"One of the hottest young guitar players on the blues scene at present has to be JW-Jones - Jones, whose full name is Joshua Bogart Wynne-Jones - especially when it comes to playing swing and jump blues. JW has a feel for this music like no other guitarist his age. A couple years ago he released his internationally acclaimed debut album, Defibrillatin’ which won hearts around the world.

This is their second album, Bogart’s Bounce.

The album starts off with an instrumental called Flatline that has JW and company in overdrive, and if this dosen’t get you up and dancing then the next few tracks, Jump Tonight, Ain’t Soon Enough and Sweet Sugar Mama certainly will. Sweet Sugar Mama features Southside Steve on vocals. The pace of the album cools off a little with a gem called Time To Move On featuring guest vocalist Kim Wilson from the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Other guests include Gene Taylor on piano, Tortoise Blue on Hammond organ and Roxanne Potvin on vocals. All up, Bogart’s Bounce has fourteen fantastic original tracks that’ll have you shakin’ and movin’ the whole way from start to finish.

http://lix.in/4886d3ad

Jump Baby

Posted by Joski at 5:52 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: JW Jones Blues Band

Super Blues Diva Miss Kane has surrounded herself on this album with some Super guitar blues heroes: Bob Margolin, Junior Watson, Dave Alvin, Sue Foley, Jeff Ross, Kid Ramos, Ana Popovic Bob Brozman and Popa Chubby. Despite all these great names her own band is as steady as a rock. Her son Evan on Drums, Heine Andersen on Guitars and the inimitable Bill Stuve on Bass. Other guest musicians are her oldest son Tommy Yearsley II and Billy Watson on Harmonica.

Guitared and Feathered turns out to be a very good, varied album.

With music you will expect from Miss Kane but also some really surprising tracks. For instance: "I'm Gonna Cry Today" with Jeff Ross playing a Del Arte guitar in a way Django would do it!
Kid Ramos on acoustic guitar is a real treat!!! So is Bob Margolin. Hey.. everybody has a wonderful part in this album, led by Miss Kane with her powerful voice, filled with emotion.
And "Hats Off" to Mr. Bob Margolin for a perfect production.

For you JT

http://lix.in/9b23927f

Enjoy life, brother

Posted by Joski at 5:38 PM | 2 comments  
Labels: Candye Cane

"There should be music in all our lives. It would take away much of the grimness and sorrow, and to those of us who have been gifted with that greatest of all gifts, the singing voice, comes the great duty of giving what joy our voices may bring to those less fortunate."

Born Marion Try Slaughter, he derived his professional name from a couple of Texas towns where he worked as a cattle-puncher in his teens before studying voice at the Dallas Conservatory of Music. By 1910 he was pursuing his career in New York, where he filled roles in opera and operetta productions. His first recording, “Can’t You Heah Me Callin’, Caroline?” (Edison, 1917), revealed his skill with dialect songs and for some years he was busy making records for Edison, Columbia, and other labels, a journeyman studio artist handling every kind of repertoire required by the popular disc market, from “coon song” to Hawaiian.

His 1924 Victor recording of “The Wreck of the Old ’97” coupled with “The Prisoner’s Song” became country music’s first million-seller and redirected the course of his career. Over the next nine years he devoted himself primarily to hillbilly songs, of which he recorded several hundred, routinely cutting the same material for half a dozen or more different companies. Since many of these recordings would then be released on subsidiary labels, a collection of all his distinct issues would run into thousands, though this near-domination of the hillbilly disc market was somewhat masked by an extensive use of pseudonyms such as Al Craver (Columbia), Tobe Little (OKeh), and Jeff Fuller (Vocalion).

A typical Dalhart recording featured a studio violinist, his own harmonica and sometimes Jew’s harp, and the guitar of Carson Robison, Dalhart’s regular partner from 1924 to 1928, who also frequently sang a tenor part and wrote much of his material. They were joined in trio performances by the singer and violinist Adelyne Hood. Though Dalhart drew on minstrel-stage repertoire like “Golden Slippers” and cowboy songs like “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,” which he had learned in his youth in Texas, his richest vein of song was topical compositions such as “The Death of Floyd Collins,” “The John T. Scopes Trial” (about the Dayton, Tennessee, court case over the teaching of evolution), “Little Marian Parker,” “Farm Relief Song,” and other pieces inspired by news stories of the day.

Although Dalhart is regarded by most scholars as peripheral to the stylistic development of country music, his recordings undoubtedly circulated widely in the South and disseminated songs that were taken up by both professional and amateur country performers. He is perhaps more important, however, for conveying a flavour of southern song to audiences unaccustomed to it, without the distractions of bucolic humour or impenetrable accent. As the veteran producer Ralph Peer wrote in Variety in 1955, “Dalhart had the peculiar ability to adapt hillbilly music to suit the taste of the non-hillbilly population...He was a professional substitute for a real hillbilly.” In this respect Dalhart may be seen as a kind of role model for the highly popular folksong collector and singer Bradley Kincaid as well as for more obviously dependent and lesser-known figures such as Frank Luther.

Dalhart’s recording career virtually ended with the Depression—after 1933 there was just one final session for Bluebird in 1939—and by 1942 he was reduced to working as a factory night-watchman. For a few years he offered his services as a voice teacher, though the thousands of recordings that could have furnished his credentials had long passed out of circulation, and the musical idiom to which he had made so singular a contribution had left him far behind.

http://lix.in/68062c8a

Peace

Posted by Joski at 5:24 PM | 2 comments  
Labels: Vernon Dalhart

Country fiddlers have always been plentiful in Texas, but the acknowledged early master was Amarillo's Eck Robertson, who had the self-confidence to persuade a hard-nosed New York Victor Records exec to record him in 1922. His versions of the classic "Sallie Goodin," "Turkey in the Straw," and "Arkansas Traveler" were not only the first Country tunes recorded, but they also set the standard for decades to come.

Born in Delaney, Arkansas, in 1887, Alexander Campbell Robertson came to Amarillo, Texas, with his parents at the age of three. The persistent story that he skinned a family cat to make his first fiddle is probably apocryphal, but he did somehow manage to get expert on the guitar, banjo, and fiddle by the time he left home at the age of 16 to tour with a medicine show in Indian Territory before Oklahoma became a state. With the advent of silent films Robertson played at theaters dressed in Western getup and became known as the Cowboy Fiddler. In June, 1922, after an engagement at an Old Confederate Soldiers reunion in Virginia, Robertson persuaded fellow fiddler and former Confederate soldier Henry Gilliland, 76, to drive to New York City and record, although neither had been invited. Dressed in their reunion finery, Robertson as a cowboy and Gilliland as a soldier in gray, they persuaded the studio to record them practically on the spot.

When Victor released the recording of "Sallie Goodin" and "Arkansas Traveler" in September, 1922, it represented the first commercial Country recording ever. The following spring Robertson promoted his recording on WBAP in Fort Worth, which was also a first. Soon "hillbilly" bands were playing on radio stations from Chicago to Nashville.

Robertson's remoteness from the recording capitals of the industry prevented him from making any further recordings until 1929, by which time the industry was reeling from the stock market crash. Although his local fame was great--he bested the young Bob Wills in many an Old Fiddlers contest--Robertson never built a national career on his "firsts." His moment of glory in his waning years was an appearance in 1964 at UCLA. He died in 1975 in Borger, Texas.

Eck Robertson's musical career spanned eight decades. He was an accomplished musician by the turn of the century and entered the ranks of the professional entertainer by 1910. He was easy with a joke, quick to tell a funny story and confident of his ability as a fiddler. He was never content to simply play the old tunes repetitiously; he always experimented and expanded the boundaries of his musical tradition, but he never strayed too far from the core.

Eck, as evidenced by his repertoire and fiddling style, was firmly established within the larger tradition of late 19th century southern fiddling. Although he helped establish what is today called the "Texas style" of fiddling, his musical heritage and influence extended well beyond the southwest.

This is his legacy

Peace

Posted by Joski at 5:10 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Eck Robertson

This is Fred with his roughed-up bottle neck guitar style and gritty vocals was recorded in 1965 at his Como, Ms. home. This CD contains 11 solo cuts and 11 church songs recorded with his wife Annie Mae.

Released in 1994, Arhoolie's Good Morning Little School Girl combines secular and sacred material from sessions that took place in 1964 and 1965. This portion of the McDowell legacy more or less picks up where the earlier Alan Lomax recordings left off. On most of the spirituals ("Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning," "Get Right Church," "I'm Going Over the Hill," "Amazing Grace," "You Got to Move," "It's a Blessing," and "I Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down"), McDowell's wife Annie Mae McDowell sings with him in a shrill and passionate voice. The other 15 tracks are solo Delta blues rituals of great hypnotic power and depth.

Part I: The Blues
1. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
2. Little Girl, Little Girl, How Old Are You
3. Fred's Rambling Blues
4. Don't Look For Me On A Sunday
5. I Walked All The Way From East St. Louis
6. Red Cross Store Blues
7. Gravel Road Blues
8. Where Were You When The Rooster Crowed 'Fore Day
9. Drop Down Mama
10. I Looked At The Sun
11. Early This Morning (Write Me A Few Of Your Lines)

Part II: Church Songs
12. Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning
13. Get Right Church
14. I'm Going Over The Hill
15. Amazing Grace
16. I Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down
17. You Gotta Move
18. It's A Blessing
19. Bye And Bye
20. I'm So Glad, Got Good Religion
21. Look Way Down That Lonesome Road
22. When The Saints Go Marching In

http://lix.in/2ec7a400

Love

Posted by Joski at 5:00 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Mississippi Fred McDowell

His first electric album is full of the raw and desolate country blues that made Mississippi Fred as famous as the Mississippi River is wide. Whether he played with slides made from bottle necks, or the apocryphal steakbone, Fred's brand of Delta blues was delivered with a solid confidence and an honesty that cuts right into your soul.

Fred taught the blues to a generation of rockers; Bonnie Raitt learned slide guitar from him and The Rolling Stones copped "You Got To Move" directly from his original.

"I was just a young man when I started playing guitar. In my teens, I was. I used to go to dances. I used to sing to the music whilst others was playing. When they'd quit, I'd always grab the guitar, go to doing something with it. I was watching them pretty close to see what they were doing. My older sister-- I nearly forgot-- played a little guitar, but she didn't teach me anything. I didn't get a guitar of mine until 1941. When I was learning, when I was young, I was playing other people's guitars...The way I got my first guitar-- Mr. Taylor, a white man from Texas, he gave me a guitar. I was working in a milk dairy in White Station, near Memphis. This was right before I'd moved to Mississippi. I wasn't making money from music. Just playing around for dances and like that...

"I learned a lot from one fellow, Raymond Payne, in Rossville. He was really good. Played regular style, not bottleneck. I got that bottleneck style from my uncle. He was an old man, the first person I ever saw play with that. He didn't play with a bottleneck, though. You know this big bone you get out of a steak? Well, he done let it dry and smoothed it off and it sounded just like that bottleneck. That's the first somebody I saw play like that. This was in Rossville. I was a little bitty boy when I heard him do that, and after I learned how to play I made me one and tried it too. Started off playing with a pocketknife. I just remembered him doing it. He didn't show me. Nothing. I never could hardly learn no music by nobody trying to show me. Like, I hear you play tonight. Well, next week sometime it would come to me... what you was playing. I'd get the sound of it in my head, then I'd do it my way from what I remembered...

"I made up a lot of the songs I sing. It's like you hear a record or something or other. Well, you pick out some words out of that record that you like. You sing that and add something else onto it. It's just like if you're going to pray, and mean it, things will be in your mind. As fast as you get one word out, something else will come in there. Songs should tell the truth... When I play-- if you pay attention, what I sing the guitar sings, too. And what the guitar say, I say."

http://lix.in/5c2e972e

Peace

Posted by Joski at 4:58 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Mississippi Fred McDowell

Peggy Seeger is considered by many to be the female folksinger, responsible for the continuous upswing of folk music popularity. It is a fitting title, considering Peggy was living and breathing folk music since before she was born. Brought into musical history by Roberta Flack in the late 1970s, "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," one of the most stirring love ballads was penned in Seeger's honor, by the late Scottish songwriter/folk singer, Ewan MacColl.

The half-sister of Pete Seeger and the widow of Ewan MacColl, singer/songwriter Peggy Seeger continued her family's long history of championing and preserving traditional music, most notably emerging as a seminal figure in the British folk song revival of the 1960s.

Born June 17, 1935, in New York City, her mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger, was herself an influential composer and folklorist, as well as the first woman ever awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship Award for Music, while her father, Charles Louis Seeger, was a pioneering ethnomusicologist and the inventor of the melograph, an electronic musical notation instrument. Raised in the company of brothers Pete (widely hailed as the father of the American folk revival of the postwar era) and Mike (also a noted recording artist and the leader of the New Lost City Ramblers), Peggy began playing the piano at the age of seven, and within a few years began transcribing pieces of music. In the years to follow she also learned to play guitar, five-string banjo, autoharp, Appalachian dulcimer, and English concertina, later majoring in music at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, MA; there she first began performing professionally.

In 1955, Seeger continued her studies in the Netherlands, later traveling throughout much of Europe and even into Africa; that same year, she issued the Folkways 10" Folksongs of Courting and Complaint”.

Here is that first 10”

http://lix.in/9a703526

In 1959 she settled in London, where she became involved with Ewan MacColl, the famed British musician and playwright. In the decades that followed prior to MacColl 's 1989 death, the couple toured the world singing, lecturing, and preaching the importance of the British folk song tradition, typically emphasizing the connections between roots music and sociopolitical activism.

Over time, Seeger's own original songs adopted an ardently feminist slant; she and MacColl also headed the controversial London Critics Group, producing an annual political theater production titled The Festival of Fools. They also operated and regularly performed at the folk venue the Singers Club and formed their own record label, Blackthorne; most important, however, was their work with BBC producer Charles Parker in developing the radio ballad, a groundbreaking musical documentary form combining field recordings of speech and sound effects with new songs in the folk idiom and complementary instrumental accompaniment.

From the mid-'50s onward, Seeger recorded regularly, cutting both original material and traditional compositions as a solo artist and in collaboration with MacColl and other singers; among her key LPs are 1961's Two-Way Trip, 1973's At the present moment, 1977's Penelope Isn’t waiting anymore, and the oft-released American Folksongs for Children, an assembly of material originally collected by her mother. Seeger's best-known original compositions include "Gonna Be an Engineer," which emerged as an anthem of the women's movement, and "The Ballad of Springhill," penned about the Nova Scotia mining disaster. Seeger also wrote music for a number of films, television programs, and radio plays.

After MacColl’s death, she began working with the traditional Irish singer Irene Scott under the name No Spring Chickens, and together the duo formed a record label, Golden Egg. In late 1994, Seeger moved back to the United States, some four decades after first relocating to the U.K.; a year later, she completed work on the collections The Peggy Seeger Songbook and The essential Ewan MacColl Songbook. In 2003 Seeger released a few albums with her sons and finally a live abum in honour of het 70^th birthday was released in 2007.

Here are her essential recordings for Folkways

http://lix.in/4d6d7e2c

Posted by Joski at 1:47 PM | 4 comments  
Labels: Peggy Seeger

Continuing the journey through American roots music he started in the early 1960's, Jorma cooks up a tasty collection of down-home blues, bluegrass, folk, country gospel and reggae. Stars In My Crown was recorded in Nashville and is rooted in classic Americana, flavoured with a laid-back bluesy feel.

With fresh takes on soul-searching spirituals and many original compositions, the new record is vastly more personal than previous recordings, as evidenced by the self-penned "Heart Temporary," "A Life Well Lived," and "Living In The Moment." The album reveals Kaukonen's increasingly reflective outlook as the success of his Fur Peace Guitar Ranch and his full and varied life of music and family leads him to ask on the liner notes "Who would have thought that life would be this good?"

Jorma's love for Lightnin' Hopkins manifests in "Come Back Baby," and his continued channelling of Reverend Gary Davis is heard in "There's A Table Sitting In Heaven."

Backing Kaukonen are the outstanding talents of Barry Mitterhoff (Hot Tuna), Rob Ickes (Blue Highway), Reese Wynans (Stevie Ray Vaughan's Double Trouble), Tim Stafford (Blue Highway, Alison Krauss), Greg Leisz (Dave Alvin) and Sally Van Meter (Tony Furtado Band).

Specially for you Mr. Catfish….

Simply Beautiful, and “the Preacher picked the guitar” moved me to tears.

http://lix.in/b29ae0e0

http://lix.in/71f3e2f0

Posted by Joski at 4:42 PM | 2 comments  
Labels: Jorma Kaukonen

Posted by Joski at 4:38 PM | 1 comments  
Labels: Jorma Kaukonen

Obscurity is a trait all too common of the early 20th century blues musicians that created the foundation on which rock and roll was built; for every Robert Johnson and Howlin’ Wolf, there are two “Blind” Lemon Jeffersons or Hudy “Leadbelly” Ledbetters. One of those lesser known bluesmen, Reverend Gary Davis, may not be known to many who fail to make a scholarly interest of music’s origins. An early practitioner of the Piedmont blues, Davis renounced the “wicked” brand of music and, in the mid-Thirties, became an ordained minister. Although he gave up the blues, he didn’t give up the guitar, applying his distinctive percussive playing style to gospel music.

Let Us Get Together: A Tribute To Reverend Gary Davis pairs R&B singer Marie Knight with guitarist Larry Campbell. Even though Knight traveled in the same circles as Davis in the late 40s, it’s Campbell, a student of the Piedmont blues, who introduced Davis’ music to Knight. Davis may not be household name but his songs have worked their way into the collective unconscious: Deadhead’s are well familiar with “Samson & Delilah” and the O Brother Where Out Thou soundtrack exposed “I’ll Fly Away” to a whole new audience. A collection of originals and traditional songs associated with Davis, like “12 Gates” and “You Got To Move,” Let Us Get Together focuses on Davis’ inspirational, gospel-style blues, often needing nothing more than Knight’s voice and Campbell’s guitar to convey Davis’ message.

Full of soul and passion, Knight sings Davis’ gospel blues with an intimacy and familiarity that cannot be taught. Her wizened voice evokes the spirit of the chapel without overpowering Campbell’s nimble playing. Let Us Get Together remains predominately upbeat, with the one exception being the foreboding “Death Don’t Have No Mercy” in which Kim Wilson’s mournful harmonica accentuates the gravitas Knight puts into her vocals. Knight and Campbell complement each other nicely, letting the music rather than their own estimable skills remain at the forefront. Fans of Campbell’s work with Phil Lesh & Friends will revel in his dexterous playing on “Samson & Delilah” as well as tracks like “When I Die” where Campbell brings the same country and folk tinged style that makes any Levon Helm Ramble a real treat.

Let Us Get Together does not try to mimic Davis’ music and guitar-style.

http://lix.in/b6626bec

Wonderful

Posted by Joski at 4:08 PM | 2 comments  
Labels: Marie Knight, Reverend Gary Davis

"Man of Constant Sorrow" is a traditional American folk song written originally by Dick Burnett, a blind fiddler from Kentucky. The song was originally recorded by Dick Burnett as "Farewell Song" printed in a Richard Burnett songbook, c. 1913.

An early version was recorded by Emry Arthur in 1928 (Vocalion Vo 5208). In fact, the best-known period version of "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow" was Emry Arthur's 1928 recording (Vo 5208).

If Dick Burnett did write the song, we can date the actual writing of the song, or perhaps the editing of certain lyrics by Burnett, to about 1913. Since we know that Dick Burnett was born in 1883, married in 1905, blinded in 1907... we can date two of these texts on the basis of internal evidence. The second stanza of "Farewell Song" mentions the singer has been blind six years, which would date it at 1913...

The song was first made famous by the Stanley Brothers. The song appears on Bob Dylan’s 1962 debut album and Dylan performed the song during his first national television appearance in 1963. In their 1962 debut album, also self-titled, Peter, Paul and Mary recorded another version as "Sorrow". Judy Collins's 1961 debut album, Maid of Constant Sorrow, took its name from a variant of the song that was performed on the album.

Rod Stewart performed the song on his debut solo album in 1969. It was also recorded by Ginger Baker’s Air Force on their eponymous debut album in 1970, sung by the Airforce guitarist and vocalist (and former Moody Blues and future Wings member) Denny Laine. The band used the same melody, and for the most part the same lyrics (but substituting 'Birmingham' for 'Colorado'). The arrangement differed, though, as this was a loosely improvised live version, with violin and saxophones, that stays very much in the major scales of A, D and E, unlike its future bluesier brethren. It was the only band single, and charted #36 on the U.S. country charts, and #86 in UK.

"Man Of Constant Sorrow" was one of many songs recorded by Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, and Tony Rice one weekend in February of 1993. Jerry's taped copy of the session was later stolen by his pizza delivery man, eventually became an underground classic, and finally edited and released in 2000.

Finally , the song appears in the 2000 film “Oh Brother whereart thou ?” under the title "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow". Performed by the fictitious Soggy Bottom Boys in the movie, it was recorded by Dan Tyminski, Harley Allen and Pat Enright.. It was a hit in the movie for the Soggy Bottom Boys and later became a hit single.

Dan Tyminski also performed this song at the Crossroads Guitar Festival and live with Alison Krauss & Union Station.

The versions by Dylan and Soggy Bottom Boys utilize somewhat different melodies and while the lyrics have many similarities, they are by no means identical. The Soggy Bottom Boys said goodbye to "old Kentucky", as the original versions do, while in Dylan's version the singer said goodbye to "Colorado".

Here are some versions I collected

1) Emry Arthur

2) The Stanley Brothers

3) John Hartford

4) Peter, Paul and Mary

5) Norman Blake

6) The Soggy Bottom Boys (Radio Station Version)

7) Judy Collins

8) Rod Stewart and the Faces

9) The New Raonoke Jug Band

10) Bob Dylan

11) Brad Leftwich & Linda Higginbotham

12) The Devil Goat Family String Band

13) Sharon Shannon (with Jackson Browne)

14) Alison Krauss & Union Station (feat. Dan Tyminski)

15) Ginger Baker’s Air Force

16) Joan Baez

17) Jerry Garcia & David Grissman

18) The Soggy Bottom Boys (with Band)

Posted by Joski at 5:23 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Merlin

Recorded at McDowell's home in Como, Mississippi in 1964, and in Holy Springs, Mississippi and Berkeley, California in 1965.

McDowell first recorded in 1959, when Alan Lomax discovered him during a field trip.

Five years later Arhoolie’s Chris Strachwitz taped the sixty- year-old northern Mississippian performing in his living room. The results are outstanding: McDowell's commanding singing and slide guitar commentaries, tied to clear thinking and acute feeling, refashion traditional fare into entirely personal folk music.

Mississippi Fred McDowell, who died on July 3, 1972, was one of the last of the original delta blues artists. He is noted for his bottle-neck guitar work, which is well represented here, as are two field recordings with his mentor, the elusive Eli Green (the only recorded representations of his work).

Mississippi Fred McDowell is perhaps best known from songs covered by Bonnie Raitt and the Rolling Stones (who performed "You Gotta Move" on STICKY FINGERS, the original version of which is included in this compilation).

This is a superior recording

http://lix.in/5f5473de

Peace

Posted by Joski at 5:19 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Mississippi Fred McDowell

Born in 1938 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Larry Johnson is an expert East Coast Country Blues man who sings the blues, backed by his beautiful "Stride Guitar" style (a two-finger pick style using thumb and first finger).

Larry is one of the, few remaining, great elder statesmen of the authentic blues tradition.

When he started playing music, as a transplanted Georgian in New York City in the 1960s, Johnson was a friend and apprentice to such venerable artists as Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Big Maybelle and, especially, Rev. Gary Davis.

Like a handful of other aspiring bluesmen in New York at the time, Johnson availed himself of Davis's guitar lessons. Among Davis's pupils, Johnson has probably come closest to mastering the guitarist's awesomely complex style.

After two years in the Navy, like so many young people in search of a new life, Larry headed for New York City, not with the obligatory dreams of stardom, but just to be in a place where lives are carved out and destinies formed. While working menial jobs, his ongoing interest in music brought him in touch with dynamic blues duo Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, who led him to the Reverend Gary Davis.
That meeting had a profound effect on Larry Johnson. Davis-then in his sixties-was steeped in the Southern blues culture; he had been a street singer/guitarist in his home state, South Carolina, during the Twenties, and had been making extraordinary recordings for two decades. Although an ordained minister and expert renderer of gospel songs, Davis never shunned the blues, but combined the two expressions in his vast repertoire.
Through talking to Davis, Larry came to realize the importance of the Southern rural milieu which he had absorbed as a youngster. "I never thought that I would ever be referred back to those years when I was a kid, not for any reason," he says, "but when I met Davis, it helped me communicate with him, because I could say 'you know, I heard that record when I was a child.' Then he would say 'that was in 19-so-and-so and I was in Spartanburg, and' you know, it drew me and him together. We were like two old men talking, but it was actually a grandfather and a boy still talking. As I look back on it now, he brought out that little boy in me once again-this time with a bonus, playing rather than listening. Time has given Larry a good perspective on his formative years: "Now it's easy for me to break away from the music and get into something else, and it's also easy to go back to the music," he says. "Once again I'm leaving grandma's house and going to play with some other children, and this probably will last my entire life.”

Not surprisingly, Gary Davis became Larry's mentor. "I knew him for about six or seven months before I began taking lessons from him," he recalled in an earlier interview," and then it was mainly a matter of learning chords and chord positions, because I was more interested in listening to him than I was to play like him." Looking back, Larry feels that recognizing the emotional aura that drew him to Gary Davis was perhaps more important than any music lessons he received.

That style has long since been incorporated into Johnson's own high speed, hard-picked but sweet sound, which also borrows from Blind Boy Fuller and ragtime.

And, having practised diligently even during the years he wasn't performing, he remains at the peak of his powers, causing jaws to drop with his supremely confident picking.


This is the blues as is should be

http://lix.in/ff649464

Peace

Posted by Joski at 5:14 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Larry Johnson

Balladry, in white comunities in the rural South, was traditionally unaccompanied - and, largely separate from the instrumental traditions that defined their dance musics. Influenced, however, by black players - who did accompany ballads - isolated geniuses across the region, sometime in the nineteenth century, began to build modal banjo styles which could naturally underpin the archaic ballads that had been sung in the region for hundreds of years...

And the results are stunningly documented, on a scant few handfuls of 78s, recorded in the 20s - back when a plethora of labels, amidst a boom, had no real idea what’d sell to such “hicks” and’d therefore issue anything at all - even great, and patently uncommercial, art.

We’re badly in need of a boxed set that’ll properly document the range of this material in depth but, until that day, this one cd’ll do a fine job as an introduction - albeit, it’s purview is to demonstrate the full range of recorded balladry of the 20s...and so, it also touches (as will I) upon much more far-flung stylistic territory than my introduction might suggest...

But...back to those banjos... Just listen - please - to the immortal B.F. Shelton’s “Darling Cora”...and admit that you had no idea any banjo could sound so unearthly beautiful... I know I didn’t, until I lucked upon this work in the mid-80s...and, it’s spell has never left me since.

Many/most of the truly powerful songs in the tradition are the so-called “murder ballads”. This is not...indeed, it transcends same, by dwelling upon a (benign) haunting of a surviving/loving husband by his deceased wife. Expressed in disconnected fragments of memory...and (heartbreakingly) resolved in truly prosaic and deeply humane twin stanzas, this is an art that - simply - cannot be bettered.

And, uncannily, the banjo style in such works is a transfiguation of the kora styles of West Africa...as are no black American recordings that we have. Such are the vagaries of time - and history - that “Darling Cora” is doubly that...

To finish...Uncle Dave Macon’s “Death of John Henry” is definitely one of his greatest works, and - perhaps, better than any other - proves just how much he learnt off black banjo players in his youth. Subtly (and freely) responsive, it is the very antithesis of later band stylings...and it’s rippling climaxes verily lift the spirit, affirming the continuity of life amidst death (as does Shelton’s masterpiece) - a fitting conclusion to a superb survey collection, drawn from a marvellously diverse and far-too little known tradition.

All in all, this is a fun piece of americana from another time.

http://lix.in/b95ff974

Posted by Joski at 8:29 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Mountain Music, Rural Country

Riding the wave of the renewed interest in traditional American music, Classic Mountain Songs From Smithsonian Folkways Recordings showcases a handful of the greatest mountain ballads as performed by some of the most influential folk singers and songwriters of the 20th century.

This collection features many classic performances from a wide variety of regional instrumental and song styles. These diverse styles and songs from the mountain communities of North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee include old-time fiddle and banjo pieces, early bluegrass, and traditional ballads, with a special emphasis on Appalachian vocal traditions. Doc and Merle Watson, Roscoe Holcomb, Clarence Ashley, and Dock Boggs are just a few of the revered roots artists who appear on this stellar compilation. This album is essential for both old and new fans of American mountain music

The spate of worthy compilations riding on the coattails of O Brother, Where Art Thou? continues with Classic Bluegrass From Smithsonian Folkways, 25 tracks of serious bluegrass untarnished by rock, pop or other corrupting influences. Recorded between 1956 and 1992, it includes three numbers from what's purportedly the first bluegrass LP ever, Folkways'American Banjo: Three-Finger And Scruggs Style. Dashing mandolin runs by Earl Taylor (and his Stoney Mountain Boys) and bluegrass patriarch Bill Monroe (with Peter Rowan) open and close this crisp disc while Ralph Stanley, singing with older brother Carter, offers clawhammer banjo picking.

Many of the performers - Red Allen, Doc Watson and Hazel Dickens, for example - grew up with the music. The Harley Allen-Mike Lilly Band (Harley being Red's son) shows how the genre's trademark tight harmonies can turn smooth (in an Osborne Brothers style) rather than sharp, without sacrificing the essence of true bluegrass. The New Lost City Ramblers' The Little Girl And The Dreadful Snake as well as The Lilly Brothers and Don Stover's Neath That Cold Grey Tomb Of Stone evince mountain music's darkness, but then a wildfire fiddle breakdown such as David and Billy Ray Johnson's Grey Eagle comes along to show its fun side.

http://lix.in/b92c61d7

Peace

Posted by Joski at 8:21 PM | 1 comments  
Labels: Mountain Music, Rural Country

Mike Henderson is the real deal, not some Trashville wanna be.

Mike Henderson takes you with him on a rollercoaster of bluesy ups & downs. You'll be swayin' & boppin" with one of the best. Enjoy and spread the word.

a request

Posted by Joski at 7:09 PM | 1 comments  
Labels: Mike Henderson

Terry Garland is widely known as a master slide and acoustic blues guitarist. Born in Johnson City, Tennessee, Garland traces his musical roots to such blues greats as Robert Johnson, Jimmy Reed, Blind Willie McTell, Howlin' Wolf and Lighten' Hopkins.

Garland's National guitar sounds great on his debut album "Trouble In Mind”.

Mark Wenner of the Nighthawks backs him up on harmonica.

This guy can really sing the blues and he chose some big-time blues artists' songs to cover (Willie Dixon, Willie McTell, Johnny Winter..)"

Posted by Joski at 7:01 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Terry Garland

Paul Siebel was born in 1937 in Buffalo, NY. After serving in the military, he began playing folk clubs, eventually moving to Greenwich Village, where he found support in the coffeehouse circuit.

In 1969, a collections of songs he made with David Bromberg caught the attention of Elektra Records. Two classic albums followed: Woodsmoke and Oranges (1970) and Jack-Knife Gypsy (1971). The two albums made him a musician's musician. The songs were covered by, among others Willy DeVille, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Jerry Jeff Walker, Kate Wolf, Emmylou Harris and Leo Kottke, but songwriter Paul Siebel remained unknown to the larger public.

After 1971 his songwriting production stopped. Siebel got depressed and into drugs.

Now and then his name came up: in interviews with other artists. Kristofferson tips his hat to Siebel in his song "The Pilgrim". He played in McCabes in 1978, what was considered a come-back, and was on a 1977 LP.

Siebel was a guest at Jerry Jeff Walker's 1987 Birthday Bash in Austin, Texas. He did not write any other new song.

Here is that last LP live with David Bromberg and Gary White

http://lix.in/0cb6d565

Enjoy

Posted by Joski at 6:47 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Paul Siebel

Throughout its relatively brief history, the blues had many queens, but none so regally named as Queen Victoria Regina Spivey. She wasn’t one to hog the throne, however, and beginning with this 1961 Prestige/Bluesville album, launched a one-woman crusade to bring recognition to other surviving blueswomen of the Twenties and continued it on her own Spivey label until her death in 1976.

Spivey, Lucille Hegamin, and Alberta Hunter represent different styles within the genre known as classic blues. Spivey was a rough, almost rural singer, while Hegamin was of the refined vaudeville variety and Hunter (who had given up on music and was working as a nurse at the time of these sessions) was a lighter-toned, more jazz-imbued stylist. Producer Chris Albertson picked the cream of New York’s traditional jazzmen for the record, including Harlem stride pianist Willie “The Lion” Smith for the Hegamin tracks.

In 1961 jazz-backed blues seemed slack, almost nonexistent. Bebop, hard bop, tenor sax & organ combos, and the avant-garde were more relevant in the jazz world. And blues was veering toward an electrified, altogether different realm.

So when Chris Albertson brought Alberta Hunter, Victoria Spivey, and Lucille Hegamin to the acclaimed Rudy Van Gelder's studio to capture songs from the era when jazz and blues melded together, the result could've easily sounded thinly nostalgic. But with a backing band that included pianist Willie "the Lion" Smith (on Hegamin's four tunes) and trombonist J.C. Higginbotham and clarinetist Buster Bailey (on the four tracks from both Hunter and Spivey), this session came out topnotch.

It's redolent of an earlier era (specifically the early 1920s, when the three singers got their starts), but each of the tracks is potent with a deep, slow swing accentuating the peerless vocals. Spivey's grainy voice is impassioned and powerful, in the same way that Hunter's is unmistakable in its slight waver, carrying her sometimes near-spoken lines to the stars (especially as she delivers jewels like this: "I don't like those hepster lovers / They've got larceny in their eyes / They got a handful of gimme / And a mouthful of much obliged"). The acoustics are as sharp as any of Van Gelder's sessions, and the music is majestic.

http://lix.in/f045d80a

Majestic

Posted by Joski at 2:04 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Alberta Hunter, Lucille Hegamin, Victoria Spivey

A former stripper and men's magazine model who also did the occasional X-rated video shoot back in the '80s, Candye Kane would be the blues version of the Andrea True Connection, but for one vitally important fact: this woman can really sing!

An updated version of Bessie Smith with a wicked sense of humor and a gleefully omnisexual persona, Candye Kane and her backup band the Swingin' Armadillos aren't just a novelty act, but a sassy, smart, and always-entertaining mix of sex, showbiz, and swing.

Los Angeles-native Kane started her musical career with 1994's spotty Home Cookin', but really hit her stride with 1995's Knockout and, especially, 1997's excellent Diva la Grande.

The short-lived swing revival led to a major-label deal for 1998's Swango, but that cocktail-influenced swing record didn't give her jump blues brassiness its due, and when Sire gave Kane her walking papers, she settled in the far more hospitable environs of Rounder, which released the much improved The Toughest Girl Alive in 2000. Three years later, Kane released Whole Lotta Love, an album made available via Germany's Ruf Records.

Candye is 54-38-48, size 20, outspoken, liberated role model for full-size women. She tours nationally and worldwide with her band Candye Kane & the Swingin' Armadillos.

As her lyrics say, she really is ... 250 pounds of fun!

http://lix.in/db9f6a67

Rock on

Posted by Joski at 11:54 AM | 0 comments  
Labels: Candye Cane

The higher you climb, the more that you see
The more that you see, the less that you know
The less that you know, the more that you yearn
The more that you yearn, the higher you climb

The farther you reach, the more that you touch
The more that you touch, the fuller you feel
The fuller you feel, the less that you need
The less that you need, the farther you reach



This day, I feel a little more lonesome

This man,
"gave to me
a gift I know
I never can repay"

Seek inspiration in daily affairs
Now your soul is in trouble
And requires repairs
And the voices you hear at the
Top of the stairs
Are only echoes of unanswered prayers

Echoes of unanswered prayers.


http://lix.in/011ae40c

Posted by Joski at 11:38 AM | 0 comments  
Labels: Dan Fogelberg