11 posts tagged “guitar”
John is a local musician and one of my guitar teachers. He's a nice fellow too. He just wrote to tell me he founded yet another band, this time a classic country string band in the vein of the Three Stripped Gears or Gid Tanner's Skillet Lickers. Here's John's web site, please stop by!
The above tune is John's cover of a number by Charley Jordan, a superlative fingerpicker himself.
At his darkest, Nehemiah "Skip" James makes Robert Johnson sound like a member of the Optimist Club, and "Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues" is the quintessential "been down so long it looks like up to me" blues. James deeply influenced the young Robert Johnson and many other bluesmen, and went on to likewise inspire British musicians like Eric Clapton, whose band Cream covered James' "I'm so Glad." This tune was played by Chris Thomas King in his role as Tommy Johnson in O Brother, Where Art Thou. While I recommend all the musicians that I've mentioned here this week, I stress picking up this collection of James' 1930 recordings. No collection should be without it.
Hard time here and everywhere you go
Times is harder than ever been before
And the people are driftin' from door to door
Can't find no heaven, I don't care where they go
Hear me tell you people, just before I go
These hard times will kill you just dry
long so
Well, you hear me singin' my lonesome song
These hard times can last us so very long
If I ever get off this killin'
floor
I'll never get down this low no more
No-no, no-no, I'll never get down this low no more
And you say you had money, you better be sure
'Cause these hard times will drive you from door to door
Sing this song and I ain't gonna sing no more
Sing this song and I ain't gonna sing no more
These hard times will drive you from door to door
Recording a number of sides between 1927 and 1930 under his own name as well under the pseudonyms of Barefoot Bill and Sluefoot Joe, Ed Bell is not as mysterious as some bluesmen and women, but his story has an element of weirdness to it. In fact, "weird" is the way Bell's guitar was described in promotional materials, referring to his use of riffs and chime-like playing style--almost bell-like, no pun intended. While not as creepy or doom-ridden as Robert Johnson's "Hellhound on My Trail" or Skip James' "Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues," Bell's "Mamlish Blues" sounds a little removed from our reality. Bell lived until the 60s, but folks that knew him were divided between remembering if he was murdered during a civil rights march or if he simply died outside his home from a cerebral hemorrhage. Adding to the mystery is the fact that no one is quite sure what the hell "mamlish" means. Who cares? He was a great guitarist and it's a fantastic song.
Not really a blues, but string bands were the antecedents of blues, jazz, country, and ragtime, so shoehorning them into the blues tradition isn't that hard. The Three Stripped Gears are another mystery group, with the curious distinction of having names (R. W. Durden on mandolin, and Cliff Vaughn and Marion Brown on guitars... we probably know this because of surviving company records from their label, the Okeh recording company), and the state of Georgia as a likely point of origin, but, again, no real way to discern who they were or whether they were black or white. The Three Stripped Gears were a sharp group of musicians. their playing is crisp and tight throughout the four sides (so far, that's all that's been found) they recorded.
Bayless Rose is far more mysterious than Geechie Wiley, if that can be believed. While having one more side than Ms. Wiley in his oeuvre, nothing more is known about the man, not even if he was black or white! If anything, Rose's work shows the inanity of designating music of his time period as being either "black" or "white"; country or blues. "Jamestown Exhibition" shares as much with the (white) Frank Hutchinson's bluesy slide guitar as it does with the (black) Mississippi John Hurt's "countrified" picking.
Tommy Johnson was the original claimant to the legend of the bluesman who went down to the crossroads to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to play the blues. Perhaps the appellation stuck more to Robert Johnson (who, apparently, never made such a claim himself) because, despite Tommy Johnson's unearthly falsetto and occasionally alien-sounding guitar work, his subject matter had less to do with Satan, hellhounds, and Judgment Day, and more to do with the usual tropes of bad hootch, life on the road, loose women, and so on. Little matter: Tommy Johnson was a bluesmen of the first stripe. Also, unlike growling, shouting, and hollering bluesmen like Charley Patton and Son House (whose power was one of their great strengths, of course), Johnson had a sweet voice.
"Cool Drink of Water Blues" is a nice, languid piece, best suited for a hot day. It's less spooky than the other songs I've posted, but no less mysterious sounding. it's worth pointing out that the blues character encountered in O Brother, Where Art Thou is named Tommy Johnson, but shares Robert Johnson's soul-selling story. It's likely he's an homage to both bluesmen (though, interestingly, he plays a Skip James tune by the campfire). The lyrics follow.
I asked her for water, and she gave me gasoline
Man, that's the evilest woman, that I ever seen
Cryin' Lawd, now mama, will I ever get back home?
Lawd, Lawdy Lawd
I went to the depot, looked up on the board
I looked all over, "How long has this eastbound train been gone?"
"It's done taken your faror, blowed its smoke on you"
Lawd, Lawdy, Lawd
I asked the conductor, "Can I ride the blinds?"
(Want to know, can a broke man ride the blinds?)
"Son, buy your ticket, this train ain't none of mine"
Bonus: Here's Geechie Wiley's "Last Kind Word Blues."
Geechie Wiley might be familiar to viewers of Terry Zwigoff's film Crumb. She sings the terribly disturbing "Last Kind Word Blues," which is played over a freakish gallery of cartoonist Robert Crumb's artwork midpoint in the film. While not directly referring to that song, Crumb provides the perfect description of Ms. Wiley's blues as "apocalyptic." While much is made of the mysterious nature and histories of bluesmen like Robert Jonhson, the truth is Wiley is a far more vexingly obscure and spooky figure. Three photos of Johnson exist, he recorded over 29 sides, and interviews were conducted with many of his contemporaries which provided some background on the man. Wiley, on the other hand, left no photos, recorded only three sides, and most of her contemporaries either never heard of her or remembered little about her. It's a shame, because she was as adept as most of her male blues counterparts, switching between the dirge-like "Last Kind Word Blues" and the lively picking of "Pick Poor Robin Clean," which somehow makes the song even stranger, with lyrics like
I picked poor Robin clean, I picked poor Robin clean
I picked his head, I picked his feet, I woulda picked a spider but he wasn't fit to eat
