The Blues

[Jay]

I used to listen to the blues, just like any other style of music, but this got me to love the blues. I'm hooked now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_rd8y8A2oE

 

[Feraud]

Speaking of Buddy Guy, his song Baby Please Don't Leave Me set the tone for the film Hustle & Flow.

 

[Feraud]

Most of you blues fans know of this site but I'll recommend it anyway.
It's the Delta Blues Museum.
Specific to this post, check out the podcasts! Each topic covers an aspect of culture reflected in blues music. Includes great music.
The subjects include -
Minstrel Songs in the Blues Era
WPA Blues
Highway Blues
Prison Blues
High Water Blues
Hard Time Blues
Cocaine Blues
Death Tributes
Joe Louis
Church Blues
Living in a Violent World
Drinking Canned Heat and Jake

Enjoy!

 

[mike]

Most of you blues fans know of this site but I'll recommend it anyway.
It's the Delta Blues Museum.
Specific to this post, check out the podcasts! Each topic covers an aspect of culture reflected in blues music. Includes great music.
The subjects include -
Minstrel Songs in the Blues Era
WPA Blues
Highway Blues
Prison Blues
High Water Blues
Hard Time Blues
Cocaine Blues
Death Tributes
Joe Louis
Church Blues
Living in a Violent World
Drinking Canned Heat and Jake

Enjoy!

Absolutely! But I wouldn't suggest listening to some of these at work if you have timid coworkers...!

 

[Feraud]

But it's ol timey!!

 

[mike]

But it's ol timey!!

The dirty blues episode makes me blush

 

[Feraud]

Collecting blues 78s

From a July NYT article.

July 12, 2009
They’ve Got Those Old, Hard-to-Find Blues
By AMANDA PETRUSICH

JOHN HENEGHAN tugged a large shellac disc from its brown paper sleeve, placed it on a turntable and gently nudged a needle into place. Behind him, in the corner of his East Village apartment, sat 16 wooden crates, each filled with meticulously cataloged 78-r.p.m. records. The coarse, crackling voice of the blues singer Charley Patton, performing “High Water Everywhere Part 1,” his startling account of the 1927 Mississippi River flood, rose from the speakers, raw and unruly. The record is worth about $8,000.

Mr. Heneghan, 41, is part of a small but fervent community of record collectors who for decades have hunted, compulsively and competitively, for 78s: the extraordinarily fragile 10-inch discs, introduced near the turn of the 20th century and made predominantly of shellac, that contain one two- to three-minute performance per side. At a time when music fans expect songs to be delivered instantaneously (and often at zero cost) online, scouring the globe for a rare record — and paying thousands of dollars for it — might seem ludicrous. (A rarer Patton record could command $15,000 to $20,000.)

But according to some, the rare-record business is booming, despite the recession and the devaluation of music as a physical product. “Prices have been rising at a phenomenal rate, as people take money out of the stock market and out of different real estate investments and look for a place to put it,” said John Tefteller, a collector who makes his living dealing in rare records. He noted a particular spike last fall, when the economy first faltered.

Others, like Mark Berresford, who edits VJM’s Jazz & Blues Mart, the oldest blues and jazz magazine still in print, are more cautious about looking to rare records for financial stability. “If one is considering collecting rare 78s solely as an investment, one should seek professional advice as to what should be purchased and from whom,” Mr. Berresford wrote in an e-mail message.

By any standard 78s are unwieldy, impractical and unstable. By the mid-1950s they had been mostly replaced by 33 1/3 r.p.m. long-playing albums and 45 r.p.m. singles. Collectors of 78s are enticed in part by the thrill of the quest, which they consider unmatched by a mouse click.

“I’m not proud of the fact that I have to chase these records down like a maniac,” said Mr. Heneghan, who supports himself by working as a video technician. (He also performs in an old-time duo, Eden and John’s East River String Band.) Before he became friendly with other collectors, he said, he felt “sleazy and weird.”

“I knew I was doing it because I liked it, but it’s strange when you can’t relate to one single other person,” he said. “You obviously start to question — like, is there something wrong with me?”

Although most collectors subspecialize by genre, whether jazz or classical or country, it’s early American rural blues — loose acoustic laments, recorded before 1935 and performed by artists who were born in or near the Mississippi Delta — that inspires the highest prices and the most fevered pursuits. “The early blues material from the ’20s and ’30s is the hottest material of all,” Mr. Tefteller said in a phone interview. He said that on average a rare jazz 78 might sell for $1,500 to $5,000, whereas sales for a comparable blues record would start at $5,000.

Blues music is in part mythological; its legend involves sweltering juke joints, homemade whiskey and Faustian bargains at rural crossroads. A furniture company in a largely white Midwestern suburb is rarely evoked in these reveries, but in the late 1920s and early 1930s Paramount Records — an arm of the Wisconsin Chair Company, a manufacturer of wooden phonograph cabinets in Port Washington, Wis. — became an unlikely home for blues legends like Patton, Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House and Skip James. Paramount’s blues releases — especially its “race” records with label numbers in the 12000s and 13000s — are among the most coveted records in the world.

“There are some people who would kill their own mother for the only copy of a Son House record,” Mr. Heneghan said. “And they sure as hell would kill your mother, and you.”

Mr. Tefteller, 50, is one of the world’s most prolific collectors of Paramount blues. Because these 78s are so scarce — of the thousands presumably pressed, many were lost, broken or melted down, and of the 1,356 titles said to have been issued in the 12000-13000 series, roughly one-third or more are of other genres — his collection (500 to 600, he said) is staggering in its comprehension. As Mr. Heneghan said in an e-mail message, Mr. Tefteller pursues complete runs of every Paramount blues artist he considers important. “This makes him completely insane, which alone would make me like him even if he weren’t such a nice guy,” Mr. Heneghan said.

Mr. Tefteller lives in rural Oregon but spends much of the year traversing the country for fresh stock, placing “Records Wanted” advertisements in antiques catalogs and The Farmer’s Almanac. (His Paramount 78s are not for resale.) He said he receives about a hundred calls a day, most yielding inconsequential results. “Records have a way of hiding,” he said.

These particular records, he explained, are a finite commodity. “I would doubt that there are a hundred total Charley Patton records left in the world,” he said. Other artists’ discographies are even more limited: only eight copies of various 78s by Son House (who recorded eight sides, or four records, for Paramount) and 15 copies of discs by Skip James (who recorded 18 sides) appear to remain.

Last month a batch of hand-labeled Paramount test pressings unexpectedly appeared on eBay. The seller, Patrick Cather, discovered the records (alternate takes by Blind Blake, Ma Rainey, Papa Charlie Jackson and others) at an antiques store in Birmingham, Ala. Mr. Tefteller, who uses software to place bids in the last few seconds of an auction, successfully purchased everything he was interested in.

In 2002 Mr. Tefteller mailed fliers to every resident within 100 miles of Paramount’s former studio site in Grafton, Wis. “I flooded the area, and then I sat at the Best Western in Port Washington and fielded phone calls at the hotel for days,” he said.

Contemporary Grafton is not a hotbed of blues appreciation. “A lot of the elderly people here don’t understand what the big deal is,” said Angela Mack, the chairwoman of the Paramount Plaza Walk of Fame there.

But his persistence paid off. One call produced the only known copy of King Solomon Hill’s blistering 1932 blues sides “My Buddy Blind Papa Lemon”/“Times Has Done Got Hard.” “I said, ‘O.K., put it back in the sleeve and put it somewhere where you’re not going to drop anything on it, and please don’t even touch it until I get there,’ ” he recalled. “She got a nice pile of hundred-dollar bills from me for that one.”

In 2006 Mr. Tefteller also purchased Son House’s “Clarksdale Moan”/“Mississippi County Farm Blues,” another long-missing Paramount release. “I know the name of the person I bought it from, but he’s very paranoid and doesn’t want anybody to talk to him,” he said. “It was found somewhere in the South is all he would tell me, and I think he got it from the person who actually found it, but I don’t know. The more I pressed him, the more it was clear if I didn’t shut up, I wasn’t getting the record. I shut up and paid him.”

Mr. Tefteller declined to specify the purchase price. “Let’s just say tens of thousands,” he said.

The acquisition spurred a fuss. Richard Nevins, a prominent collector and the president of Shanachie Entertainment, which released the recovered Son House sides on its Yazoo label in 2006 (on “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of,” a two-CD set of prewar rarities), said in an e-mail interview that the discovery was “a big, big, big, big deal.”

In many ways 78 collecting is a meritocracy: the most compelling songs earn the strongest responses. The Son House discovery was monumental, Mr. Nevins said, because “Clarksdale Moan” — a rich, rollicking ode to the artist’s hometown — is considered a great record.

The stakes are also high from a preservationist standpoint. If collectors weren’t tracking these records, the songs might be lost entirely, and speculation surrounding Paramount’s missing metal masters (the original transcriptions of a performance) has only amplified the significance of the remaining 78s. According to Alex van der Tuuk’s book “Paramount’s Rise and Fall” (Mainspring Press, 2003), in 1942 the bulk of the masters — by then corroded — were carted off by rail for reuse in World War II.

“The building where the metal masters had been stored didn’t have any insulation, and pigeons came into that building, and you can imagine what a bird does to a metal master,” Mr. van der Tuuk said by phone from his home in the Netherlands. Still, rumors — that they were hurled into the Milwaukee River by disgruntled former employees, or used to patch rat holes in chicken coops — persist. In 2006 the PBS program “The History Detectives” arranged for a team of divers to scour the bottom of the Milwaukee River. They came up empty-handed.

There are still records missing. Willie Brown, an enigma even by blues standards, cut six sides for Paramount in 1930, and while his “M&O Blues”/“Future Blues” has been recovered (Mr. Tefteller owns one of three known copies), the others have yet to emerge.

Mr. Heneghan remains optimistic. “Maybe I’m more likely to believe in ghosts and aliens and the missing Willie Brown,” he said with a shrug. Mr. Tefteller has a standing offer of $25,000 for either of the other two records.

While most 78 collectors are devoted, educated fans of the music they gather, they’re also desperate for the experience of the thing itself — for the colored label and inky, gleaming surface, the sizzle and spit of a needle slipping into groove. Even when a rare record is unearthed and made available digitally — as with Mr. Tefteller’s Son House discovery — its value does not decrease. “You would think that it would,” Mr. Heneghan said sheepishly. “Like, ‘Well, now I don’t need it.’ But obviously, although we all like to think differently, collecting is about possessing an object.”

In the liner notes to “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of,” Mr. Nevins recounts approaching a rural cabin in North Carolina said to be the location of a handful of old country 78s. After being temporarily incapacitated by an electric fence, he stumbled to his feet, shook off a layer of mud and manure, and trudged on. Later that day he trotted off with a copy of “Daniel in the Lion’s Den” by the North Carolina Cooper Boys.

“I guess you could say that was a record to die for,” Mr. Nevins writes. “In this case almost literally.”

 

[illumin8em]

I used to listen to the blues, just like any other style of music, but this got me to love the blues. I'm hooked now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_rd8y8A2oE

to me, the best buddy guy ever got performing

 

[Feraud]

The dirty blues episode makes me blush

That was some episode.

 

[Feraud]

Woke up this a.m. with Skip James running through my mind.
[YOUTUBE]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BtZ6DoeimP4&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BtZ6DoeimP4&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Mysterious Mose]

Best of both worlds, bits and pieces of 'The Public Enemy' with Blind Willie McTell's 'Your Southern Can Is Mine':

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x32d4s_the-public-enemy-1931-8mm-film-musi_shortfilms

 

[Feraud]

That was cool. :eusa_clap

 

[Peacoat]

I usually don't wander too far from the Outerwear section, so I just found this thread. Haven't read all of it yet, but thought I would post a note about my favorite blues harmonica player, Marion Walter Jacobs--Little Walter. As we approach the anniversary of his death it is always nice to remember him and his music. I posted this last year in another section, but for someone of his talent, it is worth repeating.

February 15, 1968. 37 years old. King of the Blues Harmonica. Marion Walter "Little Walter" Jacobs. Died at home from head injuries suffered in a fight earlier that day. Unfortunately his life had been headed toward that conclusion for a number of years.

Born in Marksville, LA in 1930, he began playing harp in 1938. He left home at 13 and made his way to Chicago at age 17. Playing for tips on Maxwell Street in 1947, he soon caught the attention of many of the musicians of the day who had made the same journey as Walter. One of those musicians was Muddy Waters.

In 1948 Muddy added Walter to his road band, which included Jimmie Rogers on guitar, Big Crawford on bass, and Baby Face Leroy on drums. This marks the beginning of the "Chicago Sound." In 1951 Walter joined Muddy and Big Crawford in the studio to record the nationwide hit, "Louisiana Blues."

In 1952 Walter had the instrumental hit, "Juke." He left Muddy Waters band, to be replaced by Jr. Wells, and returned to Chicago to put together his own band, consisting of Dave and Louie Meyers on guitars and Freddie "Back Beat" Below on drums. "Juke" spent 20 weeks on the Billboard R&B charts, and 8 weeks at #1.

While Walter had his own string of hits during the 50s, he still recorded on most of Muddy's sessions during those days. These sessions produced some of Walter's best work. He didn't have to be concerned about singing and could devote his time and creativity to his instrument.

His lifestyle, however, had begun to take its toll by the late 50s. Also the public's taste in music had begun to change. Photographs from that period show Walter with facial scars received in various altercations while he had been drinking. Each of the scars has its own story. During the 70s and early 80s I was friends with the Muddy Waters' Band and learned how Walter got several of those scars. Muddy told me that Walter was the wildest person he ever knew. Walter's life was not an easy life.

While Walter's life was not an easy one, his mastery of the instrument has given us an art form unparalleled by any harp player before or since. His playing is truly the standard by which all harp players are judged. Muddy Waters also told me that Walter was the best he had ever heard, and Muddy heard them all.

In March, 2008, 40 years after his death, Walter was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. See part of the induction ceremony here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaqTyDC0TZg

These notes on Little Walter wouldn't be complete without a picture or two. The first is a publicity shot from his early days at Chess. He is really young. The photo is also currently used in a book on Walter's story by Tony Glover, Scott Dirks & Ward Gaines. I read it last year and it is not only a good book about Walter, it is the only book about Walter. (available at Amazon). The second is one of the few surviving candid shots of Walter. I would say it is from the mid 60s.

His life was troubled and short, but he gave us so much. Little Walter: May 1, 1930--February 15, 1968.

 

[Undertow]

I love Lead Belly, have for many years now. In fact, he was my first real introduction to the Blues.

 

[crimsonofsam]

This is kicking off in a couple of days near me!

The first Handy Fest was the best.Why they don't have the block parties anymore I'll never understand.

 

[Feraud]

A blog post from The Selvedge Yard on some great bluesmen from back in the day. Check it out. Good pics too.
http://theselvedgeyard.wordpress.co...-ive-got-the-blues-legendary-badass-bluesmen/

Townes Van Zandt was famous for saying– “There’s only two kinds of music, Blues and Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.” Boy, was he ever right. I say, gimme the Blues. The most perfect sorrow-drownin’, tear-jerkin’, soul-howlin’, baby-makin’ music there is. Mystic sounds born from blood, sweat & tears — still giving birth to the best Rock & Roll bands to this day.

 

[Cricket]

I also highly suggest that if anyone is ever in Mississippi to check out the Blues Trail marker historic tour. The Web site also offers tons of links to various museums found along the trail...anything from the Howlin Wolf Museum in West Point to the BB King Museum in Indianola...small country stores where the blues was performed on its steps.

For any blues fan, I think it would be a wonderful experience. And it is a nice opportunity to see the setting and inspiration of so many artists.

http://www.msbluestrail.org/index.aspx

 

[W4ASZ]

I also highly suggest that if anyone is ever in Mississippi to check out the Blues Trail marker historic tour. The Web site also offers tons of links to various museums found along the trail...anything from the Howlin Wolf Museum in West Point to the BB King Museum in Indianola...small country stores where the blues was performed on its steps.

For any blues fan, I think it would be a wonderful experience. And it is a nice opportunity to see the setting and inspiration of so many artists.

http://www.msbluestrail.org/index.aspx

Thank you !

Certainly on my list. I'll get down to the crossroads, but right now I have this hellhound on my trail.

And I have to add that I miss Townes Van Zandt !

 

[Feraud]

Blind Willie Johnson honored with a historical marker -

BEAUMONT - Bobby Summers/LSC-PA - The Port Arthur Historical Society and the Jefferson County Historical Commission invited the public to attend the 2 p.m. Dec. 15 installation of a Texas historical marker at Pilgrim's Rest Baptist Church, 1440 Forrest St. in Beaumont, to honor the late street musician and singer Blind Willie Johnson, who at one time was the pastor of a church at that location.

The marker is sponsored by the PAHS, Bud Byran, Jeff Hayes, James Moore and Dr. Sam Monroe.

Monroe said the Museum of the Gulf Coast in Port Arthur also will add Johnson to its Music Legends exhibits.

Johnson was born on a farm near Marlin, Texas, around 1901 or 1902. His mother died when he was four years old, and his father later remarried, which some people say led to his blindness.

According to a story told by Johnson's widow to researcher Sam Charters in the 1950s, a few years after he remarried, George Johnson allegedly found his wife in the arms of another man. In retaliation for the beating she received for her indiscretion, the woman threw a pan of lye at George and some of it went into young Willie's face causing his blindness.

Other people recalled Johnson saying he went blind from wearing borrowed glasses or from staring at the sun while watching a solar eclipse.

When he was five years old, Johnson started telling people he was going to be a preacher. About the same time, his father made him a cigar box guitar. By the time he was a teen-ager, Johnson was singing and playing his guitar on the streets of Marlin. He later became a Baptist preacher.

Johnson met his wife, Angeline, in Dallas in the mid-1920s. They were married June 22, 1927

In 1929 and 1930, Columbia Records released 30 gospel songs written and recorded by Johnson which combined his unique slide guitar technique and rough, powerful vocals. Many of the songs described an angry God wreaking vengeance on a sinful world.

Johnson recorded his first six songs in Dallas in December 1927. His first record, I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole backed with Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed, was released in January 1928. The second single, Nobody's Fault But Mine b/w Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground, came out a year later.

Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground later was one of 28 musical tracks included on a "sounds of the Earth" record that was launched into space on the Voyager One space probe. Other tracks included music from classical composers Mozart, Beethoven and Bach, rocker Chuck Berry and ethnic songs from all over the world.

The spacecraft was launched in 1977 and left Earth's solar system in 2004. It still sends images and information back to earth.

Johnson and Angeline moved around Texas before coming to Beaumont and buying a house. He returned to Dallas to cut four songs for Columbia. The two records - I'm Gonna Run to the City of Refuge b/w Jesus is Coming Soon and I Just Can't Keep from Crying b/w Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning - were released in February and May 1929.

In 1929, Columbia paid Johnson to record in New Orleans.

Johnson's final session took place April 30, 1930, in Atlanta, Ga., where he cut 10 sides, the last of which was You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond.

Four of Johnson's records were re-released in 1935.

After his recording career ended, Johnson earned a living as a street musician in Beaumont and Southeast Texas. He sang regularly at Mt. Olive Baptist Church. The 1944 Beaumont City Directory lists the Rev. W.J. Johnson as pastor of the House of Prayer at 1440 Forrest Street, the current location of Pilgrim's Rest Baptist Church.

In 1947, a fire destroyed Johnson's house. He and his family slept in the partially destroyed home on soaked mattresses. Johnson soon came down with pneumonia and died.

Even though his recording career was short, Johnson's music endured long after his death in 1947 from pneumonia. A long list of contemporary artists have covered Johnson's songs, including Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Beck, White Stripes, Ry Cooder, The Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones and Peter, Paul and Mary.

http://www.kfdm.com/news/johnson-40642-songs-beaumont.html

Here is Johnson's Dark was the night, cold was the ground that was included on Voyager One's "sounds of the earth".
[video=youtube;BNj2BXW852g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNj2BXW852g[/video]

 

[Kahuna]

Can't let Big Bill Broonzy go unmentioned:
[video=youtube;N-pShRISHnQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-pShRISHnQ[/video]

Or Rev. Gary Davis:
[video=youtube;hlQZwHcBqyQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlQZwHcBqyQ[/video]