Finally the Blues

[Hot Ptah]

yes, next stop Weenie Campbell - I'm a little overwhelmed right now, trying to make contact with critics, etc.

as for the variety of tunes - almost everything on the set is from my own collection, LP, CD, 78, etc. I don't really know how I did it, but the current mess in my basement is a sign that I was there and gone. I basically went through everything I own, and spent maybe an additional $1500 on materials (I know this figure is close, since I am doing my taxes this week).

I did a little shopping at Stereo Jacks (where I was fortunate to snap up a pile of LPs from a recently-deceased collector; also, my local used record store had some choice things - for example - a Savoy LP reissue of John Lee Hooker which was so much better sounding than the CD versions that it was both laughable and scandalous). I've been somewhat on top of the whole blues reissue thing the last 15 years, have snapped everything up that I could, as well as grabbing vanishing LPs with good sound (especially French black and whites, RCA/BMGs, Columbia/EMIs, et al). Sources are of prime importance, of course, as a good source makes any restoration engineer sound like a genius (I took the King Oliver from a very good-sounding 10 inch Columbia). Of course, there was also Document, of which I own a lot, and they are not as bad as they are purported to be, sound-wise (in many cases I could tell they had used LP transfers from decent vinyl).

I tried to put some out-of-the-way things on it, too - there's a Charlies Ives solo piano piece coming up, an Aaron Copeland piece (called blues but very far from it) and even a Harry Partch spoken word, put there since Partch had a lot to say on the relationship between American speech and American vernacular music. And, most happily of all, the set ends with a Jaki Byard solo.

as for the hardcore blues guys, it will be interesting - even true experts like Paul Oliver show a deep misunderstanding of, for one example, Ethel Waters, and I tried to deal with this. I also have a greater sympathy for the whole minstrel ethos than most critics, and I did my best to include and explain.

Most frustrating is when I find things that I think I should have included - like more post-War acoustic things, or some more on the Popular Front (though I do have Woody Guthrie/Cisco Houston, Josh White, and Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Leadbelly - I just should have engaged with the subject in greater detail).

Allen, I think that any regrets you may have are akin to the 1961 New York Yankees thinking back on games they could have won. If I were you, I would sit back for a moment and bask in the triumph of your achievement.

Edited April 27, 2010 by Hot Ptah

[AllenLowe]

well, these days I feel more like the Brooklyn Dodgers -

[Hot Ptah]

well, these days I feel more like the Brooklyn Dodgers -

They did win the World Series once!

[AllenLowe]

well, than, maybe more like Virgil Starkwell when he mispelled the bank robbery note.****

****from Take the Money and Run

[Hot Ptah]

well, than, maybe more like Virgil Starkwell when he mispelled the bank robbery note.****

****from Take the Money and Run

You've got a gub?

[AllenLowe]

no, just some wrong label names -

[Dan Gould]

How are you at apting natural?

[AllenLowe]

that's one of my favorite comedy scenes -

[papsrus]

Just received an amazon e-mail promoting 'Really the Blues?'

[Niko]

Just received an amazon e-mail promoting 'Really the Blues?'

me, too

[Big Beat Steve]

So I ought to receive one too. Amazon lately seems to have made a habit of plugging items with me that I bought some time BEFORE. A really wise commercial strategy ...

[jeffcrom]

Really the Blues? showed up on my doorstep today. I knew I would have many of the tracks elsewhere, but I had no idea that there would be so many revelations among the music I hadn't previously heard. Just on Disc One, "Poor Mourner" by Cousin and DeMoss, Cook's "Rain Song," and George O'Connor's unfortunately titled blues have shifted my understanding of the music.

Too cool!

[Fer Urbina]

Received it just now. Don't know when I'll be able to give it a proper spin. Soon, I hope.

Thanks, Allen!

F

[Hot Ptah]

I have been listening to CDs 2 and 3.

I am really struck by Jelly Roll Morton's 1923 recording, "New Orleans Joys" (CD 2, #6). This seems to me to be an earlier version of a lot of the New Orleans rhythm and blues that came later. There are moments that remind me of Professor Longhair. Whether Professor Longhair and the other New Orleans rhythm and blues musicians of the post-World War II era actually listened to "New Orleans Joys" as the source of their music, or whether "New Orleans Joys" is a 1923 example of a style of New Orleans music that has been around for a long time and gets passed down to succeeding generations, I don't know--but it is striking to hear this 1923 recording after listening to Professor Longhair, Archibald, Tuts Washington and other New Orleans pianists of the 1940s and later.

Then the very next song, "Guitar Blues" by Sylvester Weaver (CD 2, #7), also from 1923, sounds to me like John Fahey or Leo Kottke, 40 years earlier. I had never heard of Sylvester Weaver before.

CD 2, #10, James P. Johnson's "Bleeding Hearted Blues", from 1927, is so great. But then I think that I have heard only great recordings from James P. Johnson in the 1920s.

CD 3, #26, Arizona Dranes' "Crucifixion"--what a great blues piano performance. I love stuff like this. Who is Arizona Dranes and why had I never heard of him before?

[medjuck]

What instrument is the non-guitarist playing on the Rpyal Palm Special (cd 3)? A harmonica and then a comb and paper or kazoo?

And who's the first stovepipe to whom you refer?

So many of these cuts are great and most are new to me.

[AllenLowe]

1) sorry, will have to listen again to Royal Palm -

2) there were two Stovepipes, and truthfully I get very confused telling them apart - though one was named, I think, Sam Jones, and was from the Cincinnatti area (anybody know how to spell Cincy?). The later one actually lived into the 1960s; there's a silent film clip of him playing in what was called Jew Town, the part of Chicago where there were lots of Jewish merchants as well as blues guys playing the streets.

as for Dranes, I mentioned this elsewhere, but she was one of the pioneers of the two-fisted boogie piano style; the line goes from her, with some Sanctified detours, to Jerry Lee Lewis.

[MomsMobley]

as for Dranes, I mentioned this elsewhere, but she was one of the pioneers of the two-fisted boogie piano style; the line goes from her, with some Sanctified detours, to Jerry Lee Lewis.

MOON MULLICAN

[Chuck Nessa]

"Jew Town" was also known as Maxwell St.

[AllenLowe]

1) with Moon Mullican, I also hear a bit more of the jazz influence (if you listen to the early Western Swing sides)

2) there's actually a whole film that was made about Maxwell Street, great shots of blues and gospel and dancing.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

2) there's actually a whole film that was made about Maxwell Street, great shots of blues and gospel and dancing.

If it's the same one, it was shown on UK TV in the late sixties. Very interesting.

MG

[Hot Ptah]

CD #1, Song 5: Poor Mourner, by the Dinwiddie Colored Quartet, November 29, 1902.

This song was copied by Bob Dylan for the final song on "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", recorded in 1962, "I Shall Be Free", with composer credit to Bob Dylan on the album. He wrote new lyrics to the Dinwiddie Colored Quartet's song.

[Hot Ptah]

CD #1, Song 5: Poor Mourner, by the Dinwiddie Colored Quartet, November 29, 1902.

This song was copied by Bob Dylan for the final song on "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", recorded in 1962, "I Shall Be Free", with composer credit to Bob Dylan on the album. He wrote new lyrics to the Dinwiddie Colored Quartet's song.

I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

I assume that virtually all of the songs on the early Dylan albums, which are credited to Dylan, have at least the music copied from an earlier song. When I can actually match the earlier song with a Dylan recording, there is a little shock of recognition.

[Hot Ptah]

I assume that virtually all of the songs on the early Dylan albums, which are credited to Dylan, have at least the music copied from an earlier song.

That seems to me to be true of the early albums and the more recent albums, cetainly the last three studio albums. I am not sure that it is true of the albums from Highway 61 through some point in the 1980s. It could be so, but I don't know if it is.

[AllenLowe]

in this Dylan was very traditional - thinking of how Woody Guthrie composed, not to mention virtually every Delta bluesman.

[AllenLowe]

since the moderator MR X won't make himself known, let it be said, by me, that my recently locked thread was intended as humor and not hostility.

I'm pretty much done with this place except on my own threads like this one.