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Monday, December 29, 2008

Jaybird Coleman & the Birmingham Jug Band


The eight sides recorded by the Birmingham Jug Band in December of 1930 represent the entire recorded output by one of the era's earthiest, most raucous -- and most obscure -- jug bands.

The membership of the group has never been verified, though many blues scholars place the semi-legendary harmonica player Jaybird Coleman at the helm alongside Ben Curry, a medicine-show entertainer also known as "Bogus Blind" Ben Covington ("bogus" because he wasn't really blind). Big Joe Williams claimed to have played with the group and identified the following lineup: Coleman, Covington, "One-Armed Dave" (Dave Miles), "Dr. Scott," a jug blower named "Honeycup," and a washboard player called "New Orleans Slide." The group likely performed in medicine shows across the Deep South, and their recorded repertoire provides some insight into the musical styles featured in such shows.

Of all the jug bands of the '20s and '30s, the Birmingham band had one of the most distinctive sounds on record, though their repertoire was significantly less diverse than that of groups like the Memphis Jug Band or Cannon's Jug Stompers. Probably the only full jug band from south of Memphis to record, the group had a more rural sound than its contemporaries, reflecting the aesthetics of the country string band as much as the popular jug band. The group's eight recordings are characterized by a prominent lead mandolin and equally prominent harmonica; gruff, heavy vocals; and a throbbing rhythm enforced largely by the insistently pounding jug. Also recording in the same Atlanta studio that day was King David's Jug Band, another little-documented group; together, these two outfits produced some of the liveliest and most intriguing records from the height of the jug band era


Jaybird Coleman was an early blues harmonica player. Although he only recorded a handful of sides and his technique wasn't particularly groundbreaking, his music was strong and a good representation of the sound of country-blues harmonica in the early '30s.

Coleman was the son of sharecroppers. As a child, he taught himself how to play harmonica. He would perform at parties, both for his family and friends. Coleman served in the Army during World War I. After his discharge, he moved to the Birmingham, AL area. While he lived in Birmingham, he would perform on street corners and occasionally play with the Birmingham Jug Band.

Jaybird made his first recordings in 1927 -- the results were released on Gennett, Silvertone, and Black Patti. For the next few years, he simply played on street corners. Coleman cut his final sessions in 1930, supported by the Birmingham Jug Band. These recordings appeared on the OKeh record label.

During the '30s and '40s, Coleman played on street corners throughout Alabama. By the end of the '40s, he had disappeared from the state's blues scene. In 1950, Jaybird Coleman died of cancer.

http://lix.in/-402d90

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Happy New Year

Posted by Joski at 3:02 PM | 7 comments  

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Davy Graham (22 November 1940–15 December 2008)


“He is my absolute Hero, always will be” (Bert Jansch)
“I wanted to be Davy Graham” (John Martyn
“A travelling man who had made the fabled journey to Tangiers when the rest of us still had our sights set on Brighton Pier” (John Renbourn)
“Davy was and is The MAN” (Martin Carthy)
“Probably England’s greatest guitarist” (Paul Simon)

Graham was born in Hinckley, Leicestershire, England, to a Guyanaese mother and a Scottish father and he took up the guitar at the age of 12. As a teenager, he was strongly influenced by a guitar player called Steve Benbow, who had travelled widely with the army and played a guitar style influenced by Moroccan music.


At the age of 19, Graham wrote what was probably his most famous piece, at least for aspiring guitarists: the acoustic solo tune "Anji" (see below). Colin Harper credits Graham with single-handledly inventing the concept of the folk guitar instrumental (whilst acknowledging that John Fahey was making a similar invention, simultaneously, in the U.S.).

One way that he came to the attention of guitarists was through his appearance in a 1959 TV film produced by Ken Russell, entitled Hound Dogs and Bach Addicts: The Guitar Craze. This was broadcast as part of the BBC TV arts series Monitor.

With Alexis Korner (1970)

Graham introduced the DADGAD guitar tuning to British guitarists, though it is not clear if it originated with him. Its main attraction was that it allowed the guitarist more freedom to improvise in the treble while maintaining a solid underlying harmony and rhythm in the bass. While 'non-standard', or 'non-classical' tunings were widely practiced by guitarists before this (Open E and Open G tunings were in common use by blues and slide guitar players) his use of DADGAD introduced a second standard tuning to guitarists.


During the 1960s he released a string of eclectic albums with music from all around the world in all kinds of genres. His continuous touring of the world, picking up and then recording different styles of music for the guitar, has resulted in many musicians crediting him with founding world music.
In the years prior to his death he had been working closely and consistently with singer-songwriter Mark Pavey, returning to the stage to play live, and also working once again with guitarists and friends including Bert Jansch, Duck Baker and Martin Carthy. His final album, Broken Biscuits consisted of originals and new arrangements of traditional songs from around the world.

Graham's music has often received positive critical feedback, and has proved to be quite influential. Credited for sparking the 1960s folk revival in England, he has inspired artists and fellow players such as Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and Paul Simon. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin have cited Graham as an influence to their music. Folk Rock bands such as Fairport Convention and Pentangle also show large Graham influence.
Though Graham is commonly referred to as a folk musician, the diversity of his music ranges in many different directions. Strong influence of genres such as Blues, Jazz, and Middle Eastern music is often constant throughout his works.


Graham's acoustic guitar solo "Angi", named after his then girlfriend, appeared on his debut EP 3/4 AD in April 1962. The tune spread like wildfire through a generation of aspiring guitarists, changing its spelling as it went. Before the record was released, Bert Jansch had learnt it from a tape which Graham had lent to his half-sister, Jill Doyle, who was a friend of Jansch. Jansch included it on his 1965 debut album as "Angie". But the spelling Anji became the most popular after it appeared in this way on Simon & Garfunkel's 1966 album Sounds of Silence, and it was as "Anji" that Chicken Shack recorded it for their 1969 100 Ton Chicken album.


This is his second and most infuential album.


His first album, The Guitar Player, was almost exclusively jazz based. He was also known for his collaborations with folksinger Shirely Collins, which had established his name in the purist folk communities in Britain.

Most of the tracks on the album are a fusion traditional western folk/blues and Middle-Eastern music. This synthesis of world sounds was inspired by Grahams frequent traveling across the Asian continent from the early 1950's onward.

Graham also utilizes jazz progressions to re-innovate and contemporize traditional sounds, especially on the blues tracks of the album. For example, the opening track is a cover of "Leavin' Blues", written by Leadbelly, which is a straightforward blues in C. Graham's version uses the DADGAD guitar tuning, and he speeds up the tempo to give it a more 'rocking' sound. His cover is also infused with an exotic, middle eastern sound, accredited to both the tuning and the exotic musical scales he uses throughout the song.


http://lix.in/-3460cb


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Posted by Joski at 11:17 AM | 3 comments  
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Thursday, December 11, 2008

Jake Holmes




One of many journeymen New York folk-rock singer/songwriters of the late '60s, Jake Holmes, if he's remembered at all, is known as the author and original performer of "Dazed and Confused."

It is still not widely recognized that he wrote and recorded the first version of this song on his 1967 solo debut album, prior to it being covered (in concert) by the Yardbirds, and then becoming one of the most famous numbers in Led Zeppelin's repertoire. A big part of why that's not widely recognized is that Holmes, for murky reasons, was not credited as a writer on Led Zeppelin's recording, which gave sole author credits to Jimmy Page. For that accomplishment alone, Holmes is worthy of a footnote, even if nothing else he wrote or released was up to the level of that song. Holmes had worked in a group with fellow folk-rock singer/songwriter Tim Rose before going solo.







"Dazed and Confused" was on Holmes' 1967 debut LP The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes, which had an odd, edgy folk-rock sound built around a drumless trio, featuring Holmes' rapid rhythm guitar strums and Ted Irwin's spidery acid folk-jazz-lead guitar lines. "Dazed and Confused," heard in this folk-rock context, was given a much sparer arrangement than it would be gifted by Led Zeppelin. The rest of the album was an erratic cluster of songs that explored similar anxious moods with less power, sometimes changing gears into light comedy or melodramatic sentiment.


The Yardbirds, with Jimmy Page on lead guitar, heard "Dazed and Confused" in August 1967 when Holmes opened for the band in New York. The group took a pretty radical rearrangement of it into their live set. Although they didn't release a studio version of it before their breakup in 1968, their live rearrangement can be heard on the Epic LP Live Yardbirds Featuring Jimmy Page, a 1968 recording that was briefly available in 1971 before being withdrawn (a superior live version from a March 1968 French TV broadcast subsequently circulated on the Cumular Limit compilation).



When Led Zeppelin did it on their first album, with different lyrics but similar melodic and rhythmic ideas as the Holmes prototype, the songwriting credit was given to Jimmy Page. Holmes's second LP, 1968's Letter to Catherine December, expanded into orchestral backgrounds, though he and Irwin still supplied their distinctive guitar work.




An even more erratic work than its predecessor, it still at times supplied some interesting acid folk-pop, particularly on "Leaves That Break," with its ferocious fuzz guitar. His subsequent albums for Polydor, however, were far more ordinary, even sub-ordinary, singer/songwriter music with country influences, sometimes painfully exposing the limits of his vocal range and timbre. Holmes never profited from the worldwide success of Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused," but he did strike gold as a writer of commercials with one of his jingles, the famous U.S. Army ad with the "be all that you can be" refrain. Holmes' LPs (especially the first two, on Tower) are now hard to find, though the track "Dazed and Confused" was reissued legitimately at least once, on Rhino's Nuggets, Vol. 10: Folk Rock LP

Unfortunately, after the sepia-toned psychedelics of A Letter To Katherine December, Jake Holmes seemed unsure and unaware of where his true abilities lay. Holmes' eclecticism worked brilliantly on his first two albums. However, that strength now turned into his Achilles heel. His next albums were in keeping with the '70's, singer-songwriter influences merging with country-rock sensibilities and not to this reviewer's taste. Commercially, these albums met with no more success than his earlier hallucinatory efforts. Label changes ensued. Soon, no company would pick him up. With no record contract, Holmes plunged into the world of commercials. Strangely, this is where he finally found success.

Here are these two Tower LP’s
Listen and Learn

Posted by Joski at 2:57 PM | 5 comments  
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Friday, December 5, 2008

Barbara Dane - Anthology of American Folk Songs



When Barbara Dane first burst upon the scene in the late fifties, she was described as "a voice as rare as a twenty carat diamond" by Time Magazine, and "Bessie Smith in stereo" by the late, great music historian Leonard Feather.

Blues writer Lee Hildebrand calls her "perhaps the finest living interpreter of the classic blues of the 20's" and Louis Armstrong invited her to appear with him on national television.
Primarily known as a blues singer, TRADITION issued her only pure folk LP entitled "When I Was A Young Girl" in 1959. The LP garnered considerable attention and led to a seven page article in Ebony magazine that same year - the first feature story about a white woman (Nov. 1959) to grace the magazine.

Artists from Janis Joplin to Tracy Chapman have cited Barbara as a main influence.

Mary Travers sounded very similar to the influential Dane, whom Albert Grossman initially considered for the female member slot of Peter, Paul and... (what became Peter, Paul and Mary). Dane was the first American performer to play in Cuba after Castro's revolution. Dane sang, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar, portions of 3 songs in an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour called "Captive Audience"


Here is Miss Dane




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Posted by Joski at 11:26 AM | 5 comments  
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Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The State Street Swingers (1936-1937)






The State Street Swingers were once one of several blues combos that recorded in the late 1930's in the wake of the phenomenal success of the Harlem Hamfats.


The Hamfats recorded ''Oh! Red'' for Decca Records in April, 1936, and other artists and record companies were not long in responding with a similar type of sound, featuring lead trumpet and clarinet played in New Orleans jazz style, one or two guitars, piano, bass, and drums. The State Street Swingers began recording in July of 1936 and were basically Vocalion Record's answer to the Hamfats.


As the Hamfats claimed Harlem as their turf, the Swingers would claim one of Chicago's main streets for entertainment. The Swingers were, in fact, from Chicago, as indeed were the Hamfats, and together these bands helped to lay the foundation for a later blues band sound. Both bands were essentially studio recordings groups rather than working bands in the community, and there is even a possibility that they had some personnel in common.


Nevertheless, there were some significant differences between the two groups. The Hamfats had an identifiable sound and a relatively stable personnel and instrumentation that lasted over three and a half years and more than a hundred recordings under their own name and as accompanists to other artists.



The State Street Swingers lasted only a half-year and barely made a dozen recordings, frequently sounding like a different group each of their six sessions.Indeed, they recorded once under a different name, the Chicago Black Swans. They used five different vocalists, all of whom were well known recording artists in their own right. They never could decide whether to use drums or simply a washboard for percussion, or even no percussion at all. They also had a much stronger piano sound, usually performed by the mysterious session man Black Bob, while their string sound was less prominent than that of the Harlem Hamfats.


Just who the State Street Swingers were is to some degree a mystery. The trumpet player is thought by some to be Herb Morand, who was also the trumpeter with the Harlem Hamfats.


This remains uncertain, however, and it should be noted that Morand did not other wise do a lot of studio work during his tenure with the Hamfats. It does seem likely, however, that the clarinet player was the prolific session musician Arnett Nelson.


Black Bob generally held down the piano chair, though Myrtle Jenkins substituted no at least one session. The guitar and washboard seem generally to have been Big Bill Broonzy and Washboard Sam, while the bass player and drummer remain unknown, though some think they were borrowed from the Hamfats.









Listen and Learn


Posted by Joski at 9:24 AM | 4 comments  
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Barry McGuire and the Mama's and the Papa's





Barry McGuire about “California Dreamin’” :

“Well, it was my track. It was going to be my next single release. And when they were doing my backup vocals, they started doing a counterpoint with (sings) "all the leaves are brown, and the sky was grey," well that all came together on my recording session. And they heard it and thought, "that's the sound. That's what we want, that counterpoint thing." Then John asked me if they could release "California Dreamin'" as their first single, and I said, "Hey, you wrote the tune. Do whatever you want." So they did. They took my voice off, and put Denny's voice on, and they had that flute player guy come in and [he] did a toodle-toodle in the middle of the song. And it was a monster hit for them.”




It's 1963, and New York City is having a particularly dismal winter, at least as far as Californian Michelle Phillips can tell. She and John Phillips are living together, in their first year of marriage. He's 28, she's just 19. It's John's habit to walk around the apartment at night with his guitar, working out tunes. One morning -- early, before the sun is up -- he wakes Michelle and asks for her help finishing a song.

All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray
I've been for a walk on a winter's day
I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A.
California dreamin', on such a winter's day.

For Morning Edition, as part of the Present at the Creation series, NPR's Susan Stamberg explores the history of one of pop music's most memorable songs. "California Dreamin'" was about longing for another place, and it left a legacy strong enough to cement a place for its performers, the Mamas and the Papas, in the pantheon of popular music history.

"The words 'California dreamin' kept going through my mind," John Phillips recalled in an interview before his death. "I stared working on some chords for the song. And I went through more chord progressions and things that fit the melancholy of the song."

Michelle remembers waking up to John asking for her help. He didn't like writing alone. In this case, her homesickness had provided the initial inspiration, and after they put their heads together, life in the city informed more of the lyrics. A few days earlier, Michelle says, she had wanted to visit St. Patrick's Cathedral. "I just loved going into churches. And that's where we got the lyric for the second verse."

Stopped in to a church I passed along the way
Well, I got down on my knees and I pretend to pray
You know the preacher liked the cold, he knows I'm going to stay
California dreamin', on such a winter's day.

The song wasn't destined for immediate glory. At the time, John and Michelle Phillips were in a folk group called the New Journeymen with banjo player Marshall Brickman (who would later write screenplays -- and win an Academy Award -- with Woody Allen). When Brickman left the group, the couple brought in Denny Doherty, of the Halifax Three and the Mugwumps, to sing with them. Doherty, in turn, introduced the Phillips to Cass Elliot while on a trip to the Virgin Islands. Won over by Elliot's impressive voice, the four bonded and moved to Los Angeles to form the Mamas and the Papas.




The foursome got its first big break when singer Barry McGuire, who was working on an album for Dunhill Records, introduced them to Lou Adler, producer and head of the record company. Adler listened to the group sing and was blown away. He still remembers that first encounter.

“Denny Doherty remembers it this way: “Cass calls up McGuire who's got Eve of Destruction on the charts, a huge hit, and is in the middle of recording another album. He comes over to the apartment, gives a listen; ‘Yeah, man sure, you guys sound really good. Look why don't you come down and sing for my producer Lou Adler.’ So, there we are at Western Recorders, Lou Adler in the booth. We sing him California Dreamin' and this voice comes out of talkback: ‘You got any more?’ Got any more! Sure we got more! We sang him everything we had. We sang him ‘Straight Shooter,’ ‘Monday, Monday,’ ‘Go Where You Want To Go.’ And this voice from the booth just kept asking for more. ‘What else you got? What else you got?’ Finally Cass says: ‘That's all we got. What do you think?’ And he says: ‘I think we can do business.’” Barry adds, “Lou heard them sing, and he thought Michelle was cute. That was his main comment after hearing them sing: ‘Who’s the blonde?’ But he did like their sound and they sang backup on my second album for me. They told me that that’s where they actually found their counterpoint. That’s when their sound really came together, singing backup for me."



"I actually thought that must have been how George Martin felt after he heard the Beatles," Adler says. At the time, they may not have looked like a conventional pop group: Cass Elliot was known almost as much for her size as her voice, and in Adler's memory the Mamas and Papas were "very dirty and funky and had probably been in those clothes for quite a while." Neither did they skew toward any particular genre of pop, drawing influence from their folk and rock backgrounds in equal measure, with intricate vocal arrangements as the most prominent feature.

It was this sound, and the songs -- including the now two-year-old "California Dreamin'," that convinced Adler of their potential.

Thrilled over the opportunity to record, the group offered "California Dreamin'" to McGuire as thanks for the connection to Adler. The song went onto his album This Precious Time, with the Mamas and the Papas singing background vocals.

Barry says that while they were recording his version, “it just really came together for them, and John asked me if they could release it as their first single rather than my second one, and I said, ‘Sure, John, it's your tune, man, you wrote it.’ So, they just took my voice off of it, put Denny's voice on it and put a flute on.



Adler convinced the group to record a version of their own, and in the fall of 1965 it was released as their first single. But it was hardly the immediate breakthrough they must have hoped for. "California Dreamin'" went nowhere in L.A., receiving only sporadic airplay. Michelle Phillips remembers that it took a radio station in Boston to break the song nationwide. And though the song never made it to No. 1, it stayed on the charts for 17 weeks.

The Mamas and the Papas released their debut album, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, in 1966. They enjoyed a good deal of commercial and critical popularity, getting involved in events such as the Monterey Pop festival, which John Phillips co-produced. But the success was short-lived, partly due to the volatile atmosphere created by drug use and the intense interpersonal relationships within the band, and in 1968 the group split up. All four eventually released solo albums, but none ever achieved the level of success of their anthem to homesickness.




Story behind this photo: The Mamas and The Papas were in the studio with Barry McGuire, singing backup on a song for one of Barry's albums (Barry thinks the song was probably "Hang On Sloopy"). While they were recording the song, a guy named John Antler came into the recording booth. With him was the new Miss Teen USA, whom Antler was escorting to various places. Mr. Antler began tapping Lou on the shoulder, trying to shout over the music to get Adler's attention, saying, "Antler! John Antler!" Lou couldn't really hear what the guy was saying, and thought that he was mispronouncing Lou's name. So Lou shouts back at the guy, "It's Adler! Lou Adler!" Then the song ended and the guy shook Lou's hand and said, "Antler. John Antler." Lou got on the intercom and told Barry and The Mamas and The Papas what had just taken place, and they all cracked up. It was at that very moment that someone took the photo seen above.



So here are the songs they recorded with Barry McGuire


Love, Peace and Understanding

Posted by Joski at 7:56 PM | 2 comments  
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