her Name Was Hula Lou - the Carolina Tar Heels
I've listened to this far too much to be considered healthy. It cracks me up for some reason. The delivery is beautiful. You can find it on the Good for What Ails You compilation. It's the Tar Heels version of a popular song, recorded by Sophie Tucker in 1924 (and others?). You can find sheet music for ukulele and the original lyrics here (http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/sheetmusic/devincent.do?&id=LL-SDV-222052&q1=LL-SDV-222052&sid=cc4846a483188e1c94f12c33ab7e3337).
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I just purchased 100 glorious tracks of pre-war Mississippi blues!
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Will have to check out this box set, though I have a number of the tunes on other sets.
Been listening to other stuff , myself:
Jelly Roll Morton: Sweet Substitute, Each Day, and all others on my 5 CD set
Lightnin' Wells: Sweet Substitute, von Ronk's version, very nice, cool time change and I like the chord sequence. Also, learning it from a jazz fake book in Ab, but Lightnin' plays it in G, all 1/2 step lower. Having to learn Fo, and Eo. First on the guitar, then on the mandolin ;D
Paul Rishell and Annie Raines: Movin to the Country CD
Howard Armstrong: Louie Bluie
Rich del Grosso: Keep Your Nose Outa My Business, great version of Divin' Duck Blues in G.I like the entire CD,
Sleepy John Estes, Yank RAchel, and Noah Lewis: all great material. Noah Lewis had a wonderful voice, and his harp playing was incredibly deep and strong--listen to Devil in the Woodpile and Chickasaw Special--that on is 'killer'. That man can play a harmonica, y'all.
Johnny Young: whatever I have on the shelf... :P
All best,
Buzz
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Blind Willie McTell's 'Love-Makin' Mama'.
Something like,
'You may fall from the mountains
fall in the deep blue sea
But you ain't done the right fallin'
Til you fall in love with me . . .'
Love that
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Well, I've been listening to Venerable Music Radio, but as we've said before, nothing can beat Weenie Juke.
I like when they play some Blind Blake or Louie Bluie, etc.
But when they put on world music and too much pre-war country, it gets old fast.
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Well, I've been listening to Venerable Music Radio, but as we've said before, nothing can beat Weenie Juke.
I like when they play some Blind Blake or Louie Bluie, etc.
But when they put on world music and too much pre-war country, it gets old fast.
Some of it is just so....... of it's time, that I can't stand it!!! (Songs like "Silly Billy Brown" :P)
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Am listening to Bo Carter, "Last Go Round", from Document Vol. 2. Interesting song, played out of A position and sounding rather Lemon-y in places without copying any Blind Lemon riffs. Also sounds a lot like it's flatpicked. Accompaniment behind the vocals is familiar Bo-style chords up the neck out of D position, but the verses then go into flatpicked bass line solos each time round. Think I'll have to work on this one. Fun tune that has passed me by somehow.
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That's great, guys, but to stay on topic and differentiate this thread from the usual list of CDs style of thread, if you could post specific songs you're listening to, focused on, or that have jumped out at you in your listening recently. The idea of the thread was to tease out individual songs from the often overwhelming number (some would say the plethora) of CDs available to us, the Complete Recorded Works in 12 volumes of so-and-so, the 5-CD-this and 4-Cd-that etc etc.
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That's great, guys, but to stay on topic
FYI, I've split off the posts and seeded a new topic in the new "Other Musical Interests" board called surprisingly enough "Other Tunes You're Listening To". :)
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Today, it was "Down in the Cemetery" by Billy Bird. This is on the Document Rare Country Blues Volume 3 CD, which was, I believe, one of the sale CDs at Document a little while back, and if it pops up there again is well worth snagging. Worth snagging anyway.
It could actually have been almost any of the four titles from Billy Bird ("Mill Man Blues", "Alabama Blues Part 1 and 2" being the others), since the accompaniment is very similar on all of them. It's the accompaniment that caught my ear. "Mill Man Blues" is definitely influenced by Carl Martin's Crow Jane accompaniment. The others, like "Down In the Cemetery", still have Crow Jane-ish elements, but a little less pronounced. The thing that really grabs me on the accompaniment, though, is the signature riff on the I chord (E), which plays around on the flat 7th, tonic and 6th on the top two strings and is hypnotic in a weird repetitive way. He uses it on every tune.
Identity issues apparently surround Billy Bird. Anyone know who's really playing here? He's got the Carl Martin thing going pretty good.
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Anyone know who's really playing here? He's got the Carl Martin thing going pretty good.
I think I read in the notes to Yazoo's "Guitar Wizards" that the guitarist was believed to be Carl Martin. It doesn't sound like him to me... much more like the guitar player on The Two Poor Boys "My Baby's Got A Yo-Yo" - Joe Evans. It was discussed in this thread (http://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=2446.msg19247#msg19247). It's possible that the "Crow Jane" accompaniment we associate with Carl Martin may really have originated with Evans.
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I have to say I like Bird's moaning (ululation?) on the last verse of "Alabama Blues - Part 2".
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Anyone know who's really playing here? He's got the Carl Martin thing going pretty good.
I think I read in the notes to Yazoo's "Guitar Wizards" that the guitarist was believed to be Carl Martin. It doesn't sound like him to me... much more like the guitar player on The Two Poor Boys "My Baby's Got A Yo-Yo" - Joe Evans. It was discussed in this thread (http://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=2446.msg19247#msg19247). It's possible that the "Crow Jane" accompaniment we associate with Carl Martin may really have originated with Evans.
Well remembered Frankie, here's the quote but don't know which of the quartet of authors penned this:
"Billy Bird's Mill Man Blues assumes the key of E and may feature the accompaniment of Martin, whose slower Crow Jane (Yazoo L-1013) it greatly resembles. Both twelve bar works convey a remarkable similarity of guitar "touch", and use the same trill in effecting an E chord (in D position up two frets). At the beginning of each second four bar segment, both blues utilize the same progression twice: E-A-C9-E-G.
The rapidity and deliberateness of picking evinced on Mill Man Blues would almost seem to preclude the accompanist from bringing Bird's vocal nuances into play. That such nuances exist, but are not coincidental with those of the guitar, argues for the presence of a silent accompanist. Being somewhat slower, Martin's Crow Jane is the more ideally suited for self-accompaniment".
On a historical note I'd only point out that each edition of B&GR since 1964 have consistently given "vcl., own gtr" for Bird's session.
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Latest song to catch my ear is "Lady Quit Her Husband Onexpectinly" by the Tub Jug Washboard Band, available on the Document CD Stovepipe No. 1 and David Crockett Complete Recorded Works. If you can get past the awful recording quality and surface noise, this is a fun ragtime pop tune of the Right Key in the Wrong Hole variety. An abundance of kazoos and other cheap mouth instruments. Multiple kazoo solos. Not for the faint of heart...
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Latest song to catch my ear is "Lady Quit Her Husband Onexpectinly" by the Tub Jug Washboard Band..
Former member Carl Reid had a few interesting things to say about this aggregation when interviewed by Fred Cox in 70s. I'll see if I can locate which issue of Storyville magazine it was published in.
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Latest song to catch my ear is "Lady Quit Her Husband Onexpectinly" by the Tub Jug Washboard Band..
Former member Carl Reid had a few interesting things to say about this aggregation when interviewed by Fred Cox in 70s. I'll see if I can locate which issue of Storyville magazine it was published in.
Be interested in seeing that. They are quite sophisticated in their playing, like jazz players slumming it in a medicine show. :P
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Alabama Blues, Three stripped Gears. This turned up on the ipod when I had it in shuffle mode in the car the other day. What a very tight little string band those guys were. It's on The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of, check it out.
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Listening over and over to Jesse "Babyface" Thomas playing Blue Goose Blues. My copy is on the Texas Early Blues Masters boxed set from JSP. What a great tune. Very Blind Blake but in his own style, really impressive playing. If you have it and haven't listened to it closely, give it a shot. The four tracks on the JSP set from Thomas (brother Willard "Ramblin'" Thomas feautures more prominently) are all really interesting. "My Heart's a Rolling Stone" is particularly great as well.
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Listening over and over to Jesse "Babyface" Thomas playing Blue Goose Blues. My copy is on the Texas Early Blues Masters boxed set from JSP. What a great tune. Very Blind Blake but in his own style, really impressive playing. If you have it and haven't listened to it closely, give it a shot. The four tracks on the JSP set from Thomas (brother Willard "Ramblin'" Thomas feautures more prominently) are all really interesting. "My Heart's a Rolling Stone" is particularly great as well.
When Guido van Rijn interviewed Thomas in November 1990 he was told by Thomas that his main influences came from listening to records and that his "main guy" was Lonnie Johnson along with Blind Blake but also liked the "smooth sound and good lyrics" of Leroy Carr. (Blues & Rhythm 58, Feb. 1991 p. 16)
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Just catching on to Virgil Childer's "Dago Blues" on the Document "..Same Bee..." collection. It's a nice arrangement that I've more or less got down now. Have to do something about the 1st verse though.
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King Solomon Hill's 'My Buddy Blind Papa Lemon' has been in my CD player for a while . . . what an outstanding performance.
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Hi there!
Another country-blues addict! I'm a (relatively ;D) young blues freak from Germany... I switched from electric guitar to acoustic last year, playing mostly country- and delta-blues by now.
My mediaplayer just started playing "High Water pt. 2"... I was always wonderin' about transcriptions I found on the net and even the Revenant set regarding the 12th stanza where everybody seems to hear "airplanes all around"... to me, it clearly sounds like "earthquakes"... but on the other hand, English isn't my native language.
Just wonderin'!
Regards Oliver
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Hi, Oliver. I'm kinda new here myself, but welcome!
For what it's worth, I hear "airplanes." And there were definitely airplanes in the actual event. On the other hand, "earthquakes" would increase the whole end-of-the-world feel to the piece. So I think you should feel free to hear and sing "earthquakes" if you want.
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Listening to Texas Alexander's "St. Louis Fair Blues", accompanied by Lonnie Johnson. Boy, is it a beauty. And Texas doesn't even screw up until the second to last verse... Particularly gorgeous accompaniment by Lonnie.
edited to add: And it ain't Lonnie. Just went and checked the session info. It's actually Eddie Lang. This makes more sense to me. I assumed Lonnie but thought he was playing rather differently. Still sounds like something he might do, but somewhat jazzier and sentimental than the stuff I know from him accompanying Texas A. so far.
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Yeah. I can't get enough of "Poor Boy" by Gus Cannon and Blind Blake. Something about that slide playing...
Pic
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Hi all:
I've been in a Memphis Minnie phase for a couple of months now, along with Paul Rishell.
Memphis Minnie: Call the Fire Wagon, Ain't No Use Tryin' to Tell On Me, Ice Man, Joliet Bound.
Paul Rishell: Kansas City Blues, Hunkie Tunkie Blues.
Alex
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Alex, I still think the front guitar on Joliet Bound is Kansas Joe.-G-
All for now.
John C.
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BJ:
I have heard your theory, and after listening, I think your right. Just didn't want to confuse the list.
Alex
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Alex, I still think the front guitar on Joliet Bound is Kansas Joe.-G-
I dunno - the touch on the lead guitar sounds more like Memphis Minnie to me. The backup guitar sounds very similar in execution (if not exactly in conception) as Joe McCoy's "Look Who's Coming Down The Road." There, he's playing with a fiddler, so there's not much of a question as to who's doing what.
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I don't know, Frank, the front guitar plays pretty much a set piece throughout, every verse pretty much exactly the same, except for the intro which is truncated in the initial I chord section. The second guitar seems to be improvising various bass pics and hitting specific licks at certain points. On about the 4th verse, the second guitar gets off on the wrong beat, so instead of hitting the bend on the fifth in unison with the front guitar's bend on the 3rd, they end up alternating bends. Sounds awful and the second guitar seems to move away from the mic in this stretch. It almost starts to happen again on the 5th verse but the second guitarist pedals on the open 5th for a measure and then gets into sync with the front guitar. Now, it seems to me Joe it pretty strongly into the singing while this is going on, but I guess you could make the argument that that is why he is screwing up the guitar part. I just think it is more likely that this is Joe's song, which he confidently plays while singing and that Minnie is adding an impromptu, backing, perhaps halfheartedly taking a back seat. If he were screwing up the guitar and trying to get back on the beat I think it would have had an effect on his singing. I can understand if you feel Joe was not capable of sounding like Minnie, tho. Of course it wouldn't be much problem for Minnie to do a KJ like backing, I guess. Really, I don't have the experience, nor am I familiar enough with their work, to make the call stylistically.
Well, I'm sure we'll never know.
All for now.
John C.
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Never say never...
It is a hard call. My first instinct would be the the lead part is too distinctively picked and phrased for Joe to be singing over it. It's quite intricate, but that's not stopped some CB artists and Joe was no slouch. But still. Frankie's point about Look Who's Coming Down the Road took me a few listens to hear. But I can see his point. The fact the Joe would have been more naturally playing a backup part while singing also makes sense. I'm indeed with Wax in that I'm not so sure lead parts ascribed to Minnie are always her but this one seems like it would be her to me after some repeated listening. Could be wrong. I have to say, listening to guitar duets, and particularly duets like Minnie and Joe's where they play right over top of each other, is a bitch on the ears, as far as who's doing what. This pair in particular are hard for me, and I love them and listen to them a lot.
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I can understand if you feel Joe was not capable of sounding like Minnie, tho.
Please note that *I* didn't say that Joe "was not capable" (it looks to me like you were putting words in my mouth, but maybe it just looks thataway) - I said that the backup in Joliet Bound sounds like more like the backup Joe did for other songs. I'm not sure why singing should figure into the whole division of labor thing. Certainly, both Minnie and Joe were experienced enough and comfortable enough to improvise backup under their singing - I don't think that's much of an issue either way. Why would Minnie play a Joe-like backup when Joe could just as well do it his own self?!?
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Hi all,
I've been listening to Jimmy Lee Williams, especially "Hoot Your Belly" and "Did You Ever See Peaches".
All best,
Johnm
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I have ordered 'Hoot Your Belly', by Jimmie Lee Williams, and I can't stop listening to the Sleepy John Estes box on JSP...
RJ
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Been listening to Tampa Red and the Chicago Five bounce their way through "My Za Zu Girl". Tampa recorded a bunch of pop tunes during his Bluebird years, but I happen to like a lot of them. :P Black Bob's piano playing makes this song, although Tampa's kazoo sounds good (really) especially playing in counterpoint to an actual instrument, in this case, a clarinet played by Arnett Nelson.
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Been listening to Tampa Red and the Chicago Five bounce their way through "My Za Zu Girl". Tampa recorded a bunch of pop tunes during his Bluebird years, but I happen to like a lot of them. :P
I grew to like them through the circumstance of having to listen to them in their entirity and then find something enthusiastic to say about them in print.:o
From your few words here UB you would have been more suited to the task than the meaningless waffle I came up with...
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Those Chicago Five songs are fun. To the extent that I'd given them any deep thought, I'd always assumed that they were recorded as Bluebird's answer to Decca's Harlem Hamfats. But upon closer examination, I see that the first Chicago Five session took place 18 days before the first Harlem Hamfats session. It must have been something in the water in Chicago that year... ;D
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Hey, Uncle Bud, thanks for mentioning Tampa Red's Chicago Five recordings. I've been listening to them and enjoying them immensely this morning. I'd recommend checking out "She Said It", just for Tampa's wonderful swinging chorded solo at the start of the song. The guy had more tricks in his bag than just playing slide!
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I see that the first Chicago Five session took place 18 days before the first Harlem Hamfats session. It must have been something in the water in Chicago that year... ;D
Or maybe everyone was just over at Tampa's house, as the stories go...
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Not so much a song I'm listening to over and over again, but one that sure jumped out at me while on shuffle mode: Uncle Dave Macon's "Wreck of the Tennessee Gravy Train".
WRECK OF THE TENNESSEE GRAVY TRAIN
The people of Tennessee want to know who wrecked our gravy train
The one we thought was run so well and now who can we blame
They want to know who greased the track and started it down the road
This same ol' train contained our money to build our highway roads
Chorus:
But now we're up against it and no use to raise a row
But of all the times I've ever seen, we're sure up against it now
The only thing that we can do is to do the best we can
Follow me, good people, I'm bound for the promised land
Now, I could be a banker without the least excuse
But look at the treasurer of Tennessee and tell me what's the use
We lately bonded Tennessee for just five million bucks
The bonds were issued and the money tied up and now we're in tough luck
Chorus
Some lay it all on parties, some lay it on others you see
But now that you can plainly see what happened to Tennessee
For the engineer pulled the throttle, conductor rang the bell
The brakeman hollered 'all aboard' and the banks all went to hell
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Hey, Uncle Bud, thanks for mentioning Tampa Red's Chicago Five recordings. I've been listening to them and enjoying them immensely this morning. I'd recommend checking out "She Said It", just for Tampa's wonderful swinging chorded solo at the start of the song. The guy had more tricks in his bag than just playing slide!
Yes, "She Said It" just popped up on shuffle. Very nice chord solo! Another thing I notice about many of these Bluebird recordings is that Tampa, perhaps because he's in more of a pop mode, is usually singing really well.
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Currently listening to lots of things in Spanish - favorite at the moment is Buddy Boy Hawkins' "Snatch it back". Just sounds so far away from the East Coast stuff I was previously listening to - still can't get used to the massive variety in this music even after nearly 50 years.
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"Dig My Old Buddy, Joe", Yank Rachell, from the Testament CD Mandolin Blues. A powerhouse of a song that blows all the boredom of a 12-bar shuffle to smithereens. Yank's playing is fabulous.
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I've been listening to Paul Geremia play "Rising River Blues" and "Mosquito Moan". It's great to hear Blind Lemon's guitar playing (well, played by Geremia) with such clear sound quality. I've also been listening to a tremendous amount of Memphis Minnie, specifically her Bluebird period, which, I suppose, isn't that specific! haha
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Can't get Hi Henry Brown off the player at the moment, especially Titanic and Preacher Blues. I've sorted out a slide arrangement for the former I'll post shortly.
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I've been listening a lot to "Don't Put Your Dirty Hands On Me" by the Two Charlies. The Two Charlies were Charlie Manson and Charlie Jordan. Biographical details of the two are unknown. The notes by Chris Smith to Document CD 5099, "Charley Jordan Volume 3", (where the recordings of the Two Charlies are collected despite the fact that Charlie Jordan is NOT the St. Louis Charley Jordan who recorded "Keep If Clean" and "Hunkie Tunkie"), suggests that the Two Charlies sound like they were from the Southeast, though to me they could just have well have been from Memphis. The Two Charlies sound a lot like Frank Stokes and Dan Sane updated for the mid 1930s, with one guitar chording and doing bass runs and the other playing melodic figures on the upper strings, but with more swing and with a more modern sense of harmony and of what the lead guitar should be playing than Stokes and Sane had. All eight of the songs that the Two Charlies recorded are worth a close listen, but the raggy "Don't Put Your Dirty Hands On Me" has grabbed my ear recently, initially because of the line "Tell me pretty mama, where have you been / You walk like whiskey and you talk like gin".
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I suppose I should admit that listening to The Two Charlies on iTunes has given me an appreciation of the Two Poor Boy's wonderful mandolin-driven version of "John Henry's Blues". With my iTunes sorted by artist, I've been starting with "Don't Put Your Dirty Hands On Me", letting iTunes run through the intervening 6 songs (four by the Two Charlies, two by the Two Poor Boys), listening to "John Henry's Blues", and starting the loop over again. Highly recommended!
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I've been listening to "The Chief Corner Stone" by Hermes Zimmerman every day this week. The song was recorded by Vocalion in April of 1926. Hermes Zimmerman is the only musician, singing and playing piano. "The Chief Corner Stone" appears on Document CD 5336, Piano Blues - Volume 4, though it has absolutely nothing to do with the blues. It's a religious song, though it doesn't really have anything to do with the gospel or pre-gospel traditions, either. The song is a bit of a march, a bit of operetta, a bit of parlor music, with a religious theme. I can't make out the words very well, but they speak of Ethiopia being the chief cornerstone of Christianity, and the refrain "Rejoice Ethiopia, justice will be done" might imply a denunciation of Jim Crow and the treatment of african-americans in the 1920s. But then again, maybe not.
Zimmerman sounds like a trained singer, though not well-trained, or perhaps the training didn't take. He sings in tune, has a nice vibrato, trills his r's, and occasionally does a nice echo effect by moving his head away from the microphone. But over-all, he's not a professional quality singer and his light tenor voice is rather week.
Musically, the verses move along in march time, though Zimmerman loses the beat a bit at the end of every vocal line when he does repeated chords on the and-2-and-3 beats of the last two measures of the line. He also slows the tempo down in the choruses. After the last line of the last verse, Zimmerman does a bit of a roll on the piano, then plays a few measures that threaten to break into ragtime before abruptly ending.
Julian Yarrow's notes to the CD don't provide any biographical information on Zimmerman. Assuming there was only one Hermes Zimmerman (and the name is unusual enough that I feel we can make that assumption), Zimmerman was a Methodist minister who was active in the Chicago/Milwaukee area from the mid 1920s through at least the mid 1960s.
"The Chief Corner Stone" is folk art at its best - folk music trying to be art music and, against all odds, succeeding. It's odd, but this song recorded by a black preacher in the 1920s reminds me most of two totally unrelated genres: English opera from the 17th century, and The Incredible string Band, from around 1970, using Gilbert and Sullivan to do a song in praise of L. Ron Hubbard!
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gee whiz, the Incredible String Band makes it to Weenie! Who da' thunk it! ..what's next Pearls Before Swine? 8)
Thanks for the review of the song, dj ..and interesting that you referenced the 'folk art' tag to help with your description..I've often thought of 'primitive' music and (primitive) folk art sharing somewhat the same orbit..Tom
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For the last two months, I've been listening VERY intensively to Blues Everywhere I Go by Casey Bill Weldon. The song was recorded at an April 2nd, 1936 session in Chicago, with Weldon playing lap steel guitar, Black Bob on piano, and an unknown string bass player. The intro and first verse are a pretty standard 12 bar form in C, and after that the song goes into stop-time verses over a C chord followed by a chorus which is the last two lines of the first verse. It's a pattern that Casey Bill Welldon often employed.
The reason I'm posting all this is that one bar in the intro really catches my ear, even after hearing the song several times a day for several months. Casey Bill starts out with a partial measure in C, and the band joins him as he plays one of his standard descending licks over a IV7 chord (kind of neat in itself, in that the lick contains only the 3rd and 7th notes of the chord, at different octaves), then, as the harmony goes back to the I chord, Casey Bill sits out for most of a measure and Black Bob drops his left hand and plays a neat little figure: C (on the AND of the 1st beat, at a pitch equal to the 7th fret on the first string of a guitar) then down to A (on the AND of the second beat), then a cluster of four eighth notes: down to G, up to the A, down to C an octave below the first note of the phrase, and back up to the G. It doesn't sound all that bluesy, in fact, it sounds like Black Bob thought to imitate the phrase Weldon had just played, realized he didn't have it, and just wrapped it up as best he could. It sounds unusual but really pretty, and is one of those things that just makes me smile in appreciation every time I hear it. Which, as I said, has been a lot!
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Thanks for that description, dj. Casey Bill has been a real gap in my listening and hearing your enthusiasm for his music makes me realize I need to remedy that.
All best,
Johnm
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Thanks for that description, dj. Casey Bill has been a real gap in my listening and hearing your enthusiasm for his music makes me realize I need to remedy that.
Louis Jordan must have had a liking for Casey Bill's songs since he made his name with hits of "Somebody Changed The Lock On My Door" and "We Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town". :)
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Pea Vine Blues about seven times last night!
Also, this compilation (http://www.document-records.com/fulldetails.asp?ProdID=DOCD-32-20-03) is getting a lot of play here.
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I recently discovered Tommy Johnson.
I'm addicted to Cool Drink of Water Blues....that yodelling is so wrong, yet sounds so good...
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Lately I've been listening to Casey Bill Weldon's "Casey Bill's New WPA" over and over at half speed while transcribing it. What catches my ear with this performance is one of Casey Bill's frequently used end of line riffs in this song - a quick slide down from the second, third, or minor third to the root at the 12th fret on the first string, then a couple of slow short slides up from the flat third to almost the third at the 11th/12 fret second string, finishing at the root on the 12th fret 3rd string (Spanish tuning with a high G in the bass). It sounds nice enough at full speed, but played at half speed I'll be darned if it doesn't always make me think of Elmore James playing a slow blues like "Something Inside Me"!
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Last week I had to take a drive up to Hudson NY without my iPod. Yikes! Fortunately, there was a CD in the car: Document's San Antonio Blues 1937. Three piano players and a dance band. I spent a good long time playing and replaying Son Becky's "Sunrise Blues". What interested me was the way Son handled the phrasing, and the way the unknown guitar player on the recording accommodated him. The recorded version of "Sunrise Blues" is basically a standard 12 bar blues, but Son Becky takes some liberties with the format, always on the instrumental tag to the first line of a verse, where he sometimes adds two or 4 beats. So the structure of the instrumental tag to the first line is this:
Verse 1: + 4 beats
Verse 2: + 4 beats
Piano solo: + 0 beats
Verse 3: + 2 beats
Verse 4: + 0 beats
So it seems that Son Becky added a few beats to the tag when and as it moved him. That's not so unusual. The guitar player must have played with Becky before, because while he plays single string turnaround figures in the bass at the end of the second and third lines of each verse, at the end of the first line he just plays the I chord on the beat until Son Becky is safely into the second line. You can just hear him thinking "Uh-uh, you're not going to get me!"
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I've been listening to Elizabeth Johnson singing "Sobbin' Woman Blues" from Document's Too Late, Too Late, Volume 5. Johnson has two songs on the disc, both recorded for Okeh in New York City on October 30, 1928. On both songs, she's accompanied by "Her Turpentine Tree-O", which consists of unknown musicians playing cornet, guitar, and woodblocks (though the "woodblocks" sound more like bones to me). Her "Be My Kid Blues", recorded at the same session, just doesn't come together: the guitar is strummed during the verses but plays a single string run in unison with the cornet at the end of each line, which has the effect of sounding as if the guitar drops out to be replaced by the cornet. And the woodblocks, as Guido van Rijn points out in his booklet notes, unfortunately play at a speed and in a pattern that sounds exactly like a surface crack in the record. But on "Sobbin' Woman Blues" it all comes together. Johnson is in fine voice, the guitarist plays a swinging strum throughout, the woodblocks settle into a compelling rhythm, and the cornet player lets go with some beautiful phrases that straddle the line between blues and early jazz. It's an absolutely beautiful performance.
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Another jewel from Document's Too Late, Too Late series is the Nashville Washboard Band doing Arkansas Traveler on Volume 10. The Nashville Washboard Band, when they were recorded by the Library of Congress at John Work's house on July 14, 1942, consisted of James Kelly on mandolin, Frank Dalton on guitar, Tom Carrol on "tin-can bull-fiddle", and Theopholis Stokes on washboard, with at least two of the members singing. The band recorded a varied set that day consisting of blues, hokum, dance tunes, and a pop song. Everything that's on Volume 10 is good, but Arkansas Traveler stands out. The band really charges through this, with Kelly adding trills and variations to the melody as the song progresses, and Stokes taking time out from his frantic washboard playing to play a verse on what sounds like a bunch of different sized pots. Mandolin fans should check this one out.
I should point out that there are an additional two songs by the Nashville Washboard Band, Soldier's Joy and Old Joe, on Too Late, Too Late Volume 6. I haven't heard them yet, but they're now in the mail on their way to me from Allegro Music, which has them in stock at a good price, should anyone be interested. (Thanks, Stuart!)
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The soundtrack to my December this year has been the four discs of Document's Blues, Blues Christmas. The song I've listened to the most from that set, and the one I've found myself singing all month, is When Was Jesus Born by the Heavenly Gospel Singers. I don't know much about the group, except that they recorded for Bluebird from 1935 to 1941 and that the Document issues of their complete works run to four volumes, so they were prolific in their heyday.
When Was Jesus Born is an acapella performance by the quartet. It's sung in a fast, swinging rhythm, and the group is tight but loose, if you know what I mean - lots of vocal asides, fills, and deliberately staggered entrances that give the song an exciting, semi-improvised feel. With the exception of one verse which is used at two points in the song, the entirety of the lyrics are"
When was Jesus born? The last month of the year
When was Jesus born? The last month of the year
When was Jesus born? The last month of the year
Was it January (no, no) February (no no) March April or May?
June July August, September October November?
It was the twenty-fifth day of December
The last month of the year
It's the catchiest song I've heard in ages.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
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I've been listening to a lot of ragtime lately, thanks to several Archeophone CDs. One piece that's really caught my ear is Creole Belles, recorded in 1902 by the Columbia Orchestra. It's an instrumental version of a song with lyrics written by J. Bodewalt Lampe in 1900. You can find the music online by searching for creole belles sheet music. The song structure is Intro, Verse, Chorus, Break, Instrumental Flourish, Verse Chorus. It's performed as a march/two step, by a brass band with a pumping tuba and piccolo flourishes embroidering the melody. What would be of interest to most Weenies is that the chorus, with minor melodic and lyric variations, is the same as the opening verse from John Hurt's My Creole Belle. Whether Lampe used an existing folk tune as the basis for his chorus, or whether the chorus escaped from the rest of the song and seeped into popular culture as a distinct song I can't tell. But it's an interesting indication of the age of some of Hurt's repertoire.
What's also interesting is that this song would seem to be either an ancestor or a composed offspring of both blues and jazz. Take the chorus and sing it to a finger picked guitar and you've got a song that's in the blues repertoire. But, if you can imagine a band playing this song without the music, with the tuba doing it's bass part, a cornet holding down the melody, a trombone improvising a harmony under the cornet, and the piccolo flourishes replaced by a violin or clarinet (and added banjo and drums), you've got early jazz.
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Cousin Joe Pleasant, I really like the jazz influence.
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Lonesome Road Blues by Sam Collins, probably the easiest to listen to of his records I've come across so far. He has a gorgeous voice, but the sound quality on most tracks doesn't do it justice.
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I've been listening to random stuff from 1927 today, and Texas Alexander's Section Gang Blues just came on. Johnm talked about this extensively and transcribed the lyrics here (http://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?amp;Itemid=60&topic=460.30). I don't have too much to add except to say that while one always hears that Texas Alexander was notoriously hard for an accompanist to follow, the synchronization and sympathy between Alexander's vocal and Lonnie Johnson's guitar is pretty amazing and a credit to both musicians. I guess I should also add that, in my opinion, this is one of the ten or so most beautiful blues recordings of all time.
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Turner Parrish playing the instrumental "Trenches". On Document's Barrelhouse Piano Blues 1929-33. That's some fine piano whuppin'.
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Scrapper's version of Nobody Knows you when you're down- from the Mr Scrapper's Blues CD.
Its always nice to be cast back in time to when a tired song wasn't tired.
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I recently got a copy of the Document CD - Manchester Free Trade Hall 1964: Reverend Gary Davis... just can't stay away from "The Sun Is Going Down" with Sonny Terry. Talk about on fire!!! what a wall of rhythm! totally electric.
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I've been listening to the Hobart Smith CD, "Hobart Smith--Blue Ridge Legacy", on Rounder. It is all tremendous stuff, but the cut that seemed to particularly stand out yesterday when I was driving down to Seattle was "Jim Along", a banjo tune I don't recall ever hearing anything like before. The whole tune is centered around a minor6 chord, and I don't know of any other banjo or fiddle tunes for which that is the case. What an interesting tune, almost Middle Eastern-sounding, leaves me thinking, "Wow, where in the world did that come from?"
All best,
Johnm
Oops, thought of another tune that leans on the minor6: the B part of Hobart Smith's "Last Chance".
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is there a thread for lyrics that just don't rhyme?
I'm listening to Peetie Wheatstraw's The Breaks I'm Getting and i love the line about his big toe but the closing verse/couplet goes
Now i'm gonna sing this verse and i ain't gonna sing no more
cause i'm getting kind of warm, and you know i've got to go
I love to clown for you all, and I love to act the monkey
but i don't want to get to hot 'cause i'm scared i'm liable to get a bad cold
'cause i got tired, of them breaks they're giving me
i'm gonna pack my grip and i'm going back to Tennessee
makes me laugh every time! I guess cold might be meant to rhyme with more and go but the way it comes out just sounds deliberately off - in a fun way. Is there a word that rhymes with monkey that people would be expecting? funky maybe? it certainly doesn't follow the pattern of the earlier couplets:
I was bare-footed, naked, out in the ice and snow, with all my yes-yes out, 'nd see my big toe
I was bare-footed, didn't have on no shoes, and the rocks gravel and concrete is giving my toe the blues.
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Archie Edwards - Toronto Sessions has been getting a lot of play. Definitely an artist to check out if you have not heard him.
Frankie's albums are also on heavy rotation this week. Get back into the studio and make some more albums!!!
Take it easy, Joe
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Rosa Lee Hill, "Pork and Beans", from the 7-CD George Mitchell Collection on Fat Possum. She is superb.
You can hear a bit more of her on an additional Fat Possum/George Mitchell CD, Rosa Lee Hill and Friends, which features female musicians recorded by Mitchell, including Hill, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Precious Bryant, Lottie Kate (backed by Jim Bunkley), Essie Mae Brooks, and Catherine Porter (backed by Will Shade).
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champion jack dupree - too evil to cry. new orlean's pianist, on a document records cd, (docd5444) entitled chicago blues!
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Rosa Lee Hill, "Pork and Beans", from the 7-CD George Mitchell Collection on Fat Possum. She is superb.
She is just fan-freaking-tastic... Pork and Beans, Come Here Fairer, Bullyin Well, Rollin and Tumblin... all good... heavy, heavy time. love it!
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Rosa Lee Hill tuned L-O-W! She belongs in the Bends Hall of Fame.
all best,
Johnm
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Frankie's albums are also on heavy rotation this week. Get back into the studio and make some more albums!!!
thanks, Joe! we have some ideas along those lines... ;D
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Rosa Lee Hill tuned L-O-W! She belongs in the Bends Hall of Fame.
What a sound. A couple of those songs have been floating around the house in one form or another for the last few weeks.
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Mississippi Sheiks - complete -- vols 1, 2 and 3. A little behind the times I know. :D But I've been unduly influenced by The Little Brothers numerous youtube videos as well as donegone.net's section on the Sheiks - the most fabulous Sheiks resource in both depth and breadth. (Plus they are fun songs to play and sing while seeking one's inner boom-chang.)
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Mississippi Sheiks - complete -- vols 1, 2 and 3.
I'm with you there, Slack. Monday was a Sheiks day for me. I've been going back to Stop and Listen every day since, and singing it in the shower every day, to the point where my wife asked me if I couldn't sing something a little more cheerful!
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Should maybe be singing She's a Bad Girl in the shower.
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Good Gal by Charlie Spand, recorded for Paramount in 1929 with Spand on piano and vocals and Josh White on guitar. I'm not the biggest Josh White fan in the world, but accompanying Spand gives him a setting where he can really shine. The song is sort of a typical Carr/Blackwell duet, but with the guitar much better recorded, so that it's not buried by the piano at all. And Spand leaves White a lot of room to solo. What really makes the song work is that it sounds like they worked on the arrangement a bit, because after each verse the guitar and piano play very complimentary parts before Spand lays back in an accompaniment role, leaving White to solo.
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Bob Dylan Bootleg Series #8. There is some amazing stuff on here. Haven't finished listening yet. His cover of 32-20 Blues is great. He really connects, does an old song and makes it his own, not a copy at all. Other highlights that might appeal to folks here are Someday Baby, Red River Shore, and High Water (For Charlie Patton) although the latter is marred to my mind by going on a bit to long and getting a bit out of control - it is a live take with electric band.
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just spent a couple of hours, listening to to the first 2 discs, of living country blues. on evidence records. what a really terrific compilation. ;D
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Various incarnations of Milk Cow Blues
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When The Sun Goes Down - Big Bill Broonzy - Live in Amsterdam 1953
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Bob Dylan Bootleg Series #8. There is some amazing stuff on here. Haven't finished listening yet. His cover of 32-20 Blues is great. He really connects, does an old song and makes it his own, not a copy at all. Other highlights that might appeal to folks here are Someday Baby, Red River Shore, and High Water (For Charlie Patton) although the latter is marred to my mind by going on a bit to long and getting a bit out of control - it is a live take with electric band.
If you don't have them already, you should get Dylan's Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong, both from the early 1990s. (32-20 Blues is an outtake from the World Gone Wrong sessions.) On both records you'll hear plenty of blues you'll recognize, performed in a respectful but nevertheless Dylanesque manner. Dylan performs only with an acoustic guitar, and plays rather well. (He seems to have put in quite a bit of work rehearsing for the albums.)
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On an obsessive rotation: J.B. Hutto, Precious Stone (alternative take), from the Stompin' at Mother Blues album.
Not country blues, I know, but damn. Word.
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I saw JB Hutto play live in London a couple of times and he was probably the most exciting urban bluesman I ever saw. Although his slide style was almost certainly copied from Elmore, he added his own quirky edge to it, making it more interesting.
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Mance Lipscomb, Texas Blues.
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J. B. Lenoir, Alabama Blues and Vietnam Blues. Great acoustic blues.
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Darby & Tarlton (Complete Recordings).
I hear a bit of early Blind Willie McTell in their delivery. Not saying there's any connection. Just a similar syle in some songs.
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As a consequence of reading Bob Riesman's biography, I've been listening to a lot of Big Bill Broonzy for the last few weeks. One session of Big Bill's that's particularly caught my ear is the one he did in New York City in April of 1930 with Georgia Tom and Frank Brasswell as the Hokum Boys, and from the songs from that session I've been particularly enjoying the guitar duets that Broonzy and Brasswell recorded, and of those I've been most struck with Saturday Night Rub. Bill is playing lead, Frank playing bass runs. At first I thought that Brasswell was playing the chords heard on the A part of the song (the verses, I guess), but after noticing that they drop out when Big Bill gets fancy with the lead, I now suspect that Broonzy is playing an alternating bass with a strong thumb brush on the 2 and 4 beats. On the B sections (the chorus?), the chords drop out entirely, making an effective contrast. And at the end of the B sections, Bill plays down on the lower frets of the lower strings in the same register that Brasswell is using for the bass, making for a really exciting sound right before the duo moves into the A section again where Bill is playing in a higher register and the chords on 2 and 4 reappear. It's a truly beautiful performance.
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"Goin' Away and Leavin' My Baby" by Horace Smith, from Territory Singers Vol 2 DOCD-5471. Simply because it came around on iTunes shuffle mode. This is a recording from 1929 that is the same song as Leroy Carr's 1928 tune "I'm Goin' Away and Leave My Baby." Always liked the Carr tune, which at the time was unreleased by Vocalion, if I'm reading things correctly. Horace Smith is not particularly interesting and rather stiff but I like the Indianapolis band backing him, Syd Valentine's Patent Leather Kids, with Raymond "Syd" Valentine on trumpet, James "Slick" Helms on piano, and Paul George on banjo.
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Syd Valentine's Patent Leather Kids also seem to have appeared on some records as Skillet Dick and His Frying Pans (according to Pat Conte on John Heneghan's Old Time Radio Show, highly recommended).
I think someone needs to revive that name.
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Syd Valentine's Patent Leather Kids ... Skillet Dick and His Frying Pans
I have to say that those are two of the best band names I've ever heard. One of the big problems with country blues is that the jug and string bands just didn't have good names.
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Old-Time bands had great names, like Fisher Hendley and His Aristocratic Pigs, or Dr. Humphrey Bates and his Possum Hunters.
All best,
Johnm
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Seven Foot Dilly & His Dill Pickles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvoRT4HDegA
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Caught it on the Juke the other day then dug out the cd - Johnny Shines original recording of Delta Pines - what a singer!
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Syd Valentine's Patent Leather Kids ... Skillet Dick and His Frying Pans
I have to say that those are two of the best band names I've ever heard. One of the big problems with country blues is that the jug and string bands just didn't have good names.
I've always like Pigmeat Pete and Catjuice Charlie.
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Since I'm a blues guy and a desert guy, this is perfect:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/arts/music/tinariwens-tassili-desert-blues-recorded-on-site.html?ref=arts (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/arts/music/tinariwens-tassili-desert-blues-recorded-on-site.html?ref=arts)
Skip the article if you want, but check out the music links.
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I've been listening to Crazy Blues by Mamie Smith and her Jazz Hounds.
Actually , I've been listening a lot to stuff from 1920-21-22, as a consequence of getting Archeophone's Phonographic Yearbooks for those years. Those, added to the stuff I already have, give me 86 songs, 4.2 hours of music, from 1920. I've listened to the year several times through on shuffle. I have dance bands (Art Hickman's band, the Benson Orchestra, and Paul Whiteman) doing foxtrots and the occasional waltz in a popular style with a hint of jazz creeping in. I have black bands, like Wilbur Sweatman's Original Jazz Band and the Versatile Three/Versatile Four, doing pop music with even more jazz creeping in. There are white "blues" singers, like Marion Harris, and blues-influenced artists like Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, and Sophie Tucker. There's also some straight pop and some real jazz in there.
But what hits me every time through the year is Mamie Smith. She's the first black blues singer to record and the first singer of any color to record with a real top notch jazz band - Johnny Dunn on cornet, Dope Andrews, trombone, Ernest Elliot, clarinet, Leroy Parker, violin, and either Perry Bradford or Willie "The Lion" Smith on piano. Mamie herself has a strong, supple, wide-ranging voice, not down-home like Ma Rainey or Bessie Smith, but modern enough to avoid the trilled Rs that were a vaudeville convention earlier in the century. Plus she's got a beautiful vibrato. 85 of the songs in my 1920 playlist are very good music, but when Mamie and her band come on, everything is turned up a notch, and you're aware that you're hearing GREAT music, that the ante had just been upped. I'd heard Crazy Blues before, but it was always in the context of what came later. Here, mixed in with it's contemporaries, I'm aware of just how the song sounded to listeners when it came out, and it stands out head and shoulders above everything else.
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Sounds like I need to get those Archeophone yearbooks. Each time I revisit it I conclude Crazy Blues is quite a piece of work, both from the composition and performance perspectives. There's nothing else quite like it. No wonder it was a huge hit at the time.
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Driving home from work yesterday with the iPod on shuffle, one song just jumped out at me: Going Back To Mississippi by Eddie Kirkland from his Trix LP Front And Center. It's a slow blues, just Eddie solo, accompanying himself on a 12-string. What initially caught my attention was the start of the song, where Eddie plays up the neck a bit for a few seconds, sounding very mandolin-like. Then he goes back down the neck, and it's obvious he's playing a 12-string. The three things that kept my attention thought the almost 5 minute song were first, Eddie's fine mellow voice - he's singing really well on this cut. Second, how absolutely beautiful the guitar part sounds, and how well it seems to take advantage of the 12-string's sound. And lastly how the song just slips into a slow but very insistent rhythmic groove, one that sucks you in and doesn't let go. I believe that Eddie played everything with his thumb - certainly on this track I can't hear any treble and bass notes being played together - but he really manages to keep the groove going no mater what he's doing vocally or on the guitar. All together, it's a wonderful performance, well worth seeking out.
(An aside: it's also beautifully recorded. Kudos to Peter Lowry for that.)
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(An aside: it's also beautifully recorded. Kudos to Peter Lowry for that.)
Indeed so. It was the first Kirkland album I ever bought back in 1973 and coincidently the first Trix LP release it would seem. http://www.wirz.de/music/trixfrm.htm (http://www.wirz.de/music/trixfrm.htm)
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Listening to Virgil Anderson's Wild Bill Jones. Beautiful. Now if only I could figure it out. :P
Virgil Anderson - Wild Bill Jones (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVs7UU6pr4c#)
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Very nice indeed. Where's Lignite when you need him?
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Bear Creek Blues, Carter Family
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Kokomo Arnold, Junior Wells, Oscar Woods and Georgia White.
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I've just pressed the repeat button several times on John Dudley's version of Po' Boy Blues. It's a warhorse of a tune, though I usually like whatever version happens to be on. His take on it is really great, not because it's unusual or breaking away from the mold, but he just plays with such ease, flair and energy. He's been mentioned elsewhere on the forum as someone it's sad we don't have more recordings of, since what we do have is so tantalizingly good - the other song being the most Patton-like version of a song out there, Clarksdale Mill Blues. Was there something else I am missing?
Edited to add: Yes, missing Cool Drink of Water Blues. Also here's Po Boy Blues, courtesy Yo' Tube:
Po' Boy Blues - John Dudley (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmjgT2cgeWA#)
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"Sticks Over My Shoulder" LP on Mississippi Records
The best of George Mitchell's recorded country blues in GA including Jimmy Lee Williams, Cecil Barfield, John Lee Ziegler, Jim Bunkley, James Davis. Every track on this slab is amazing. I cannot believe Mitchell was lucky enough to find and record these brilliant artists who were all unique from one another. The drum and guitar of James Davis is spirited and wonderous. Cecil Barfield is a master of country blues, with the strangest strained voice and angular fingerpicking. John Lee Ziegler's upsidedown right handed guitar slide and soulful singing frequently ruins my day (in the best possible way). Jimmy Lee is hilarious and amazing.
"Blues Images Vol. 10"
I'm most excited by the Hi Henry Brown and especially the Blind Willie Davis tracks, one of which I'd never heard. Hearing those in better quality is startling. Dark Was The Night will always be the greatest American guitar and vocal piece ever cut. The Blind Blake cuts are good'uns. Everything else is cool, but not quite as fun as those.
Anything by James "Son" Thomas, is extremely sexy. Especially his dirty Catfish Blues.
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Henry Johnson "The Union Country Flash". w/ Peg Leg Sam on harp!!!!!!!! recorded 1972 recorded in Union, So. Carolina
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There's a really nice version of Candy Man that Rev. Gary Davis plays on 12-string on Disc 2 of At Home and Church. Just listened several times.
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I'm listening to lots of Pokey LeFarge. Magnificent musicianship, and great fun.
Its odd- I really enjoyed the gig I went to with Harvey some time ago (very very small venue- 25 people, dinner, sets between courses which were completely acoustic- bass, washboard, harp, rhythm guitar and lead). For some reason I decided I probably wouldnt enjoy the cds and until a fortnight ago hadn;t got them.
Then I did... Fantastic!
Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three "Claude Jones" and "Drinkin' Whiskey Tonight" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55v3om5T7OY#ws)
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Thanks Simon, enjoyed that a lot.
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Here's my play list today:
1.STRUT HIS STUFF ? Big Boy Henry 1987, 2.I NEED A LITTLE SUGAR IN MY BOWL ? Bessie Smith 1931, 3. BIG RAILROAD BLUES ? ?Cannon?s Jug Stompers? 1928, 4. LOUIS COLLINS ? Mississippi John Hurt 1928, 5. W.P.A. BLUES ? Casey Bill 1936, 6. POLICE DOG BLUES ? Blind Blake 1929, 7. HOODOO HOODOO ? Sonny Boy Williamson I? 1946, 8. LONG TALL MAMA ? Big Bill Broonzy 1932, 9. YOU DO IT ? ?Down Home Boys? 1929, 10. SPECIAL STREAM LINE ? Bukka White 1940, 11. ?TAIN?T NOBODY BUSINESS IF I DO (part. II?) ? Frank Stokes 1929, 12. BABY PLEASE DON?T GO ? Big Joe Williams/Sonny Boy Williamson I?1941, 13. JELLY ROLL BLUES ? Furry Lewis 1927, 14. YOU CAN?T FIX IT BACK ? Roosevelt Sykes 1939, 15. I?M THROWIN? UP MY HANDS ? rev. Blind Gary Davis 1935, 16. TITANIC (GOD MOVES ON THE WATER) ? Blind Willie Johnson 1929, 17. THAT?S NO WAY FOR ME TO GET ALONG ? Robert Wilkins 1929, 18. PINETOP BLUES ? Pinetop Perkins 1928, 19. BROKE DOWN ENGINE ? Blind Willie McTell 1933, 20. TERRAPLANE BLUES ? Robert Johnson: vcl/gtr 1937, 21. GOIN? UP THE COUNTRY ? Barbecue Bob 1927, 22. SEMINOLE BLUES ? Tampa Red 1927, 23. CIGARETTE BLUES ? Bo Carter 1932, 24. CATFISH BLUES ? Robert Petway 1941, 25. DRUNKEN BARRELHOUSE BLUES ? Memphis Minnie 1935, 26. WHISKEY BLUES ? Lightin? Hopkins 1945, 27. MILK COW BLUES ? Kokomo Arnold 1934. 28. WALKIN? BLUES ? Son House 1930. 29.NEW ORLEANS STOP TIME ? Bumble Bee Slim/Memphis Minnie 1936. 30. HOWLIN? WOLF BLUES ? Funny Papa Smith 1930. 31.TIRED OF BEING MISTREATRED ? Clifford Gibson 1929.
Greetings from Bologna, Italy.
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Robert Nighthawk - again!
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Pinetop Smith, late Blind Boy Fuller, Ben Curry, Peanut The Kidnapper, Blind Arvella Grey and a few others.
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today....I'm listening to Turner Foddrell
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Here's a dormant thread that I think bears reawakening.
I've been listening to a lot of Blind Boy Fuller since the start of the pandemic last year. And a lot of that listening has been to a playlist that recreates Blues Classics LP BC 11, which was simply titled Blind Boy Fuller. It's an LP that holds special significance for me, as it was one of the first (actually, I think, the second) record of pre-war country blues I ever heard. And several of the songs on the record stand out, for both musical and sentimental reasons. The one I'd like to talk about today is Fuller's version of Careless Love.
A bit of backstory: I grew up in the 1950s and 60s in New York's Hudson Valley, about 10 miles as the crow flies from where Pete Seeger lived in Beacon, NY. During that time, Pete would play regular concerts for children around the area, which my sisters and I would attend. (I've often wondered why, when Seeger was blacklisted from performing for adults, it was considered fine for him to be singing for impressionable children, but I'm glad it was. I loved those shows.) One of the songs Pete would often sing was Careless Love, for which he'd pick up his 12-string. For any of you who may not have heard his version, here it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ldXprjlOmc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ldXprjlOmc)
It's a fine version. I've always been fond of it. And, just to make sure, what I'm about to say is in no way meant to disparage it.
One day in early 1968, just before or just after my 16th birthday, found a copy of the Blind Boy Fuller LP in the rotating LP collection of the one-roomed library in Fishkill Plains NY. I brought it home, and when the needle dropped on side 2, I got a jolt. I knew that the side started with Careless Love, and I knew Careless Love, but I didn't know THIS. Fuller is playing in A, capoed up 2 frets (If I recall from my attempts to play this years ago). It starts with a long, slow bend from C to C#, and goes on from there, seeming to me at the time to be a constant flow of bends and slides. I'm a little more rational about hearing what's going on now, and MUCH more familiar with the genre that Fuller was working in, but at the time it kind of felt like I was Dorothy stepping out of her house right after it had landed in Oz. The Careless Love I knew was pretty. It was comfortable. It fit into the world as I knew it. And this was none of that. 53 years later Fuller's version of the song always dredges up that feeling. And always makes me think fondly of Pete Seeger. Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55PoSIFpLuM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55PoSIFpLuM)
Thanks to Stephan Wirz for his amazing discographical work which has allowed me to recreate many of the blues records of my youth.
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Great story to hear, DJ. That is a fine rendition, I don't think I had ever heard it.
An interesting synchronicity, sort of, is that that previous post to yours, from 8 years ago, lists Foddrell Turner, who Harriet just brought attention to two days back.
Personally, I don't listen to much country blues except what is linked here - which is quite a bit!
Heavy rotation on YouTube for me is jazz pianist Emmett Cohen, his trio, and guests. Highly recommended.
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Nice story DJ, and that Blues Classics LP is a good one. Fuller is an underappreciated player, I think.
I've been listening to John Hurt's Library of Congress recordings. I was aware of them for a long time but only recently acquired them, and they're great. They have warm, relaxed ambience, John tells a few stories and you can really hear that solid thumb bass. Otherwise, around here we listen to a lot of 50's jazz in the evenings. Plenty of Miles, as well as Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and so on. Great stuff.
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Sometimes I find artists that I haven't heard of before on this forum and today it was Uncle Bud's mention on this thread of John Dudley in 2012, plus a little Muddy Waters, Barbecue Bob and I have been listening to Cary Tate, Alonzo Burke, Mager Johnson, Mott Willis, Roosevelt Holts, Asie Payton from the 70's recordings in Blues at Home 5, 13 . Lately, some classical music.
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Just to echo the above sentiments, I too really enjoyed following the links and discovering the Foddrell Brothers. Really cool to have those short interviews on the Berea College site. Thanks for that Harriet and Stuart.
I agree completely on John Hurt's Library of Congress recordings as well, they're the ones I like best after his 1928 work as a young man.
Gordon
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Thanks for mentioning John Hurt's LOC recordings, Eric.
I've had Hurt's Vanguard recordings since I started buying country blues records years ago, and only came to his LOC recordings in the last 15 years or so. As much as I still love the Vanguard recordings, Hurt's LOC recordings, I think, are unmatched in their breadth of repertoire and the sense of spontaneity and just downright fun that pervades them. You hit the nail on the head with "warm, relaxed ambience".
There's a lot to listen to in those 2 sets on the Fuel 2000 label, and I've been listening to them a lot over the last 2 days.
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Ever since responding to ThatGuy's query about guitar/fiddle duets, I've been listening a lot to John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson's first session, recorded May 5th 1937 at the Leland Hotel in Aurora, Illinois. Sonny Boy recorded 6 songs at the session, all of them backed by Big Joe Williams and Robert Lee McCoy on guitar. the songs recorded were:
Good Morning School Girl
Blue Bird Blues
Jackson Blues
Got The Bottle Up And Gone
Sugar Mama Blues
Skinny Woman
The songs Williamson recorded at this session have long been favorites of mine. I've always put that down to the fact that they were just some of the better songs in his repertoire and let it go at that, without much thought to the matter. But listening this week, I realized just why I love this session so much. The explanation lies in the instrumental voices. Sonny Boy, of course, sings and plays harmonica. Big Joe lightly chords and plays lead lines on what sounds like a 9-string guitar. And Robert Lee plays bass runs and chords on a 6 string guitar. It sounds to me like he's flatpicking, because the bass notes and chords have a sharp definition. And it's McCoy's playing that, I think, just elevates this session from very good to exceptional. His playing has a bounce and snap that really drives each song. "Boom-chang" doesn't do his playing justice - the chords themselves aren't "jazzy", but McCoy's playing has an almost jazzy feel to it.
By the way, back in 1997, RCA/BMG issued 2 disks of Sonny Boy's earliest Bluebird sessions. The performances were taken as much as possible from existing metal masters and clean test pressings, and they sound GREAT. The disks are, unfortunately, long out of print, but if you want to hear this music as if you were sitting in the room with the musicians, they're worth seeking out.