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What better reason to do something like music than just because you love it? It's really easy, all you gotta do is quit your day job, and alienate your family, and confuse all your friends, and live in squalor for a few years, and you got it - Bruce Molsky

Author Topic: Willie Brown Mystery, Solved  (Read 2200 times)

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Offline waxwing

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Re: Willie Brown Mystery, Solved
« Reply #30 on: January 16, 2023, 01:59:23 AM »
My question about schooling was in the paragraph about the Willie/William thing, not about the WB/KB thing. Nothing personal here.

I recommended earlier that you could take your theory over to the Real Blues Forum on Facebook. Have you done so? I believe David Evans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Evans_(musicologist) is a regular poster there. I remember I saw posts by him when the silent footage very likely of Henry Thomas playing guitar and quills, in a German documentary, surfaced and was posted on RBF, within the last year or so. David is probably the biggest and most qualified proponent of the WB=KB theory and would certainly have knowledge of pretty much any corroborating evidence available. I think discussions about this may have occurred on RBF some years ago, but I have never had much success searching/navigating the archive there. Good luck.

I was just about to mention our Tag Index and noticed that someone has already attached the Kid Bailey Tag. They are at the bottom of every Topic page. If you click the tag you will see a list of topics and the one titled Who Was Kid Bailey is the one you want to read. Our beloved Bunker Hill (well known researcher and writer Alan Balfour) posted quite a bit of info from David Evans and information from others is posted as well. There are some excepts from the Calt/Wardlow book supporting the theory, but not the excerpt I seem to remember in which a woman who was interviewed stated that Willie once told her he had spent the day backing Kid Bailey for a recording session, but it was a long time ago that I read that, so, grain of salt.

I'm looking forward to the new version of the book. too.

Wax
« Last Edit: January 16, 2023, 02:46:56 AM by waxwing »
"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."
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Offline CF

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Re: Willie Brown Mystery, Solved
« Reply #31 on: January 16, 2023, 10:26:21 AM »
The William Brown/Willie Brown confusion didn't get the clarity it needed til the internet chat forum/YouTube age. If Rory was confused in the 1990s, so were most others, I think. Didn't Alan Lomax confuse them himself in his 1990s memoir?

Bailey will always be in the picture and have that asterix beside his name. I'm on the side that it's not Brown singing but am not comfortable closing the book on it.

If Wardlow /Calt found "two pages" of info about "Kid Bailey" then we have definite evidence of two different musicians despite aural similarities, right?
Stand By If You Wanna Hear It Again . . .

Offline Stuart

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Re: Willie Brown Mystery, Solved
« Reply #32 on: January 16, 2023, 11:50:09 AM »
Attached are pages from the 1988 edition on which Kid Bailey is mentioned. These are only posted for your reference. (I haven't seen the new edition--it's been ordered and is on its way.)

Calt, Stephen and Wardlow, Gayle
King of the Delta Blues: The Life and Music of Charlie Patton
Newton, New Jersey: Rock Chapel Press, 1988

As you can see, the authors' informants appear to indicate that Willie Brown and Kid Bailey are/were two separate individuals.

The pages have been scanned according to the terms of "Fair Use" and are only to be used under the terms of "Fair Use."

https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/
« Last Edit: January 17, 2023, 09:53:36 AM by Stuart »

Offline waxwing

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Re: Willie Brown Mystery, Solved
« Reply #33 on: January 17, 2023, 02:14:27 AM »
Hey Stuart,

Thanks so much for posting those pages. I would have never pulled out my copy and looked them up. But I was particularly happy to see the first set of pages because of the descriptions of Patton's performance qualities, starting with the first full paragraph on the left. I remember how inspired I was when I first read this description, maybe 15, 20 years ago. I guess I needed that reminder just now.

Wax
"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."
George Bernard Shaw

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”
Joseph Heller, Catch-22

http://www.youtube.com/user/WaxwingJohn
CD on YT

Offline Stuart

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Re: Willie Brown Mystery, Solved
« Reply #34 on: January 17, 2023, 09:52:29 AM »
At your service, Wax. Hopefully the info about Kid Bailey on the pages will help with some of the confusion.

Offline dj

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Re: Willie Brown Mystery, Solved
« Reply #35 on: January 17, 2023, 01:11:00 PM »
Since Stuart brought up King of the Delta Blues: The Life and Music of Charlie Patton, I'd like to take a second and recommend Ed Komara's rewrite - a "thorough overhaul", Komara calls it in his preface.  It's much more clearly written than the original, and it includes musical notation of the relevant sections of songs as they're being discussed.  Overall, it's a vast improvement on the original edition.  And I say this as someone who has treasured that original edition.

Also, pseudonyms have come up in this discussion. "Bailey recorded in 1929 and Brown in 1930 so for me that begs the question of why Brown would have needed or chosen to use a pseudonym - it wasn't to fool a record company."  It should be pointed out that there are lots of reasons to use a pseudonym other than to "fool a record company".  A person might at times use the last name of a father, mother, or step-parent.  We know, for example, that Robert Johnson used Dodds, Spencer, and Johnson at various times.  Or a musician who was closely involved with a church might use a pseudonym so that the members of his church wouldn't know about his playing the blues.  Or the pseudonym may have been bestowed by a talent scout, manager, or record company, as Fulton Allen became Blind Boy Fuller.

As to the Bailey/Brown question, there have been times in my life when I thought there was a good possibility that Bailey was Brown, and there have been times when I thought he probably wasn't.  Currently I tend to come down on the "wasn't" side, but at this point, we'll never really know, will we?

 


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