Blues Talk

I was visiting Chicago last summer with the intention of finding an apartment. I stopped into a bookstore of ill repute and was just looking around – I wound up snaggin The Picture of Dorian Gray simply by virtue of my not having read it previously as opposed to possessing some innate inclination to getting through it. Anyway, at the time, I knew two people in the entire, sprawling town. Somehow, though, I ran into a girlfriend from high school who still lived in another state. She was there on business.

The chance of that meeting was probably pretty slim – I’m bad at math, so I won’t attempt any construction of an equation for it all. But the random happenstance stuff that we all just find odd, over time, has really defined each of us as individuals. Without those chance happenings, I know that my entire life would be different today. Read more

There are only a few blues players that possessed the ability to record over a few decades, maintain a coherent sound and have listeners not be able to guess at the date a track was set to tape. A recording’s fidelity has something to do with that, but Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee were able to perform a unique spread of tracks from the American song book for the better part of the 20^th century and remain vibrant over the decades while doing it. Read more

As any one genre progresses, it’s easy to lose sight of the folks that first helped to solidify the form. Countless players have been lost to time and only the lucky ones resurface later on either as a result of uncovered recordings or just dogged persistence.

Blues players have perhaps suffered the most in light of the genre’s longevity. Of course, the fact that a huge portion of the blues that existed in any worthwhile capacity was set to record prior to the ‘40s. And while that seems reductive since there’s been seventy years of recorded music since that time, what folks do now is update a codified sound.

There are some folks, though, that are so adept at that as to warrant a career renaissance or two. Buddy Guy didn’t ever really go away. He was there alongside some of the greats and went on to inform ‘60s musicians as much as any other performer. Read more

Due to the nature of the recording industry, a huge number of second or third generation blues players didn’t see proper album releases. Of course, their predecessor’s didn’t have anything other then 78s to work with, but at the dawning of long player’s economic viability, some of the players that remained saw work cobbled together and issued as some surreptitious full length. The fact that most of the albums constructed in this manner were culled from various and sundry recording dates didn’t result in too many of the discs becoming more than a piece of history. Surely, some are pillars in the progression of blues, but that might in part be because that’s all we have. Read more

In any discussion of how Elvis supposedly ‘stole’ the blues away from black folks, a reference to Junior Parker’s (bka Herman Parker, Jr.) “Mystery Train” usually pops up.

It’s not debatable that Elvis did cover a wide variety of songs that were recorded by black folks from the south. But what usually gets left out of this entire conversation is the fact that older blues and country songs were pretty frequently covered for inclusion on singer’s singles. The ‘50s was an era that didn’t find too many performers writing, playing and singing their own songs. So while, this little caveat isn’t going to change anyone’s mind, the fact that Junior Parker isn’t as famous as B.B. King is more troublesome than the fact that Elvis recorded one of the harmonica player’s early hits. Read more

The world’s lousy with dirty old men – in literature, they represent some of the most well respected folks, American or otherwise. That’s not all bad, though, considering the fact that a lot of ‘em have gone on to make some good music if not penning novels detailing sexual exploits.

There’re countless blues standards about ‘sugar bowls,’ ‘pussy cat’s’ and the like. Of course, each of those tracks was devised in such a manner as to have some of the listening audience – and whoever was function as a censor at the time - fooled as to what was actually being discussed. It didn’t always work out. But regardless of who got fooled and how, the music wound up being pretty interesting as well as pretty surprising considering the time frame from whence it came. Read more

The convoluted oral history of the blues has as many contradictions as vast insights. Players generally recount the same occurrence in any variety of ways over time with dates and places changing with each telling. And after the first wave of notable performers being rediscovered in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s it seemed that performers no longer possessed the ability to lucidly illuminate their pasts.

Of course, there were exceptions – Mississippi John Hurt was one. But a lesser known and longer living Henry Townsend proved to be an indispensible compendium of information. His life began at the most southern tip of Illinois, but an abusive father eventually pushed Townsend out on the road with the young guitar player eventually winding up on St. Louis after jumping a few trainss.
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Crossroads are a recurring theme in blues based music. Hearing any mention of these cultural landmarkers should immediately summon some imagery relating to an exchange of cash for ethereal goods. But business aside, there’re a great many musical and genre crossroads that resulted in the musical amalgam of the American experience.

A number of folks could be credited with transitioning blues into rock and or roll music. There’s not a single player, though, that deserves sole credit. Slim Harpo, a singer, guitarist and harmonica player, however, belongs amongst the people being discussed in this manner. Read more

What separates this gentleman, Furry Lewis, from the throngs of other pre-WWII players out there? I suppose not too much. His vocals and guitar style are something akin to Mississippi John Hurt, but not exactly. Lewis isn’t less adroit at the six string, just not as exacting in his playing. Hurt was also able to come across as a sweetheart as he sang. Lewis isn’t as gruff as Blind Lemon – or anywhere near that singing approach – but more sits between that and Hurt. Read more

Being a little bit of everything has helped retain the legacy of Big Bill Broonzy. It’s not that he didn’t have a style  that was his own, it’s just that the guitarist was able to absorb so many ideas from so many different places as to arrive at some convoluted, albeit entertaining and all too satisfying amalgam of blues, rags and spirituals. It’s been guessed that Broonzy recorded something like three hundred songs. And even if that number is a bit askew, that many songs were at his disposal seeing as he copyrighted around the same number, although, some of those works were old tyme numbers. Read more