Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Furry Lewis performing his old-time Harry Smith American Folk Anthology-worthy blues classic, Kassie Jones.
CD Review (The basic points made in this review have been used to review the other two volumes in this three volume set)
Before The Blues: The Early American Black Music Scene: Classic Recordings From The 1920s and 1930s, Volume 3, Yazoo Records, 1996
Out of the back of my 1960s teenage bedroom the radio was blaring out a
midnight blues version of Howlin’ Wolf’s How Many More Years complete with harmonica-devouring accompaniment by Wolf himself (a fact, the almost eating part, not visually known to me until much later when I viewed his epic work via YouTube) on the American Blues Hour coming over the airways from sweet home Chicago (sweet home of the modern electric blues that is). Earlier in the program Muddy Waters, prince regent of the electric blues just then, had held forth with his band (made up then, and at various other times, with sidemen like Otis Spann and Junior Wells who would go on to their own blues hall of fame-like careers), with a sizzling version of Mannish Child. Ya, those were the primo hell-bent devil’s music blues days. No question.
Well not quite no question for that show, or for this review. The show had started out with a three card Monte of Dupree’s Blues, first by Lightnin’ Hopkins on electric, Brownie McGhee on acoustic and Willie Walker doing an a cappella version (which is included in this compilation) from out of the mist of blues times, or the depths of the American music night. At least of the stuff that has been recorded. That is important because prior to radio this material was handed down mostly through the oral traditions. That tradition got reflected in the Dupree’s Blues example because although the basic melody and theme were the same throughout the narratives were somewhat different. And that too reflects the blues tradition, and before the blues, the roots of the blues which is what this compilation (and two additional volumes) concentrates on.
The blues, for the most part, was a quintessential black music form as it developed out of the scorched dry plantation fields of the post- Civil War Jim Crow South, out of the moans and groans of the black church Sunday and out of the hard drinking, hard fighting, hard loving, hard partying Saturday night acoustic music (had to, no electricity) night before sobering up for those Sunday church groans. And while it occasionally moved to a respectable dance hall or movie house concert hall (segregated, no questions asked) before the age of radio that is where it developed kind of helter-skelter. This Before The Blues compilation reflects all of those trends from Furry Lewis’s Kassie Jones to Memphis Minnie’s Frisco Town to Texas Alexander’s Levee Camp Moan Blues. So the next time you hear the Stones’ covering Wolf’s Little Red Rooster or Mississippi Fred McDowell’s Got To Move you know where it came from.
Showing posts with label blues in the night. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blues in the night. Show all posts
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Out In The Mist Of Time Of The American Blues Night-“Before The Blues-Volume 2”-A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Memphis Jug Band performing their old-time blues classic Harry Smith Anthology-worthy, K.C. Moan.
CD Review (The basic points made in this review have been used to review the other two volumes in this three volume set)
Before The Blues: The Early American Black Music Scene: Classic Recordings From The 1920s and 1930s, Volume 2, Yazoo Records, 1996
Out of the back of my 1960s teenage bedroom the radio was blaring out a
midnight blues version of Howlin’ Wolf’s How Many More Years complete with harmonica-devouring accompaniment by Wolf himself (a fact, the almost eating part, not visually known to me until much later when I viewed his epic work via YouTube) on the American Blues Hour coming over the airways from sweet home Chicago (sweet home of the modern electric blues that is). Earlier in the program Muddy Waters, prince regent of the electric blues just then, had held forth with his band (made up then, and at various other times, with sidemen like Otis Spann and Junior Wells who would go on to their own blues hall of fame-like careers), with a sizzling version of Mannish Child. Ya, those were the primo hell-bent devil’s music blues days. No question.
Well not quite no question for that show, or for this review. The show had started out with a three card Monte of Dupree’s Blues, first by Lightnin’ Hopkins on electric, Brownie McGhee on acoustic and Willie Walker doing an a cappella version (which is included in this compilation) from out of the mist of blues times, or the depths of the American music night. At least of the stuff that has been recorded. That is important because prior to radio this material was handed down mostly through the oral traditions. That tradition got reflected in the Dupree’s Blues example because although the basic melody and theme were the same throughout the narratives were somewhat different. And that too reflects the blues tradition, and before the blues, the roots of the blues which is what this compilation (and two additional volumes) concentrates on.
The blues, for the most part, was a quintessential black music form as it developed out of the scorched dry plantation fields of the post- Civil War Jim Crow South, out of the moans and groans of the black church Sunday and out of the hard drinking, hard fighting, hard loving, hard partying Saturday night acoustic music (had to, no electricity) night before sobering up for those Sunday church groans. And while it occasionally moved to a respectable dance hall or movie house concert hall (segregated, no questions asked) before the age of radio that is where it developed kind of helter-skelter. This Before The Blues volume 2 compilation reflects all of those trends from the Memphis Jug Band’s K.C. Moan to Blue Lemon Jefferson’s Jack O’Diamond Blues To Golden Harris’ I Lead A Christian Life. So the next time you hear the Stones’ covering Wolf’s Little Red Rooster or Mississippi Fred McDowell’s Got To Move you know where it came from.
CD Review (The basic points made in this review have been used to review the other two volumes in this three volume set)
Before The Blues: The Early American Black Music Scene: Classic Recordings From The 1920s and 1930s, Volume 2, Yazoo Records, 1996
Out of the back of my 1960s teenage bedroom the radio was blaring out a
midnight blues version of Howlin’ Wolf’s How Many More Years complete with harmonica-devouring accompaniment by Wolf himself (a fact, the almost eating part, not visually known to me until much later when I viewed his epic work via YouTube) on the American Blues Hour coming over the airways from sweet home Chicago (sweet home of the modern electric blues that is). Earlier in the program Muddy Waters, prince regent of the electric blues just then, had held forth with his band (made up then, and at various other times, with sidemen like Otis Spann and Junior Wells who would go on to their own blues hall of fame-like careers), with a sizzling version of Mannish Child. Ya, those were the primo hell-bent devil’s music blues days. No question.
Well not quite no question for that show, or for this review. The show had started out with a three card Monte of Dupree’s Blues, first by Lightnin’ Hopkins on electric, Brownie McGhee on acoustic and Willie Walker doing an a cappella version (which is included in this compilation) from out of the mist of blues times, or the depths of the American music night. At least of the stuff that has been recorded. That is important because prior to radio this material was handed down mostly through the oral traditions. That tradition got reflected in the Dupree’s Blues example because although the basic melody and theme were the same throughout the narratives were somewhat different. And that too reflects the blues tradition, and before the blues, the roots of the blues which is what this compilation (and two additional volumes) concentrates on.
The blues, for the most part, was a quintessential black music form as it developed out of the scorched dry plantation fields of the post- Civil War Jim Crow South, out of the moans and groans of the black church Sunday and out of the hard drinking, hard fighting, hard loving, hard partying Saturday night acoustic music (had to, no electricity) night before sobering up for those Sunday church groans. And while it occasionally moved to a respectable dance hall or movie house concert hall (segregated, no questions asked) before the age of radio that is where it developed kind of helter-skelter. This Before The Blues volume 2 compilation reflects all of those trends from the Memphis Jug Band’s K.C. Moan to Blue Lemon Jefferson’s Jack O’Diamond Blues To Golden Harris’ I Lead A Christian Life. So the next time you hear the Stones’ covering Wolf’s Little Red Rooster or Mississippi Fred McDowell’s Got To Move you know where it came from.
Who Will Fill The 2000s Blues Night Air? - “Give In Kind” –A Guy Davis CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Guy Davis performing Can’t Be Satisfied.
Give In Kind, Guy Davis, Red House Records, 2002
A couple of years ago I spent no little cyberspace “ink” on the question of who would carry on the folk tradition that the folk revival artists of my generation, the generation of ’68, “discovered” back in the day. You know artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, Eric Von Schmidt and Dave Van Ronk and others digging into the American song book provided by Harry Smith, the Lomaxes and the Seegers to preserve Woody Guthrie and stuff even further back down to the hills and hollows of Appalachia (I know I am supposed to write hollas but there you have it), down to the southern delta plantation moans, down to backwater Mississippi juke joint groans after a hard Saturday night of love, fights and headaches, and out west, out west where as Thomas Wolfe stated, the states are square to gather in the cowboy and farm traditions found in the great migrations to the coast, west coast of course. I came up with a few candidates like Keb Mo’ and Carol Hemmings then just to make my point.
I am now trying to take that basic point and pose the question here of who will carry out the great American blues night tradition started back in the early part of the 20th century (as least the part we know about from recordings and radio) and which produced great music from Charley Patton, Son House, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt and the like on through to Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf , Ike Turner, and Taj Majal. That last name mentioned not by accident as the artist under review, Guy Davis, consciously or not, and I think consciously, owns at least a debt of gratitude to Taj for breaking some ground for him in the blues milieu.
Needless to say Brother Davis (Guy, not the late great Reverend Gary, okay) plays a mean guitar as on Good Liquor and Loneliest Road That I Know, can use his vocal abilities to belt out such songs as Six Cold Feet Of Ground and Watch Over Me and get down to that gospel church, Jehovah we are coming root of the blues on God's Unchanging Hand with the best of them. Eric Clapton, Mick and Keith and the rest of the British invasion guys mad to the high heavens for American blues move over a little. Guy Davis is in the house.
Give In Kind, Guy Davis, Red House Records, 2002
A couple of years ago I spent no little cyberspace “ink” on the question of who would carry on the folk tradition that the folk revival artists of my generation, the generation of ’68, “discovered” back in the day. You know artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, Eric Von Schmidt and Dave Van Ronk and others digging into the American song book provided by Harry Smith, the Lomaxes and the Seegers to preserve Woody Guthrie and stuff even further back down to the hills and hollows of Appalachia (I know I am supposed to write hollas but there you have it), down to the southern delta plantation moans, down to backwater Mississippi juke joint groans after a hard Saturday night of love, fights and headaches, and out west, out west where as Thomas Wolfe stated, the states are square to gather in the cowboy and farm traditions found in the great migrations to the coast, west coast of course. I came up with a few candidates like Keb Mo’ and Carol Hemmings then just to make my point.
I am now trying to take that basic point and pose the question here of who will carry out the great American blues night tradition started back in the early part of the 20th century (as least the part we know about from recordings and radio) and which produced great music from Charley Patton, Son House, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt and the like on through to Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf , Ike Turner, and Taj Majal. That last name mentioned not by accident as the artist under review, Guy Davis, consciously or not, and I think consciously, owns at least a debt of gratitude to Taj for breaking some ground for him in the blues milieu.
Needless to say Brother Davis (Guy, not the late great Reverend Gary, okay) plays a mean guitar as on Good Liquor and Loneliest Road That I Know, can use his vocal abilities to belt out such songs as Six Cold Feet Of Ground and Watch Over Me and get down to that gospel church, Jehovah we are coming root of the blues on God's Unchanging Hand with the best of them. Eric Clapton, Mick and Keith and the rest of the British invasion guys mad to the high heavens for American blues move over a little. Guy Davis is in the house.
Out In The Mist Of Time Of The American Blues Night-“Before The Blues”-A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Henry Thomas performing his old-time blues holla classic, Run, Mollie, Run.
CD Review
Before The Blues: The Early American Black Music Scene: Classic Recordings From The 1920s and 1930s, Volume 1, Yazoo Records, 1996
Out of the back of my 1960s teenage bedroom the radio was blaring out a
midnight blues version of Howlin’ Wolf’s How Many More Years complete with harmonica-devouring accompaniment by Wolf himself (a fact, the almost eating part, not visually known to me until much later when I viewed his epic work via YouTube) on the American Blues Hour coming over the airways from sweet home Chicago (sweet home of the modern electric blues that is). Earlier in the program Muddy Waters, prince regent of the electric blues just then, had held forth with his band (made up then, and at various other times, with sidemen like Otis Spann and Junior Wells who would go on to their own blues hall of fame-like careers), with a sizzling version of Mannish Child. Ya, those were the primo hell-bent devil’s music blues days. No question.
Well not quite no question for that show, or for this review. The show had started out with a three card Monte of Dupree’s Blues, first by Lightnin’ Hopkins on electric, Brownie McGhee on acoustic and Willie Walker doing an a cappella version (which is included in this compilation) from out of the mist of blues times, or the depths of the American music night. At least of the stuff that has been recorded. That is important because prior to radio this material was handed down mostly through the oral traditions. That tradition got reflected in the Dupree’s Blues example because although the basic melody and theme were the same throughout the narratives were somewhat different. And that too reflects the blues tradition, and before the blues, the roots of the blues which is what this compilation (and two additional volumes) concentrates on.
The blues, for the most part, was a quintessential black music form as it developed out of the scorched dry plantation fields of the post- Civil War Jim Crow South, out of the moans and groans of the black church Sunday and out of the hard drinking, hard fighting, hard loving, hard partying Saturday night acoustic music (had to, no electricity) night before sobering up for those Sunday church groans. And while it occasionally moved to a respectable dance hall or movie house concert hall (segregated, no questions asked) before the age of radio that is where it developed kind of helter-skelter. This Before The Blues compilation reflects all of those trends from Rube Lacy’s Mississippi Jail House Groan to Mississippi John Hurt’s Stack O’Lee Blues to the Seventh Day Adventist Choir’s On Jordan’s Stormy Banks We Stand. So the next time you hear the Stones’ covering Wolf’s Little Red Rooster or Mississippi Fred McDowell’s Got To Move you know where it came from.
CD Review
Before The Blues: The Early American Black Music Scene: Classic Recordings From The 1920s and 1930s, Volume 1, Yazoo Records, 1996
Out of the back of my 1960s teenage bedroom the radio was blaring out a
midnight blues version of Howlin’ Wolf’s How Many More Years complete with harmonica-devouring accompaniment by Wolf himself (a fact, the almost eating part, not visually known to me until much later when I viewed his epic work via YouTube) on the American Blues Hour coming over the airways from sweet home Chicago (sweet home of the modern electric blues that is). Earlier in the program Muddy Waters, prince regent of the electric blues just then, had held forth with his band (made up then, and at various other times, with sidemen like Otis Spann and Junior Wells who would go on to their own blues hall of fame-like careers), with a sizzling version of Mannish Child. Ya, those were the primo hell-bent devil’s music blues days. No question.
Well not quite no question for that show, or for this review. The show had started out with a three card Monte of Dupree’s Blues, first by Lightnin’ Hopkins on electric, Brownie McGhee on acoustic and Willie Walker doing an a cappella version (which is included in this compilation) from out of the mist of blues times, or the depths of the American music night. At least of the stuff that has been recorded. That is important because prior to radio this material was handed down mostly through the oral traditions. That tradition got reflected in the Dupree’s Blues example because although the basic melody and theme were the same throughout the narratives were somewhat different. And that too reflects the blues tradition, and before the blues, the roots of the blues which is what this compilation (and two additional volumes) concentrates on.
The blues, for the most part, was a quintessential black music form as it developed out of the scorched dry plantation fields of the post- Civil War Jim Crow South, out of the moans and groans of the black church Sunday and out of the hard drinking, hard fighting, hard loving, hard partying Saturday night acoustic music (had to, no electricity) night before sobering up for those Sunday church groans. And while it occasionally moved to a respectable dance hall or movie house concert hall (segregated, no questions asked) before the age of radio that is where it developed kind of helter-skelter. This Before The Blues compilation reflects all of those trends from Rube Lacy’s Mississippi Jail House Groan to Mississippi John Hurt’s Stack O’Lee Blues to the Seventh Day Adventist Choir’s On Jordan’s Stormy Banks We Stand. So the next time you hear the Stones’ covering Wolf’s Little Red Rooster or Mississippi Fred McDowell’s Got To Move you know where it came from.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
The "Jelly Roll Baker" Is In The House- The Blues Of Lonnie Johnson
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Lonnie Johnson Doing "Got The Blues For Murder Only".
CD REVIEW
Steppin’ The Blues, Lonnie Johnson, Columbia Records, 1990.
Parts of the following have been used in a review of Lonnie Johnson Blues and Ballads CD (hereafter B&B).
Okay, Okay those of you who have been keeping tabs know that I have spend much of the last year, when not doing political commentary or book or movie reviews, reviewing many of the old time blues artists that were the passion of my youth (and still are). So this writer, who thought he had heard virtually all the key blues men and women of the old days, got his comeuppance a while back when the name of Lonnie Johnson and his version of the classic double-entendre song “Jelly Roll Baker” came up. To name drop just a little, the occasion was a local reunion of Geoff Muldaur and Jim Kweskin of the old Jim Kweskin Jug Band from the 1960’s (that also included Geoff’s ex-wife and great performer in her own right, Maria Muldaur). They did a stirring rendition of the song and attributed it to the performer under review here. After scratching my head I ran out to get some more of Brother Lonnie’s work and as noted above I have fulsomely praised his B&B CD in this space.
Although this CD has merit musically and certainly has historical worth as a comparison of young Lonnie Johnson in the 1920’s to the later B&B Lonnie this is one time when aging seems to have created a better body of work. A comparison of “I’m Nuts About That Gal” (really an early version of his classic “Jelly Roll Baker”) and the “Jelly Roll Baker” of the B&B make my point succinctly. That said, the noted Johnson guitar work is highlighted on “Guitar Blues”, the novelty sassy song in two parts “Toothache Blues” and “Deep Blue Sea Blues”. That is why you want this album.
CD REVIEW
Steppin’ The Blues, Lonnie Johnson, Columbia Records, 1990.
Parts of the following have been used in a review of Lonnie Johnson Blues and Ballads CD (hereafter B&B).
Okay, Okay those of you who have been keeping tabs know that I have spend much of the last year, when not doing political commentary or book or movie reviews, reviewing many of the old time blues artists that were the passion of my youth (and still are). So this writer, who thought he had heard virtually all the key blues men and women of the old days, got his comeuppance a while back when the name of Lonnie Johnson and his version of the classic double-entendre song “Jelly Roll Baker” came up. To name drop just a little, the occasion was a local reunion of Geoff Muldaur and Jim Kweskin of the old Jim Kweskin Jug Band from the 1960’s (that also included Geoff’s ex-wife and great performer in her own right, Maria Muldaur). They did a stirring rendition of the song and attributed it to the performer under review here. After scratching my head I ran out to get some more of Brother Lonnie’s work and as noted above I have fulsomely praised his B&B CD in this space.
Although this CD has merit musically and certainly has historical worth as a comparison of young Lonnie Johnson in the 1920’s to the later B&B Lonnie this is one time when aging seems to have created a better body of work. A comparison of “I’m Nuts About That Gal” (really an early version of his classic “Jelly Roll Baker”) and the “Jelly Roll Baker” of the B&B make my point succinctly. That said, the noted Johnson guitar work is highlighted on “Guitar Blues”, the novelty sassy song in two parts “Toothache Blues” and “Deep Blue Sea Blues”. That is why you want this album.
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