Last week we got the Any Woman’s Blues series underway with the music of Sue Foley—electric (in more than one sense of the word) & contemporary, tho with a sense of deep roots. One of the two Foley tunes I picked was her cover of a Precious Bryant tune: “Fool Me Good,” & in introducing the song, Foley spoke highly of Bryant’s musicianship.
But unless you’re a real blues aficionado, you may not be familiar with Precious Bryant & her music. Born in Talbot County, Georgia in 1942, Ms Bryant has been playing guitar since she was nine years old—she started out on ukulele, & her first guitar was a Sears Silvertone—gotta love that. She performed as a teenager, & then again in the 1960s as a married woman, often playing simply for the tips she could collect in her guitar case.
Then she was recorded by folklorist George Mitchell in 1969, which led to some more exposure, tho it wasn’t really until the 1983 Chattahoochee Folk Festival (which Bryant played with Mitchell’s enthusiastic encouragement) that she began pursuing a wider audience—&, field recordings aside, it wasn’t until 2002 that she released her debut album at age 60—this was Fool Me Good on Terminus (which brings us full-circle to last week’s Foley post). Fool Me Good was nominated for two Blues Music Awards, & in 2006 she was nominated for "Traditional Blues Female Artist of the Year," eventually losing out to the great Etta James. She released two more albums in 2005, The Truth on Terminus & My Name is Precious on Music Maker.
Bryant is an acoustic player who uses a fingerstyle form of playing sometimes referred to as Piedmont picking. A number of well-known blues artists have played in this style, which is usually characterized as “lighter” than styles used in Mississippi & Texas, for instance. Among the prominent Piedmont style players are Reverend Gary Davis, Blind Blake, Etta Baker, Elizabeth Cotten & Blind Boy Fuller—quite a line-up, & Precious Bryant’s talent puts her right in the heart of this tradition.
Once again we have two songs: Precious Bryant's cover of the great Memphis Minnie's "Black Rat Swing" from Bryant's Fool Me Good album & a live version of "My Chauffeur." Hope you enjoy the songs!
Greetings, folks! The music continues here on Robert Frost’s Banjo with a brand new series for your listening pleasure.
When we speak about women & the blues, we tend to think of the great vocalists first. After all, the first blues recording stars were women like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith & Ida Cox—it wasn’t until Blind Lemon Jefferson hit the scene that a man achieved similar stardom. But when we think about blues guitarists—& let’s face it, the guitar is the instrument probably most associated with blues (with apologies to piano players, who could make an argument for the 88s)—women tend to get short shrift. If you asked the average blues fan to come up with a list of great guitar players you’d probably see names like Robert Johnson, BB King, Lightnin’ Hopkins & Eric Clapton; if the fan was a devotee of old-time blues you’d probably see the likes of Charlie Patton, Son House & Blind Willie McTell on the list.
But the fact is there are lots of extraordinarily talented blues guitar players who also happen to be women. I’ve often said that I might never have gotten into the blues as a performer were it not for the great Rory Block. Seeing her perform this spring in Montana was a real highlight of 2010, & I can say that both her playing & singing live were every bit as good as expected.
So we’re going to devote our Saturdays for the foreseeable future to featuring some of these great blueswomen. Now, you’d think given my high regard for Rory Block, she should be the lead-off feature. I certainly considered that—& have no fear, she will be featured!—but since I’ve written about Ms Block in the past, I decided I’d start with an artist who hasn’t appeared on this blog before.
& we have a terrific guitar player to get the series underway. Sue Foley hails from Ottawa, Canada. She came to music early, & was already performing & composing by her teens. She left home at age 18 & wound up in Austin, Texas by way of Vancouver & California. In 1992, still in her early 20s, she released her first album, Young Girl Blues on the Antone label (now on the Discovery label), & has followed this with eleven more albums, most recently He Said, She Said in collaboration with Peter Karp.
Ms Foley won the Juno Award in 2000 for best blues album for Love Comin’ Down; she’s also a 14 time winner of the Maple Blues Award & a three time winner of the Trophee de Blues de France. But let’s face it: the proof is in the hearing, & I guarantee Ms Foley won’t disappoint on either of today’s tunes. I’ve got to say: listening to Sue Foley reminds me why I occasionally have a yen for a Fender Telecaster—listen how she makes her Tele sing!
Happy Friday, everybody, & time for another Blues Jukebox. These songs aren’t tied together by any theme, but they all feature some amazing guitar work & vocals—really breathtaking in each case. So, without further ado, let’s get to the music!
Mississippi Fred McDowell:Goin’ Down to the River
Mississippi Fred McDowell is probably the least well-known of the three artists represented in today’s offering, but his powerful slide guitar work is some of the best you’ll hear. McDowell’s playing is interesting in that it has a more modal, droning sound than the “standard” 12-bar blues, which is very much based on the pattern of tonic, subdominant & dominant chord changes. Of course, the more one looks into the old acoustic blues, the more one realizes that the 12-bar pattern was just one of many followed by these artists; &, as I pointed out in one of the Blues Xmas Train posts, McDowell isn’t alone in favoring the drone over the chord change—Robert Wilkins & Howlin’ Wolf (among others) both have one-chord songs built on a modal riff.
But enough music theory—this song is just too good to pass up!
Available on: Mississippi Fred McDowell:Mississippi Fred McDowell (Rounder)
Robert Johnson: Preachin’ Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)
Anyone with a passing knowledge of the early blues knows that Robert Johnson has a reputation as one of the very best guitar players in that style; & among his many fine songs, it would be hard to choose one that outdoes “Preaching Blues” for sheer pyrotechnics. After a brief introductory turnaround, Johnson launches into the sort of slide & shuffle performance that caused many folks, on first hearing his recordings, to believe that two guitarists were playing. Johnson’s singing always is first-rate, but in my opinion, this is one of his very greatest vocal performances.
“Preachin’ Blues” is unquestionably a re-working of Son House’s “Preachin’ the Blues,” but it’s a very thorough re-working both in terms of music & lyrics. House’s song explores the way in which he’s torn between religion & the blues. He sings: “Oh, I'd-a had religion to this every day, but the women whiskey, they would not let me pray.” House also suggests that blues has supplanted organized religion for him: “I'm a-preach these blues, and I, I want everybody to shout.”
Johnson takes this at least one step further—in his case, there’s no explicit comparison between the blues & organized religion—for him, the blues is a supernatural force that’s controlling his life:
“The blues, is a low-down shakin' chill (spoken: Yes, preach 'em now) Mmmmm mmmmm Is a low-down shakin' chill You ain't never had 'em I, hope you never will”
This is further personified in the great opening line: “I was up this mornin', ah, blues walkin' like a man.”
“Preachin’ the Blues” is one of Johnson’s best songs—do check it out!
Available on: Robert Johnson:The Complete Recordings (Sony)
Skip James:I’m So Glad
If you only know “I’m So Glad” thru Cream’s cover version, you must listen to Skip James’ original version. Not only is the original quite different in feel from the Clapton-Bruce-Baker cover, but it’s undoubtedly one of the premier fingerstyle guitar performances by any blues artist. Period. James’ playing on this song will leave you reeling—the fact that his guitar accompaniment provides a backdrop for a brilliantly powerful vocal just makes the song that much more—what’s the right word? Intense—James’ music is always intense & complex & edgy, & this is one of his greatest songs. I can listen to his
Available on: Skip James:The Complete Early Recordings of Skip James (Yazoo)
Pic shows Skip James (with guitar) & Mississippi John Hurt
Happy Friday, folks, & time to kick off a new series that will run for some indefinite period of time on alternate Fridays: the Friday Blues Jukebox!
Over the past few months I’ve been thinking a lot about slide playing—more details on why that’s the case to follow, possibly as early as Monday morning. But because that is the case, I thought I’d dedicate our inaugural Friday Blues Jukebox to some great slide playing. Don’t reach for your change—the quarter is on me!
Blind Willie McTell:Mama, ‘Tain’t Long Fo’ Day
This Blind Willie McTell tune has been a long time favorite. Besides the wonderful lyrics, the unusual sound of a 12-string being played with a slide makes “Mama ‘Tain’t Long Fo’ Day” really stand out. McTell’s main instrument was a 12-string—a reasonable choice for a musician who’s main livelihood was street performing, both because the 12-string has more volume & also because the doubled strings can give something like a “chorus” effect that enhances the “one-man band.” Playing it with a slide is interesting, however, because there are certain slide effects (like playing octave notes with intermediate notes muted) that even make a regular 6-string sound like a 12-string, so using a slide on the doubled strings just heightens that effect.
You can find this tune on: Blind Willie McTell:The Best of Blind Willie McTell (Yazoo), which is pretty essential for those interested in acoustic blues, & also on Rory Block:Gone Woman Blues (Rounder)—as “Daddy, ‘Tain’t Long Fo’ Day.
Bukka White:Aberdeen Mississippi Blues
Eberle isn’t as big a fan of blues as I am, but there are some performers & performances she likes quite well—one such performer is Bukka White, & her reason for liking his music can be summed up in one word: rhythm. White’s guitar playing can unleash some complex rhythms, as is certainly the case in his wild celebration of Aberdeen, Mississippi. There’s an interesting story about this song—guitarist extraordinaire John Fahey, who had a passionate interest in the old acoustic blues, wanted to contact White & wrote him a letter addressed to "Bukka White (Old Blues Singer), c/o General Delivery, Aberdeen, Mississippi." This is similar to the story about revivalists finding Mississippi John Hurt thru his song, “Avalon Blues,” which contains the line “Avalon, my home town,” just as this song contains the line “Aberdeen is my home.” The difference is that White wasn’t living in Aberdeen by the time Fahey wrote the letter; he was working in a factory in Memphis. However, the letter was forwarded to him, & he & Fahey met & became friends. White went on to have a successful second career in the 60s & 70s.
You can find this tune on: Bukka White:Fixin' to Die (Snapper UK)
Rory Block:If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day
Here’s a great way to round out our set for today: the great Rory Block covering a great Robert Johnson song. Block plays some scorching slide guitar here & sings this song with great passion—she has a remarkable capacity for inhabiting a song. Also, as I mentioned with Bukka White, Block is skilled at producing all sort of rhythmic variation on top of a blues song’s basic 4/4 structure.
Johnson’s tune is a re-working of the old Mississippi blues standard “Rollin’ & Tumblin” by medicine-show performer Willie Newbern, but as usual with Johnson, his re-worked material becomes a completely individual statement. Interestingly, this song wasn’t released in Johnson’s lifetime—musician & writer Elijah Wald has theorized that the song, despite Johnson’s new treatment, sounded old fashioned to the Brunswick record label!
You can find this tune on: Rory Block:The Lady and Mr. Johnson (Rykodisc); & of course the great original on: Robert Johnson:The Complete Recordings (Sony), which is an essential blues album.
It’s no secret to readers here that I love the old acoustic blues, & it’s difficult to write about old-time blues—or blues music in general—without discussing slide guitar. I only mess around with slide style at this point, but one of my goals for the winter is to improve my slide technique enough to incorporate it into performance; I also thought it might be fun to share a bit about slide guitar here on Robert Frost’s Banjo.
There are at least a couple of historical threads that led to the phenomenon of slide guitar as we know it now. One was the African-American instrument called the Didley Bow. These were homemade, one-stringed instruments played with the right hand plucking a wire & the left hand sliding a glass or metal object along the wire to change the pitch. Slide guitar also developed, apparently independently, in Hawaii too, as the lap steel guitar (check out our friend & Musical Questions participant Scott Houston here— Scott’s a lap steel player). Tho the lap steel itself isn’t a really common blues instrument, it’s important to blues history because the Hawaiian music fad of the early 20th century had a big effect on all forms of U.S. popular music. When W.C. Handy, composer of “St Louis Blues” first heard a slide guitarist at the Tutwiler, MS train station in 1903, he described it as follows:
A lean loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept... As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars....The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard.
Slides originally were pretty much any handy glass or metal object (because of those materials’ resonant capacities); bone was also used. When glass was used, it typically was the cut off neck of a bottle—hence the term bottleneck slide. In the videos below, no one is playing with a true bottleneck, but Mississippi Fred McDowell is playing with a glass slide. A variation on this is a glass medicine bottle, such as the glass Coricidin bottle used by Duane Allman. Coricidin isn’t available any longer, but replicas are made, & of course, you can buy pre-made glass slides too. Other objects that were commonly used were jackknifes (see the Mance Lipscomb video); pieces of copper tubing (Son House) & socket wrenches (see Rory Block).
The slide doesn’t “fret” the strings in the way that a finger would; it glides over the top of them, & the frets are really superfluous except as position markers. Tho some people play slide style with the guitar in standard tuning, it’s much more common to play with the guitar tuned to an open chord, usually either D major or G major. For non-guitarists there, that means that if you strum all 6 strings with no string being fretted, a major chord will sound—thus as the slide moves up the neck you move from one major chord to another (in standard tuning, the 6 unfretted strings don’t play a common chord). This is handy because it means that the player doesn’t need to use any left hand fingers, & in some styles, it would be virtually impossible to do so—Bukka White, you’ll notice slides the long nail he’s using across all 6-strings constantly, while Mance Lipscomb also never frets any strings in playing his “knife blues.” Mississippi Fred McDowell, Son House & Rory Block, on the other hand, fret a number of notes while playing. All three of these players wear the slide on the ring finger, which leaves the index, middle & (theoretically at least) little fingers available for fretting; some players prefer wearing the slide on the pinky & having the index, middle & ring fingers free to fret strings. Conventional wisdom holds that it’s easier to control the slide when it’s worn on the ring finger, however.
Hope you enjoyed this overview. Now for the real thing: some music from five great slide players! & if you want a bit more slide guitar, check out my post on Ramblin’ Thomas’ version of “Poor Boy Long Ways from Home” (really a completely different song than Bukka White’s) on Just a Song.
I don’t know for sure who first described Joseph Spence as “the folk guitarist's Thelonious Monk”—it may have been Mark A. Humphrey, who wrote the All-Music Guideentry for this Bahamian guitar player. In any case, the phrase seems to pop up regularly on the internet when you're searching for Spence; it has the virtue of not only being catchy, but also descriptive in a helpful way. As such, I’m happy to continue its proliferation right here on Robert Frost’s Banjo.
What are adjectives you could use to describe Monk’s music? Consider these two sentences from Wikipedia’s entry on the great jazz pianist:
His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, and are impossible to separate from Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations. Monk's manner was idiosyncratic. Compare this with the opening of Humphrey’s piece:
Born on the island of Andrus in the Bahamas, Spence created an idiosyncratic (and inimitable) guitar style rife with percussive and improvisatory vamps around staid hymns and such "square" standards as "Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer."
I'd add the adjective "playful" to describe both men's music. One thing I can say with some certainty: if you’ve never heard Joseph Spence, there’s really no one to compare him to, in the sense that you could say, “his guitar playing reminds me of so-&-so” (actually, he has some notable points in common with Costa Rican guitarist Walter Ferguson, but Ferguson is probably more obscure than Spence). In fact, I must tell you that the first time Eberle & I heard him play, we were not only entirely captivated, but also overcome with fits of hysterical laughter, especially during his unforgettable rendition of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Despite the laughter, we were completely convinced that we were listening to an incredible musician; the laughter came from delight combined with a sense of how foreign this was to our conception of exceptional musical performance.
Unlike other guitarists featured in this series, Spence is not a blues player; in fact, he claimed that even after being exposed to the form while working as a stonemason in the U.S. during the 30s, the blues never “grafted to my head.” His repertoire was in fact extremely eclectic & as idiosyncratic as his playing & singing. He sang old standards (see “Coming In On a Wing & a Prayer”); Bahamian folk songs (see “Good Morning Mr Walker”) & even the occasional calypso (“Jump in the Line” is an epic guitar tune when played by Spence!) in addition to lots of hymns, children’s songs &, in essence, whatever struck his fancy (including an unforgettable rendition of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” which you can find on YouTube—& which I expect to post during the upcoming holiday season). Spence played almost exclusively in what’s commonly known as “drop D” tuning—this means simply that the lowest sounding string on the guitar isn’t tuned to an E as in standard tuning, but down to a D; & it also should be noted that his guitar is "out of tune" by common standards. But as Jack Viertel points out in his liner notes to Good Morning Mr Walker, “There is no sloppiness in this. He tunes very precisely by playing the same figures over & over until he is satisfied, & the guitar is always tuned to the same pitches.”
Spence’s guitar playing involves complex improvisations & a whole lot of counterpoint; "chords" per se are less important than "voices." In this regard, Spence is especially renowned for his bass runs. When Ry Cooder was asked about the origins of his own playing, he said:
It all started with Joseph Spence when I was a little kid. He was one of my all-time great inspirations. When he did those bass runs, I didn’t understand it. I was so mad all the time.
A lot of guitar players—myself included—have been inspired by Spence’s playing; Taj Mahal & John Renbourn are two other well-known players who, like Cooder, acknowledge Spence’s influence. Guitarists who'd like to see what this looks like "on paper" can check out Happy Traum's excellent book of transcriptions Traditional & Contemporary Fingerpicking Styles for Guitar (Oak Publications). The book contains a transcription of "There Will Be a Happy Meeting" from Music of the Bahamas, vol. 1 (Folkways-Smithsonian). I'd also agree with traum's statement that Spence's recordings are "essential listening for anyone interested in fingerstyle guitar." Although Spence's playing as an entire package is pretty much inimitable, you can learn a whole lot about what's possible on the instrument.
Spence’s playing has another unique feature, & that’s his voice. You may notice that on Arhoolie’s Good Morning Mr Walker Spence is credited with “guitar & vocal sounds.” What Spence does isn’t singing as we commonly understand the term. Viertel said, “His voice, also inimitable, is used as a secondary instrument more than as a means of communicating words. It provides a solid, if somewhat gravelly, base for the guitar’s fluid lines to play off of.” In fact, Spence often forgot the words to songs & would simply vocalize syllables like “la dee dee” over the guitar’s flurry of notes.
Spence was first recorded by Sam Charters for Folkways in 1958, & he toured in the U.S. in the 1970s. Like Reverend Gary Davis, Elizabeth Cotton & Son House (& many many others) he was a “discovery” of the folk movement. Of course, all of these folks had been making music right along—the “discoveries" were akin to Columbus’ discovery of the Americas: it’s not like they suddenly appeared out of thin air. Spence worked his entire life as a stonemason, but was still a guitarist of the very highest order in his later years.
If you’re looking for an introduction to Spence’s music, you might consider Living on the Hallelujah Side (Rounder), Arhoolie’s Bahamian Guitarist: Good Morning Mr Walker, The Spring of Sixty-Five (Rounder Select) or the out-of-distribution but still available Complete Folkways Recordings, which are the nine tracks issued from Charters’ 1958 recordings.
Hope you enjoy listening to this truly unique & inspiring musician!
Generally speaking, I’m a “roots” kind of guy—I like the old-time performers playing the old-time music. But I’m not fastidious about this—hey, I mean I play Robert Johnson songs on the banjo, so it’s not like I’m against trying new things! & somewhat in that vein, there’s a contemporary blues artist who’s really really worth checking out—she’s been on the scene for years, but has stuck to the music she loves & isn’t as well known as she should be. That’s Rory Block.
This isn’t to say Ms Block's career has gone without accolades—she has won the W.C. Handy Award (now known as the Blues Music Award) five times, has appeared on Austin City Limits, Prairie Home Companion, Mountain Soundstage, has toured worldwide, & has recorded about 20 albums dating back to the mid 70s. She’s won her share of well-deserved praise: consider this from The New York Times:
"Her playing is perfect, her singing otherworldly as she wrestles with ghosts, shadows and legends."
or this from The Boston Phoenix:
"Singing as if every syllable were filled with an explosive charge, she makes traditional blues tunes sound menacing, ecstatic, redemptive, and, most important, as if they were her own."
The blues is—in terms of its bare bones’ form—a simple music: typically (tho not always) based on a very standard three chord progression. On the other hand, blues is the soul of a very complex music—jazz—& that fact should give us a big hint that the form really has almost unlimited potential for expression; to me, that means you have to give of yourself to play the blues—you have to make it your own, not merely thru technique (tho that’s important of course), but also thru heart or passion.
Folks often write about Rory Block as someone who preserves the old blues traditions, & that is unquestionably true. But the notion of Ms Block as a “mere” preservationist seems to miss what’s most important about her music, whether she’s playing a Robert Johnson tune or one of her own compositions, & that’s the fact that her music is dynamic & vital, & played with an almost ferocious passion. Rory Block came to the blues in a really traditional manner, learning firsthand from such masters as Reverend Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Son House & Skip James.
But even learning from such truly great players can only take a person so far—the extra has to come from within, & if that spark isn’t there, no amount of learning or technique can bring it out. Block has this spark, & combines it with killer guitar playing & truly amazing singing—just check out (for instance) her version of Robert Johnson’s “Terraplane Blues” in the video below.
Ms Block continues to tour & record; she released her tribute to Son House last year—it’s called Blues Walkin’ Like a Man (Stony Plain Music), & it’s fantastic (check out her take on “Preachin’ Blues”); House’s music seems to me particularly hard to “cover,” because so much of the music’s greatness comes from his ability to just give himself over completely to the song; but Block can carry this material off because she shares that ability.
If you’re looking for a solid introduction to Rory Block’s music, I’d recommend checking out her 1997 compilation Gone Woman Blues (Rounder). This album draws its material from five earlier albums (all Rounder releases), especially from 1991 Mama’s Blues, 1995 When a Woman Gets the Blues, & 1992 Ain’t I a Woman; there’s also one track each from 1996 Tornado & 1989 High Heeled Blues. The material covers songs by Robert Johnson, Skip James, Charlie Patton et al., as well as a couple of original tunes, including the title track.
Hope you check out this powerful blues artist, & that you enjoy these videos as an introduction to her work.
If blues were an ocean to be distilled to a lake & a pond & ultimately smaller & smaller until eventually it became a drop of water, then that is Son House. Dick Waterman (Son House’s manager)
Dick Waterman’s description of Son House, the man he helped thru an 11-year second career when Son House was already in his 60s, in the throes of chronic alcoholism & suffering from a tremor caused not only by his drinking but also by the onset of dementia, seems to me to be nothing short of the truth. When House erupted into a song, it was like the visceral sound of a freight train when—as my friends & I did sometimes when young—you stand perilously close to the tracks. We use the word “blues” to describe a mood—often as a sort of diminutive for depression; with House, there’s nothing diminutive about it at all—it’s a consuming force, an overwhelming emotion that can shake & rattle the soul the way the strings rattled on his National under the attack of the copper slide he wore on his left ring finger. Slide guitar played on a resonator guitar is always in potential a journey into some mythic territory beyond the confines of what conventional, “Spanish” playing can bring out of the instrument—in the case of Son House, his National sounds like a whole other instrument, driven by an attack that’s built from an emotional fury. This may sound like hyperbole—it’s not. Just check out the man in any of the vidclips below—but you could start with “Downhearted Blues” (which is similar to his song “How to Treat a Man”).
Son House was born in Mississippi in 1902. His father was a musician, but House wanted to be a Baptist preacher & took up this vocation while still in his teens. He sang in church, but he didn’t play guitar—an instrument that wasn’t considered very appropriate for a religious man due to its connection with the blues—until he was in his 20s. That’s when Son began a journey that veered between two very different poles: his religious fervor & his equal fervor for the blues & the life that seemed to entail. As a result, his music ranges from a kind of raw desolation—see the second vidclip below for “Death Letter Blues,” about the most unsettlingly grim blue songs I know—to an almost hopeful religiosity. On his Delta Blues & Spirituals album (a live recording on Capitol—out of distribution, but not unavailable) when House talks about “THE BLUES,” he says, “You can sing the blues in church if you use the words right.” Yet there’s a sense in his music that, as much as he attempted to reconcile these two passions, the relationship between them was always dynamic, at least; as he sings in “Preaching the Blues”: “Oh in my room I bowed down to pray/Say the blues came ‘long & they drove my spirit away.” You can hear Son House singing “Preaching the Blues” in the third vidclip.
Son House was friends with some of the greatest bluesmen, all hailing from the Mississippi Delta: he played with Charlie Patton & Willie Brown (even casual blues fans will recognize Willie Brown from the final stanza of Robert Johnson’s “Crossroad Blues”: "You can run, you can run, tell my friend-boy Willie Brown/Lord, that I'm standin' at the crossroad, babe, I believe I'm sinkin' down”). In fact Robert Johnson played harmonica with Willie Brown & Son House, & learned much from them, especially from House. Son House also knew the young Muddy Waters, who described House as “my idol.”
I try to ground these essays in each guitarist’s real musicianship—so what three adjectives might I use to describe Son House’s playing? “Rhythmic,” without question—not just the propulsiveness & percussiveness of his playing, which are remarkable in themselves, but the intricacy of the rhythmic variation; “Passionate,” certainly—his guitar work & his voice both are expressive of powerful emotion, tho it’s also worth noting that House had a pretty keen sense of dynamics—as much as the overall effect of his music is full-bore playing & singing, he knew the power of holding back, getting quiet & getting spare; & “organic”—in the sense that his guitar part is built solidly within the framework that the song allows, without involving either stale clichés on the one hand or mere flash on the other—for all their thunder! Son House also had an uncanny sense of how to best accompany his voice with the slide guitar—driving the vocal forward or giving it an aching poignancy or eerie desperation.
House typically played National Duolian single cone resonator guitars (actually, a bit of a bargain model at the time: they were $32.50 new in the 30s—needless to say, these guitars have appreciated significantly, even accounting for inflation. As I mentioned earlier, he typically played with a slide, & this was usually a section of copper tubing that he wore on the ring finger (slides are practically always worn on either the ring finger or little finger & there are advantages & disadvantages to both). He kept his guitar tuned to an open G most of the time (meaning the strings sounded together make a G major chord; standard guitar tuning doesn’t produce any commonly recognized chord on the six open strings). Such open tunings really facilitate slide playing.
Fortunately, there are some good recordings of Son House: The Complete Library of Congress Sessions 1941-1942 (Travelin’ Man label) showcase House when he was still relatively young (there are even earlier recordings, from a 1930 session in Wisconsin which House traveled to with Patton & Brown—all three men were recorded); another good choice is Sony’s Original Delta Blues.
& hope you enjoy the intro provided by these YouTube clips!
If one is inclined to read books or visit a number of websites, or even talk to a number of musicians, one might come away with the impression that traditional music is dictated by a number of very strict rules—for instance, if you’re going to play blues you need to do it in such-&-such a style on such-&-such a guitar, & you should be able to reproduce certain licks as emblematic of the style. Now, I’ve learned a fair amount from music books & websites, & a whole heckuva lot from other musicians, but I’ve come to realize that these rules only go so far. While it’s unquestionably important to study the good ones who’ve come before, at a certain point you need to dive in & play it the way you hear & “feel” it—& by “feel,” I mean emotionally, of course, but also tactilely—because the physical act of playing an instrument is a combination of hearing & touch.
The majority of us spend some time trying to figure out how to play things “the right way” before we realize that we actually have gained enough skills along the way to play the songs we love the way we hear & feel them. The results may not be as spectacular as the results of the justifiably renowned traditional musicians, but they will have that “certain je ne sais quoi” that comes from actually interacting with a piece of music.
Some musicians, however, rapidly develop a unique style, & one of these was the great folk/blues fingerstyle guitar player, Elizabeth Cotten. Ms. Cotten was left-handed, & when she was young she picked up a guitar in the way that seemed natural to her—namely, what would be considered upside-down & backwards. These days, they make left-handed guitars (tho depending on the degree of left-handedness, a number of left-handed folks also play “as if” they were right-handed), Elizabeth Cotten came to the guitar after learning the banjo at age seven (she learned on her older brother’s banjo); again, she played the banjo “upside-down & backwards.”
Now a banjo has a quirk in that the string that would be typically played with the thumb by a right-handed person is a high-pitched drone. It’s also true that in a number of old-time banjo styles the thumb plays a good deal of the melody. So in that sense, Elizabeth’s approach to the banjo was slightly less novel. But when she started to play the guitar, she came up with the odd technique of playing the bass strings with her index finger & the treble strings with her thumb—exactly the opposite of how the instrument is typically played.
Despite or because of her unusual playing technique, Elizabeth Cotten grew to be a masterful guitar player. She also was a precocious composer—Cotten wrote her best-known song, “Freight Train,” as a young teenager, not long after she’d scraped together enough money to buy a Stella guitar (an inexpensive model of the time). The song has become a real “standard” of fingerstyle guitar, & has been covered by everybody from Peter, Paul & Mary to Chet Atkins. You can hear Elizabeth Cotten playing & singing the song in the first video clip below.
Cotten made her living mostly as a maid, & apparently didn’t pursue music in any “serious” way. In fact, by the time she moved to the Washington, D.C. area she’d mostly put the guitar aside, except for playing occasionally at church.
Cotten was working in a department store one day when a young girl became lost. Elizabeth Cotten helped the child, who was Penny Seeger—yes, of that Seeger family. The upshot was that Cotten became the Seeger’s maid, & at a certain point young Mike Seeger discovered that Elizabeth Cotten could not only play the guitar but could really play the guitar. He began taping her performances on reel-to-reel tapes, & these were later issued by Folkways Records.
Elizabeth Cotten, now in her 60s, became a fixture at folk festivals from the 1960s almost until her death at age 92 in 1987—in fact, she won a Grammy Award for best traditional album in 1985 (for her Live! on Arhoolie). She continued to write songs, too: her wonderful song “Shake Sugaree” was written in the 1960s, & was recorded with Elizabeth playing guitar & her 14-year-old granddaughter, Brenda Evans, singing. You can hear this lovely tune in the second video clip below.
Elizabeth Cotten was a true musical wonder. Her guitar playing was impeccable. Tho her voice had lost something to age by the time Seeger began recording her, her instrumental technique remained formidable. As evidence: check out her version of the classic fingerstyle piece “Vestapol” in the final clip.
So next time someone says, “You can’t do it that way,” think of Elizabeth Cotten!
Any number of truly great musicians were “discovered” during the folk revival that took place in the States from the 40s thru the 60s. Of course, all of them had been out there making music for some time, many of them since the 1920s or even earlier—but they hadn’t been known to the largely white, college-type listening audience that was opened up during the revival. Of all these fantastic musicians, it would be hard to say that any were better (or had a wider influence) than Reverend Gary Davis.
Reverend Gary Davis was a street performer first & foremost—he began his career at an early age in his native South Carolina, playing everything from Sousa marches to ragtime to blues & gospel. Davis moved to Durham, North Carolina in the ‘20s, where he continued to perform on the streets—in Durham, he met the renowned Blind Boy Fuller. As Paul Anderson pointed out in Contemporary Musicians:
Music was often the only occupation available to these [blind] men & their ranks boasted such legendary figures as Blind Lemon Jefferson from Texas, Blind Eubie Blake, Georgia's Blind Willie McTell & Louisiana's Blind Willie Johnson. From the necessity of playing on the street came a style that was forceful and clear, with crowd-pleasing melodies around which the singer invented showy guitar riffs.
Forceful is certainly one way to describe Davis’ musical style, especially his singing—in fact, “forceful” might even be a bit of an under-statement. When singing gospel tunes like “Pure Religion” or “Samson & Delilah,” Davis’ voice carries the dynamic force of an impassioned preacher. As far as “showy riffs”—Davis’ guitar playing was virtuosic; in that sense, the riffs aren’t "showy"—they’re perfectly conceived. Davis playing is among the clearest examples of the call & response type of blues or gospel playing—Davis often exhorted his guitar to “do your talk” as he finished singing a verse or a line. In doing this, Davis would play syncopated counter melodies & improvisations on the treble strings, while all the time keeping a powerful beat going with his thumb on the bass strings. This is the essence of what’s now called “Piedmont blues”—a style born of ragtime & a way of imitating banjo frailing on the guitar. The old-time practitioners—like Davis—often used just the thumb & the index finger to alternate between bass & melody or counter melody—those of us who are mere guitar mortals tend to add in the middle finger & occasionally the ring finger as well. The thumb is crucial because it keeps the rhythm—apparently one of the greatest compliments Reverend Gary Davis would pay a guitarist would be to say, “He has a sporting thumb.”
When the casual listener thinks of blues, he/she probably doesn’t think of the Piedmont style—the more familiar form of the blues came out of the Mississippi Delta, thru Chicago, & later morphed into rock & roll. Piedmont blues is based on syncopation as opposed to the backbeat. Still, this style has had a profound effect on a number of well-known musicians, & Davis played a big role in handing the tradition down. After his “re-discovery”—by this time he was living in Harlem & was an ordained minister, but still essentially a street musician—he set up shop as a teacher, tho his sessions sound rather like a cross between a party & a sermon; according to Anderson, “Davis's guitar lessons at his house were often accompanied by food & drink; invariably, they contained pungent advice on many different subjects, especially religion.”
Davis’ students included such accomplished musicians as Dave Van Ronk, Stefan Grossman, Jorma Kaukonen, Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder. Taj Mahal said of him: "Gary Davis took you out of playing baby guitar and made you play it like a grown man."
I particularly like this quote—you most certainly need to be a “grown-up” guitar player to even think of managing a number of Reverend Gary Davis’ techniques. But even if we’re not up to Davis’ virtuosic playing, we can learn a lot about music from him—for instance, we can learn the equivalent of volumes about the call & response technique; & we can learn to play & sing from the heart, because Davis most certainly did this, for all the mastery he had in his hands.
If you’re looking for an introduction to Reverend Gary Davis’ music, you can’t go wrong with Prestige/Bluesville’s Harlem Street Singer. This is all gospel music, so if you want to hear some of his well-known secular tunes like “Candy Man” or “Cocaine Blues” or “Baby, Let Me Lay It On You,” try Shanachie’s Reverend Gary Davis: Blues & Ragtime.
& stick around here & check out this great musician in the vidclips below, or stop by Just a Song, where I’ll be posting today about the Reverend Gary Davis’ harrowing masterpiece, “Death Don’t Have No Mercy.”
As a music lover—even one who enjoys playing music more than going to shows—there are always a few performers you wished you’d seen before they shuffled off this mortal coil. For me, there are two in particular who fall into this category: Townes Van Zandt & Dave Van Ronk (odd that their cds stand next to each other on my more-or-less alphabetized shelves). I’ll always be jealous of good pal Dani Leone, who saw Townes at the amazingly intimate Spikes in Baghdad by the Bay, & I’ll always regret that evening sometime in the mid 90s when I knew Van Ronk was performing at the Freight & Salvage in Beserkley, but had something else I needed to do (forget what now….)
A classic description of Van Ronk comes from music critic Robert Shelton: “[Van Ronk was] the musical mayor of MacDougal Street, a tall, garrulous hairy man of three quarters, or, more accurately, three fifths Irish descent. Topped by light brownish hair and a leonine beard, which he smoothed down several times a minute, he resembled an unmade bed strewn with books, record jackets, pipes, empty whiskey bottles, lines from obscure poets, finger picks, and broken guitar strings. He was Bob (Dylan's) first New York guru. Van Ronk was a walking museum of the blues. Through an early interest in jazz, he had gravitated toward black music— its jazz pole, its jug-band and ragtime center, its blues bedrock..... his manner was rough and testy, disguising a warm, sensitive core. Van Ronk retold the blues intimately.... for a time, his most dedicated follower was Dylan." (copied from the Van Ronk Wikipedia page).It’s always been interesting to me that although Van Ronk made his reputation in blues & folk, he claimed to consider himself “a jazz singer manqué.” In fact, Elijah Wald (who collaborated with Van Ronk on the singer’s memoir, Mayor of McDougal Street) claims that Van Ronk owed more of his vocal style (in terms of phrasing & interpretation) to singers like Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday & Bing Crosby. Wald’s article is really worth a read, & can be found here.Of course, it’s wrong to pigeonhole Van Ronk as "just a bluesman," because for all the wonderful interpretations he was able to put on songs ranging from “That’ll Never Happen No More” & “Cocaine Blues,” to “Statesboro Blues” & “St. James Infirmary,” his recording catalog includes songs by Joni Mitchell, Brecht-Weill, Hoagy Carmichael, Gershwin, a setting of a W.B. Yeats poem, & some wonderful original compositions, both vocal & instrumental. Later in his career he put out two albums that brought him back to the “old standards” of the Great American Songbook. These two albums, Hummin’ to Myself & Sweet & Lowdown are fine collections (some highlights: “Hong Kong Blues,” “Some of the Days,” “Comes Love,” & “Sweet Georgia Brown”). Although Van Ronk’s voice wasn’t as strong late in life, he could still get inside a song.But those who are looking to find out about Van Ronk might look at other albums. There’s a very complete Van Ronk discography here; if I were to be so bold as to offer a few suggestions, I’d mention the Chrestomathy compilation put out by Gazell—this has the virtue of showcasing lots of aspects of Van Ronk’s career. Another solid choice would be Inside Dave Van Ronk on Prestige, which focuses more on his folk & folk blues recordings. I’m also very fond of his Live at Sir George Williams University album, which showcases several musical styles, as well as his humor—after singing “St. James Infirmary,” Van Ronk notes that “Death is nature’s way of getting us to slow down.”Last.fm has a good selection of Van Ronk here; & finally at the bottom of this post there’s a video of Dave Van Ronk performing Furry Lewis’ “Stackerlee’: the performance is prefaced by an interview with Van Ronk, & the playing starts around 2:26.
However you do it, please give a listen to this wonderful musician & genuine U.S. renaissance man.
