Henry Townsend: Back to Front

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.

During the ‘20s and during the following decades Townsend was privy to meeting everyone from Robert Johnson to Big Joe Williams. Working alongside these pillars of the genre granted the guitarist an insight and history that was eventually mostly lost to time. Again, luckily Townsend lived a long life and churned out as many tall tales as records over time.

Maintaining a recording career for the better part of nine decades is no short order. Townsend managed it, though, and was even able to pick up a proficiency at the piano along the way. Of course, his guitar playing retained a depth and historicity that he wasn’t ever able to replicate on the keys. But picking up a secondary instrument so far along in one’s career is a pretty admirable thing.

One of Townsend’s latter day recordings – Hard Luck Stories – arrives as a confusing set. Apart from the fact that simply judging the cover of the album, one would surmise that the date hails from a few decades back, it in fact was recorded at the beginning of the ‘80s. Granted, the disc can’t any longer be considered new, but it’s far removed from the times when Townsend rambled from town to town looking for gigs.

This particular date is split between the musician’s two instruments. “Heartbroken Man Blues,” performed on an acoustic guitar sounds as vintage as the picture that the disc dons on its cover. Townsend decries heartbreak and figures that riding a train is going to somehow console him. By contrast, the following track, “Baby Boy Blues,” is either performed with an electric guitar or an acoustic with a pick up tossed in the body. The difference isn’t startling, but points to the fact that Townsend sought to create a wide reaching catalog.

A few of the piano tracks don’t work as well. “Cutback Blues” arrives as an unquestionably steadier offering than most of what Skip James turned in on the keys. While the progressions and ideas that are related remain consistent, the tunes delivery leaves a bit to be desired. But again, the fact that Townsend was as prolific as he was and worked out his catalog on a few different instruments excuses him from pretty much any sort of criticism.