tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41322810475498285832024-03-18T05:16:12.194-05:00Mississippi, The Birthplace Of American MusicMississippi is the Birthplace of American Music - whether it is Charley Patton and Son House's interpretations of the Delta Blues, Elvis Presley and Rock 'n' Roll from Tupelo or Jimmie Rodgers the Father of Country Music from Meridian - America's musical tradition was born and refined in the culture and struggles of Mississippi.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger183125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-2498263837225551012017-04-10T14:32:00.000-05:002017-04-13T12:36:06.735-05:00Marty Stuart to create "Marty Stuart Congress of Country Music" in his home townThe Neshoba Democrat reports Marty Stuart plans to create the "Marty Stuart Congress of Country Music" in Philadelphia, Mississippi. From the <a href="http://www.neshobademocrat.com/Content/NEWS/News/Article/Marty-s-plans-unveiled-for-downtown-country-music-venue/2/297/40788">story</a>:
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Options have been secured to purchase a downtown site for what will become the Marty Stuart Congress of Country Music, which incorporates the historic Ellis Theater, the country music legend said Tuesday morning.
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Stuart, a Neshoba County native, called the site selection a dream come true.
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“As soon as the papers are signed we are going to jump up and down with the happy dance,” he said. “It is exactly the right location after years of kicking tires and studying.”
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Once the properties are secured, Stuart said it would be time to seek private donations across the nation and around the world to fund construction.
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“The very first donation was made by a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and his wife,” he said. “Steve Miller was our first private donator, unsolicited.”
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Stuart hopes the center will be in operation in four to five years.
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A market and financial analysis by Owens Economics, LLC, showed that the it would attract between 28,000 and 49,000 visitors annually.
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The Marty Stuart center will showcase Stuart’s vast collection of country music memorabilia, including some belonging to such stars as Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash. Stuart’s vast photography collection as well as his and wife Connie Smith’s personal memorabilia will also be included.</blockquote>
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UPDATE: This week's <a href="http://neshobademocrat.com/Content/NEWS/News/Article/Marty-s-venue-would-be-boon-to-local-economy/2/297/40826">Neshoba Democrat</a> has more details including that the center is hoped to be in operation in four to five years.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-4558921893701620442017-03-16T10:33:00.002-05:002017-03-16T10:33:33.195-05:00Jackson band's contribution to early hip-hopJacob Threadgill writes a funktastic piece for the Clarion Ledger about "Get Up and Dance" by Freedom. Freedom featured on drums the current Hinds County Sheriff, Victor Mason. And the music was a source of inspiration and sampling for early hip-hop and more recent music. The band is reuniting for this year's Mal's St. Paddy's Parade.
Threadgill <a href="http://www.clarionledger.com/story/magnolia/entertainment/2017/03/16/sheriff-reunites-funky-freedom-riffs-musical-secret/99203514/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter">writes</a>:
<blockquote>In the mid- to late-1970s, Jackson was home to one of the region’s hotbeds of funk music. In a crowded field of talented bands that included Sho-Nuff, Wynd Chimes, Natural High and Magnafunk, Freedom rose above the rest with its tight rhythm section and charisma of lead singer Joe Leslie Short.
Not long after graduating from Callaway High School, Mason was recruited by Wingfield alums Caleb Armstrong (guitar) and Ray Smith (bass) to form the foundation of Freedom in 1976 while they were students at Jackson State. Mason also enlisted fellow Sonic Boom members David Thigpen and Robert Black on saxophone, keyboardist Larry Addison and multi-instrumentalist Adolph Adams.
After performing showcases for both CBS and Motown Records, Freedom signed a deal with Jackson’s Malaco Records to release their first album, “Farther Than Imagination,” in 1979.
A&R representative Dave Clark was instrumental in getting the album’s second single, “Get Up and Dance,” on the radio and in clubs in New York City.
Freedom didn’t understand the impact “Get Up and Dance” was having on the emerging genre of hip-hop until a concert in Hialeah, Florida, with rapper Kurtis Blow. Blow’s manager, Russell Simmons (of Def Jam fame), came into Freedom’s dressing room to ask if it was OK for Blow to perform over the track.
“Russell explained that our song was the hottest track in New York City,” Smith said. “Kids were walking around with radios on their shoulder, blasting our music.”
The trend didn’t escape the city’s guru of hip-hop, Joseph Saddler, better known as Grandmaster Flash. Flash and the Furious Five renamed “Get Up and Dance” after the band, and “Freedom” became a hit for Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five, reaching No. 19 on Billboard’s R&B charts.
Unlike the first breakthrough hip-hop hit, Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” which was ghostwritten and co-opted Chic’s “Good Times,” Freedom had respect for Grandmaster Flash, until the track listed seven songwriters, none of which were Smith or Armstrong.
Malaco sued the Sugar Hill label to include Armstrong and Smith as songwriters, becoming one of the first cases of copyright infringement and samples in hip-hop.
According to whosampled.com, various parts of “Get Up and Dance” have been used on at least 52 songs. SWV’s “Anything” is on the “Above the Rim” soundtrack. Beck used its horns on the track “Novacane.”
The kazoo part, which Armstrong and Smith thought of while watching SEC football cheerleaders, has become one of the most enduing parts on the song. "Get Up and Dance" has officially been used by the likes of John Legend, Black Eyed Peas, Jurassic 5 and many others.
Even Japanese hip-hop group Scha Dara Parr has used “Get Up and Dance” for its biggest hit. The first edition of the arcade game Dance, Dance Revolution featured the song.
The “Amen Break” is the most famous sample. The six-second drum solo from The Winstons’ “Amen, Brother” is the basis for entire subcultures of electronic music, but because of publishing deals, the copyright owner has never received royalties for the track.</blockquote>
Read the full piece in the Clarion Ledger: "<a href="http://www.clarionledger.com/story/magnolia/entertainment/2017/03/16/sheriff-reunites-funky-freedom-riffs-musical-secret/99203514/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter">Hinds Sheriff reunites funky Freedom, riffs on musical secret</a>." Entertaining and informative.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-7197014601909328622013-07-23T15:53:00.001-05:002013-07-23T15:53:49.721-05:00RIP T-Model FordFor thirty years, Bluesman T-Model Ford rocked the blues world from his home in Greenville, Mississippi. A short career for someone who died last week in his 90s, but he didn't pick up a guitar until he was nearly 60 years old. The New York Times has the full story: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/arts/music/t-model-ford-late-blooming-bluesman-is-dead.html?_r=0">T-Model Ford, Late-Blooming Bluesman, Is Dead</a> and notes:
<blockquote>“One night, I was playin’ the blues in Mississippi, singin’, ‘How many more years, baby, you gonna dog me around,’ ” he said in the Bergen Record interview.
“This fella comes up to me; he thought I was after his wife. He put a .45 up to my nose and he said, ‘If you play that again, I’ll blow your brains out.’
“So it’s a good thing I didn’t start to playin’ the blues when I was younger. If I did, I might not be around today.”
</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-87136325348001084832009-05-08T22:52:00.010-05:002009-05-12T11:36:25.874-05:00All The Way To Memphis<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" id="video" width="320" height="280" data="http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/video/videoplayer.swf"><param value="http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/video/videoplayer.swf" name="movie"/><param value="&skin=MP1ExternalAll-MFL.swf&embed=true&adSrc=http%3A%2F%2Fad%2Edoubleclick%2Enet%2Fadx%2Ftsg%2Ewhbq%2Fnews%2Fmetro%2Fdetail%3Bdcmt%3Dtext%2Fxml%3Bpos%3D%3Btile%3D2%3Bsz%3D320x240%3Bord%3D900774639697195100%3Frand%3D0%2E6810494761814856&flv=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Emyfoxmemphis%2Ecom%2Ffeeds%2FoutboundFeed%3FobfType%3DVIDEO%5FPLAYER%5FSMIL%5FFEED%26componentId%3D124888296&img=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia2%2Emyfoxmemphis%2Ecom%2F%2Fphoto%2F2009%2F05%2F08%2F050809%5FLS%5Fblues%5F1%5Ftmb0000%5F20090508173942%5F640%5F480%2EJPG&story=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Emyfoxmemphis%2Ecom%2Fdpp%2Fnews%2Flocal%2F050809%5FMemphis%5FMarker%5FHonors%5FBlues%5FMusic" name="FlashVars"/><param value="all" name="allowNetworking"/><param value="always" name="allowScriptAccess"/></object> <br /><br />The Mississippi Blues Trail officially crossed state lines today at the Rock 'n' Soul Museum at the Fed Ex Forum on Beale Street in Memphis. Local Fox 13 station covered the event with this news story.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo_bMbWxuSQKMhET6CUyWoN8amdqHn14EWlVlNBiYsxdtVNWtl8X9dnSb1q0mgI1cgHVUWImjl7T-s23BlHXnaNO93S-LnBq_vNEJx3GshmlAvA_IjvJ23zn5opfg3sHW6FFe03fO2H9I/s1600-h/memphis+trail+marker.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334943912234566258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo_bMbWxuSQKMhET6CUyWoN8amdqHn14EWlVlNBiYsxdtVNWtl8X9dnSb1q0mgI1cgHVUWImjl7T-s23BlHXnaNO93S-LnBq_vNEJx3GshmlAvA_IjvJ23zn5opfg3sHW6FFe03fO2H9I/s200/memphis+trail+marker.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="center"></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>photo courtesy Merete Eide</em></span> </p>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-23445222206247613722009-05-05T20:59:00.019-05:002009-05-12T09:42:24.781-05:00Como's Mississippi Fred McDowell<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoHnsvbf2mCCrgkwruW5QBSdQSELHiLIqIgYqZicToACnXRmsyxwCJolmx_djTrVy6EhCB-0bBa-Ji3RhJCnwwnynNslm-Y89sB43FEpv4xDi8airj8a8FA_8md8zdW1aeiSL5Olb-8wQ/s1600-h/mississippi%2520fred%2520mcdowell%252001.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5331655632094838114" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 218px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoHnsvbf2mCCrgkwruW5QBSdQSELHiLIqIgYqZicToACnXRmsyxwCJolmx_djTrVy6EhCB-0bBa-Ji3RhJCnwwnynNslm-Y89sB43FEpv4xDi8airj8a8FA_8md8zdW1aeiSL5Olb-8wQ/s320/mississippi%2520fred%2520mcdowell%252001.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Fred McDowell lived in Tennessee until he was nearly forty. But as proof that a man can accomplish a lot after his thirtieth birthday, McDowell moved to Mississippi, played the hell out of a blues slide guitar, and attracted the art form's most famous (some say notorious) talent scout to his front door.<br /><br />Until then, Fred McDowell played guitar only for himself and his friends. He played old style blues. Delta blues. Mississippi blues. When Alan Lomax came back through the deep south in 1959 looking for bluesmen that other archivists had overlooked in previous visits, he was astonished to find Mississippi Fred McDowell living in Como and pumping gas.<br /><br />McDowell had undeniable musical talent, but unlike decades worth of other delta blues musicians, McDowell stayed on the farm and did not drive north on Highway 61 to make records. At least not until Lomax coaxed him into a recording studio. Fred continued farming and playing for tips until Chris Strachwitz went looking for Fred in 1964 and recorded "Fred McDowell. Volume 1 and Volume 2" on Arhoolie. Things really took off after those recordings and McDowell became a sensation in the blues/folk revival of the early 1960's.<br /><br />Music author Ted Gioia writes about McDowell in "Delta Blues", <a href="http://birthplaceofamericanmusic.blogspot.com/2008/11/delta-blues-by-ted-gioia.html">(see earlier post here)</a> his recent history of the music:<br /><br /><blockquote>"He moved to Memphis around the time he turned twenty-one, and finally settled in Como, Mississippi, in the early 1940's. But his music was infused with the free-spirited intensity of the Delta tradition, even if his geographical connections to that heart of the region are weak ones at best, and his name is usually one of the first mentioned by blues fans when the conversation turns to the subject of their favorite Delta guitarists."</blockquote><br />McDowell's famous fans include Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and Grammy winner Bonnie Raitt. McDowell gave a young Raitt Delta slide guitar lessons. The Stones covered McDowell's "You Gotta Move" on their "Sticky Fingers" album.<br /><br />On Thursday afternoon, Bonnie Raitt will return to Como to honor her friend and mentor as the state gives McDowell a plaque on the Mississippi Blues Trail.<a href="http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20090430/FEAT05/904300301/1023/feat04">(read Jackson Clarion Ledger story here)</a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK0-wAeC7PwOyHAKwQbUJy9Zt5_ntPfG5WSeDgYVkxp2Rp1WjzfJypoibiga-1C_zghaHqMIcHTzPdLVBPlVQ4zUzsQ94iMFmOJNSIq17AQxiwn2SOKLa18khOpXddFtlr-MjooIHKi9Y/s1600-h/fred+mcdowell.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334945598577624530" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK0-wAeC7PwOyHAKwQbUJy9Zt5_ntPfG5WSeDgYVkxp2Rp1WjzfJypoibiga-1C_zghaHqMIcHTzPdLVBPlVQ4zUzsQ94iMFmOJNSIq17AQxiwn2SOKLa18khOpXddFtlr-MjooIHKi9Y/s320/fred+mcdowell.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><em>Rev. John Wilkins, Alex Thomas, Bonnie Raitt, Hubert Sumlin</em> photo by Melanie Young</span><br /><br />McDowell's musical success came late in life. He toured frequently but always came back home to Mississippi. Gioia writes about McDowell's final days:<br /><br /><blockquote>"McDowell stopped touring in November of 1971, when stomach pains forced him to cancel his performances and seek medical treatment. Although he told many people that he suffered from an ulcer, the real diagnosis was stomach cancer, and despite surgery, doctors were unable to halt it's spread. He died on July 3, 1972 at the Baptist Hospital, and was buried -- not on Highway 61 -- but at the Hammond Hill Baptist Church, between Como and Senatobia, Mississippi. He was reportedly laid to rest wearing a silver lame' suit, given to him by the Rolling Stones. But the adulation fo the famous did little to prevent the guitarist's name being misspelled (McDewell) on the simple gravestone, an error that persisted many years before steps were taken to erect a more respectable tribute to one of Mississippi's greatest musical talents. On this new memorial, we find again that a lyric -- drawn from McDowell's best known composition -- served as a fitting epitaph.<br /><br />You may be high,<br />You may be low.<br />You may be rich, child,<br />You may be poor.<br />But when the Lord gets ready,<br />You got to move.</blockquote><br /><strong><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/19_-_You_Gotta_Move.mp3">Click to hear "You Gotta Move."</a></strong>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-74978659819696109562009-05-02T18:49:00.013-05:002009-05-03T23:15:48.693-05:00Pontiac Blues<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixwktYKzAHPv0owGH010AiixUNzAjAQ11MCn_H3hvvKkcKLf3XRywiEfc1ZipKt8L1moJA7bT1pz21pLcFLd3U2tuNK5msrHGYACvZqr7jsSQa-WnIL7ETn1e2vb_ts3-6R1Olg5TmuvQ/s1600-h/sonny-williamson-200-071907.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5331379226259035554" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 225px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixwktYKzAHPv0owGH010AiixUNzAjAQ11MCn_H3hvvKkcKLf3XRywiEfc1ZipKt8L1moJA7bT1pz21pLcFLd3U2tuNK5msrHGYACvZqr7jsSQa-WnIL7ETn1e2vb_ts3-6R1Olg5TmuvQ/s320/sonny-williamson-200-071907.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090427-709022.html">General Motors announced this past week </a>that after the end of this year they no longer will produce Pontiacs. The muscular, gas-guzzling, V-8 vehicles have long been immortalized in songs, perhaps none better than by Glendora's Sonny Boy Williamson II.<br /><br />"Pontiac Blues", Recorded August 5, 1951 on Farish Street at Trumpet Records in Jackson, Mississippi, was an homage to Trumpet Records owner Lillian McMurry's new Pontiac convertible. It was a chrome laden black Silver streak, that according to author Marc W. Ryan in his book <strong><em>Trumpet Records </em></strong>"embodied all the luxury and stylish mobility that he <em>(Sonny Boy)</em> craved."<br /><br />Ryan goes on to tell us:<br /><br /><blockquote>He would try to wheedle a ride in the sparkling beauty, but Lillian didn't often trust the freewheeling bluesman behind the wheel. "When I used to let him drive it," she recalled, "man, he really thought he was uptown. Sonny Boy still had a pride that a lot of musicians don't have." That pride was showing when, in keeping with the prevailing vogue of using flashy automobiles as lyrical themes, he proclaimed: "Mmmm, I found out what my baby likes. That's a while lotta lovin' and a straight-eight Pontiac.</blockquote><br />If they play only one song at Pontiac's public funeral, they could do a whole lot worse than blaring out the harmonica sounds of Sonny Boy Williamson's fitting 1951 epitaph <a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/15%20Pontiac%20Blues.mp3">"Pontiac Blues"</a>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-2231135029670299492009-02-08T14:08:00.006-06:002009-05-12T12:17:07.817-05:00Pinetop Perkins has another date with Grammy<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgHp513165LLIOv89Z_T8Z0VXp4s6Zcu1xjnHEQwxtt_59NDkdCAGzwIOkP9zFFn25qg8RvIZLVLqrw6RZYNvy_OB7ffqn1a5P8JccH2ZH-b-6ukhInCj67_Wc3W91P96YN-ClNzSMrd4/s1600-h/pinetop.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300526726561859346" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 214px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgHp513165LLIOv89Z_T8Z0VXp4s6Zcu1xjnHEQwxtt_59NDkdCAGzwIOkP9zFFn25qg8RvIZLVLqrw6RZYNvy_OB7ffqn1a5P8JccH2ZH-b-6ukhInCj67_Wc3W91P96YN-ClNzSMrd4/s320/pinetop.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Tonight there's a great reason to watch the 51st annual Grammy Awards on CBS. "Pinetop Perkins and Friends" is one of five nominees for Best Traditional Blues Album.<br /><br />Born in Belzoni in 1931, Pinetop is 95 years old. Should he win, he will be the oldest person to win a Grammy. George Burns also won the award at age 95. But George 95 years and one month old. Pinetop was born 95 years and seven months ago. </div><br />National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" recently wrote this about Pinetop's Grammy chances:<br /><blockquote>The Grammys are often contests for young talent, but this year, Perkins — the year's oldest Grammy nominee — is one to watch. It's not just a sentimental choice; on the album, Perkins collaborates with fellow blues veteran B.B. King on guitar.</blockquote><br />You can <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100339122">read the full story here</a>, and hear some music from Pinetop's Grammy nominated album.<br /><br />Pinetop won a lifetime Grammy Award in 2005 and a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album last year.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-63412702207926487932009-01-08T10:04:00.021-06:002009-05-03T13:04:15.018-05:00Shake Rag<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5284886443865665922" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 221px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLz8gFr3nUcZKfIdsg7WRk1xCeX7MgLAsLtNFKZ2kQKJnajf6SaJjqxHNMFATnortr_9B4ieJLa80MQzhADjCLo2LRMSYO7v20LvHH3isWnsMsy6CzC4ZP9Py2tWzHl35xM4o6M47b6k4/s320/elvis+gladys.gif" border="0" />Today would have been Elvis Presley's 74th birthday, and much as his mother Gladys clings to a young Elvis in the photo above, hundreds of adoring Elvis fans are in Tupelo clinging to his memory and marking the occasion.<br /><br />But that's not the only celebration going on today. Tupelo also gets it's second blues marker on the historical Mississippi blues trail. The first one was placed last year on this day at the Elvis Presley birthplace museum, noting Elvis' debt to and love for blues music. The second Tupelo marker also honors Elvis in a roundabout way. It's as 399 East Main St and commemorates the neighborhood of Shake Rag. Elvis and his family lived close to the segregated African American community for a very short time.<br /><br />Elaine Dundy describes the community as a nice place to live in her biography "Elvis and Gladys." <blockquote>"Living in Mulberry Alley and then moving to 1010 North Green Street, the Presleys were living on the edge of Tupelo's blacks section, Shakerag. This was a community of house servants, cooks, and nurses -- as well, if not better, off than the Presleys -- who worked for Tupelo's wealthier families. A self-contained, well-mannered community, they had their own stores and their own Sanctified Church, which was a tent with one side rolled up."</blockquote>A submitted report in the <a href="http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20090105/NEWS01/90105029">Hatiesburg American </a>gives a brief description of the musical history:<br /><blockquote>By the 1920s blues and jazz flowed freely from performers at Shake Rag restaurants, cafes, and house parties, and later from jukeboxes, while the sounds of gospel music filled the churches. The neighborhood was leveled and its residents relocated during an urban renewal project initiated in the late 1960s.</blockquote>A far different, and far less flattering portrait is drawn from Albert Goldman's controversial biography of Elvis:<br /><br /><blockquote>Though Elvis is always associated with Tupelo, he lived in the city less than three years. According to the Myth, those years were spent in a horrid black slum known by the pungently Dickensian name of Shakerag. Though the ordeal of living in a black slum is something every true fan is supposed to grieve over, at the same time -- by the paradox of <em>felix culpa,</em> the fortunate fall -- this descent to the depths is regarded as the source of Elvis's extraordinary mastery of the black musical idiom, to say nothing of all the jivey dance steps he cut. As always, the Myth is mistaken. Elvis did live in a slum, but it was not the notorious black slum in the northwest quarter of the city; it was on the east side of town on Commerce Street, where the shopping mall stands today. The family did not remain long at this address; they moved several times, their next house being in Mobile Alley a narrow lane that ran at right angles to the railroad tracks near the fairgrounds. Finally they wound up in the northeast quarter near the slaughterhouse on North Green Street. All of these neighborhoods were white, all were poor and ugly.</blockquote>Goldman seems to take quite an interest in embarrassing Presley in his book, which was published after Presley's death. It was and remains roundly rejected by fans the world over as innaccurate. But there's no disputing that Presley and his family had hard times in Tupelo and left town under the threat of police action.<br /><br />Goldman, of course, writes about how the Presleys left Tupelo:<br /><blockquote>In September 1948, the Presleys packed up their few belongings in a decrepit 1937 Plymouth and took off for Memphis. Elvis said in later years that they were broke and that Vernon was hoping to find a job in the big city. The move -- made abruptly after the school year had commenced and surrounded subsequently with a cloud of secrecy -- suggests some fresh misfortune was about to descend upon the family, which they averted by flight. The Tupelo police told the compilers of <em>All About Elvis</em> that Vernon Presley had been caught selling moonshine and was given two weeks to get out of town.</blockquote>Despite what Goldman writes about Presley's ties to Tupelo being tenuous, Presley returned to Tupelo at the height of his new found fame in 1956 for his "Homecoming" concert then came back in 1957 for a second show. Both shows took place near his old house at the Fairgrounds. Elvis took more with him to Memphis than what he put in a box in the old Plymouth. He told a reporter for the Charlotte Observer in June, 1956, he took along a love of blues music. <blockquote>"The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I'm doin' now, man, for more years than I know. They played it like that in the shanties and juke joints and nobody paid it no mind 'til I goose it up. I got it from them. Down in Tupelo, Mississippi, I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now, and I said if I ever got to the place I could feel all old Arthur felt, I'd be a music man like nobody ever saw."</blockquote>Most, if not all, Elvis fans know that his first single on Sun records of course was "That's All Right, Mama" an Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup song, something he learned to love in Tupelo.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/Elvis%20Presley%20-%20That%27s%20All%20Right%20Mama.mp3"><strong>(Click to hear Elvis Presley sing That's All Right Mama)</strong></a>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-46821734442078036012008-12-23T23:27:00.007-06:002008-12-25T15:42:19.941-06:00A Christmas Cooke<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghs-D2YwSDq9mGdzw9jAL0MRGG7kFGs7Q5YrxOz2bwT1RzOGuMuMCGgwHTDR9-EZWhf7pFBD6H3J6IudPnY3Vsptyhbr7r2EIhZ0JwJXQhgFloo4t9n4Zrf0LjXqli9bkFiVV6wcZ-y-8/s1600-h/Sam_Cooke_Soul_Stirrers.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5282825701811659762" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 260px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 310px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghs-D2YwSDq9mGdzw9jAL0MRGG7kFGs7Q5YrxOz2bwT1RzOGuMuMCGgwHTDR9-EZWhf7pFBD6H3J6IudPnY3Vsptyhbr7r2EIhZ0JwJXQhgFloo4t9n4Zrf0LjXqli9bkFiVV6wcZ-y-8/s320/Sam_Cooke_Soul_Stirrers.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>"You Send Me"</strong> <a href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/You-Send-Me/Daniel-Wolff/e/9780688146207/?itm=28">Daniel Wolff's definitive biography</a> of Sam Cooke begins the second chapter with a description of the birth of Samuel Cook and his delivery <em>"by a midwife in Clarksdale at 2:10 in the afternoon on January 22, 1931."</em><br /><br />Wolff goes on to describe Clarksdale of the early 1930's:<br /><br /><blockquote>"Out of these elements -- a large colored population, a little spending money, the exhaustion of picking cotton and the exhilaration of cheap whiskey -- came a music historians have called the Delta Blues. Legendary practioners like Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, and Skip James were drawn -- like the Reverend Cook (Samuel's father) -- to the relative prosperity of Clarksdale. Here they traded lyrics and played all night dances, till the music reached a zenith of moaning double-entendres, secret protest, and contagious gut-bucket beats."</blockquote>The twin of the delta blues, Wolff notes, was the church song: the spiritual. And the two were not to be crossed.<br /><br />The Reverend Cook left his Clarksdale church at 2303 7th Street and hoboed up to Chicago with just thirty-five cents in his pocket. After finding work in the Chicago stockyards, he came back for his family.<br /><br />This was how Sam Cooke <em>(he added an e to his name after turning professional)</em> made it to Chicago and the Soul Stirrers where on December 1, 1950 he replaced gospel legend R.H. Harris as lead singer. In March 1951 at 20-years-old a nervous Sam Cooke made his professional recording debut, a fact that Wolff writes did not sit well with producer Art Rupe who didn't know Harris had been replaced by a kid.<br /><br />"Can he sing?" Rupe wanted to know.<br />"Yes sir, he can sing," Rupe was told.<br />"Okay" a disappointed Rupe replied angrily, "I'll allow you one mistake."<br /><br />It was a decision Art Rupe of Specialty Records never regretted. There was no mistake.<br /><br />Sam Cooke sang lead on eleven songs during that first session including <em>"Peace in the Valley"</em> and what would become the hit of the session, and Sam's breakout gospel song <em>"Jesus Gave Me Water".</em><br /><br />Wolff writes:<br /><br /><blockquote>"The Sweet Mississippi accent he got from his parents dwells on each syllable and calls for attention. The third time through the chorus, Sam lets the group start and, by coming in a beat later, kicks up the excitement. And when he sings "I want to let His praises swell," Sam's voice does just that. If Art Rupe didn't know he had a hit here, he wasn't listening." </blockquote> Rupe was listening. So were thousands of impressed gospel fans who made "Jesus Gave Me Water" more popular than anthing R.H. Harris had ever recorded with the quartet. More than five decades later, as another Christmas approaches, we're still moved by the spirit in Sam Cooke's voice. And we're still listening. <br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/01_-_Jesus_Gave_Me_Water.mp3">(Click to hear Jesus Gave Me Water by The Soul Stirrers)</a></strong><br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/Soul%20Stirrers%20-%20Peace%20In%20The%20Valley.mp3">(Click to hear The Soul Stirrers sing Peace in the Valley)</a></strong>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-49555167336771181502008-12-22T18:39:00.010-06:002009-05-03T20:54:31.549-05:00A Christmas Staple<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh98YUhwF7ZJKKKDuu6k6zq9d_w91lyu15R3oLJru129mM2R7CIl97nj00m9REGExR2rcxNHAnfpWIQk8Eyo0QDITtwEhMRoJTwNsbQSaUBymvvmicIpc8NKdR85TE5mx7UeZoUESXr4E/s1600-h/StapleSingers.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5282779488814003490" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 260px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh98YUhwF7ZJKKKDuu6k6zq9d_w91lyu15R3oLJru129mM2R7CIl97nj00m9REGExR2rcxNHAnfpWIQk8Eyo0QDITtwEhMRoJTwNsbQSaUBymvvmicIpc8NKdR85TE5mx7UeZoUESXr4E/s320/StapleSingers.jpg" border="0" /></a>They called him "pops", out of respect. But he was born Roebuck Staples near Winona, Mississippi on a plantation with 13 older brothers and sisters. When he was eight, his family moved to the more affluent Dockery Plantation where he was influenced by the great delta blues guitarists Charley Patton and Son House.<br /><br />Roebuck Staples remembers it like this:<br /><blockquote>I was raised on the Will Dockery place from the time I was eight till I got to be 20 years old. Charley Patton stayed on what we called the Lower Dockery place, and we stayed on the Upper Dockery.<br /><br />He was one of my great persons that inspired me to try to play guitar. He was really a great man.<br /><br />At first I was too small to go hear him on a Saturday night. But on Saturday afternoons, everybody would go into town, and those fellows like Charley Patton, Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf would be playin' on the streets, standin' by the railroad tracks, people pitchin' 'em nickels and dimes, white and black people both.<br /><br />The train came through town maybe once that afternoon, and when it was time, everybody would gather around, just to see that train pull up. They'd play around there, before and after the train came, and announce where they'd be that night, and that's where the crowd would go.<br /><br />They'd have a plank nailed across the door to the kitchen, and be selling fish and chitlins, with dancin' in the front room, gamblin' in the side room, and maybe two or three gas or coal-oil lamps on the mantelpiece in front of the mirror, powerful lights.<br /><br />It was different people's houses--no clubs or nothin'. And I finally grew up to play.</blockquote> Like so many Delta bluesmen would do, Roebuck Staples left Mississippi for Chicago when he was 20. But Roebuck did not follow the blues path. He went the other direction, toward gospel.<br /><br />Pops, with his children, Cleotha, Mavis, and Purvis became the Staple signers, recording for several Chicago record labels. One of their songs recorded in 1955 was "This May Be My Last Time," later recorded by the Rolling Stones.<br /><br />The Staple Singers recorded an album of Christmas songs in 1962 called "The 25th Day of December". That's where they recorded "The Last Month of the Year".<br /><br />The last month of the year has special significance in the Staples family. Pops was born in the last month of the year, on December 28th. He died in the last month of the year as well, December 19, eight years ago. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/01_-_The_Last_Month_Of_The_Year.mp3"><strong>(Click to hear The Last Month of the Year)</strong></a><br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/10/8/2135355/109-the_staple_singers-this_may_be_the_last_time.mp3">(Click to hear This May Be My Last Time by the Staple Singers)</a></strong>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-71921707543257448432008-12-20T22:16:00.032-06:002008-12-24T00:45:33.495-06:00Christmas With A Milkman<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7KIfWw1MxsmcJRsv70a32qFIUd5sDtcrHHpD1HoRgKzvtgq8UD7XcIxzbQ5L7IY09cOGHpArjFDBQztH5kqqJNzQE_VBPYAXidmYhmQfVMU-dpueuNr3Uy0OG1sypLXlX_qze4EmeePo/s1600-h/bill+ferris.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5282096551201587234" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 217px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7KIfWw1MxsmcJRsv70a32qFIUd5sDtcrHHpD1HoRgKzvtgq8UD7XcIxzbQ5L7IY09cOGHpArjFDBQztH5kqqJNzQE_VBPYAXidmYhmQfVMU-dpueuNr3Uy0OG1sypLXlX_qze4EmeePo/s320/bill+ferris.jpg" border="0" /></a> William Ferris was a 30-year-old man when this photo was taken back in 1972. By that time he already was a veteran blues researcher and scholar.<br /><br />Ferris discovered blues as a teenager in Vicksburg, Mississippi. For the next forty plus years he photographed, recorded, and filmed blues and blues artists in his home state. Some of his best work can be found in the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blues-Delta-William-Ferris/dp/0306803275">Blues From The Delta</a>.<br /><br />In a soon to be released retrospective of his career, a new book called <strong>Mississippi Blues: Voices and Roots </strong>, Ferris explains:<br /><blockquote>...what led a privileged, white Mississippian to work with black musicians in the 1960s. Drawn to the Civil Rights Movement as an undergraduate student, I recorded the voices and music of black musicians whose lives I felt were missing in American and southern history. These artists spoke and sang about violence, about suffering, about love with an eloquence that resonated in my ear. They taught me about worlds that were both at my doorstep and far removed from my own experience. </blockquote> What began as a fascination with the delta blues culture evolved to become his life's calling.<br /><br />Ferris and Judy Peiser co-founded the Center for Southern Folklore in Memphis, Tennessee and, with Charles Reagan Wilson, the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. He and Wilson are co-editors of The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. The book earned them a nomination for the Pulitzer.<br /><br />Along with other blues researchers Mack McCormick, Jim O'Neal and Gayle Dean Wardlow, Ferris helped put blues music and culture into context for the rest of the world.<br /><br />You can see some of what William Ferris saw in his documentary films like <a href="http://www.folkstreams.net/film,80">Give My Poor Heart Ease. </a> This and other of his documentaries can be viewed on line at the <a href="http://www.folkstreams.net/filmmaker,65">Folkstreams website </a>, and with the release of his new book, for the first time they also will be available on DVD.<br /><br />There are some who question why we are so willing to applaud those who "discover" the artist as much as the artist himself. They call it celebrating the milkman, instead of the milk.<br /><br />William Ferris' work has put a lot of milk on a lot of tables for over 40 years. And for that we should be thankful. One person who believes that is Dick Gordon of American Public Radio. Gordon's show is called "The Story." He spoke with Ferris last Christmas about blues Christmas music as William Ferris did what he does best, he told stories. And they played a lot of great blues music.<br /><br />The interview is still available online, so if you want to spend a little of your Christmas with the milkman, you can. And you even get some free milk to go along with it.<br /><br /><a href="http://thestory.org/archive/the_story_413_Christmas_Blues.mp3/view">(Click here to hear Dick Gordon interview William Ferris about Blues Christmas music) </a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10426054">(Click to hear NPR story on Folkstreams)</a>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-68568963173978563742008-12-19T00:04:00.002-06:002009-05-03T23:07:12.637-05:00Santa Claus is Back In Town<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwa4gyzeUtDzGnytXnGSQk6xG5chcCehy12o9k-JoyGadPrs2UStrvs8Wr7UArwzd1TZ1etA35u5uhyL6SX2noK2klfytVgQFVlBacldm2C8zwslbkVNpwauxFlJ7OiTyPnDP5r3f6L5I/s1600-h/ElvisPresley-studio.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280987378143098050" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 306px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwa4gyzeUtDzGnytXnGSQk6xG5chcCehy12o9k-JoyGadPrs2UStrvs8Wr7UArwzd1TZ1etA35u5uhyL6SX2noK2klfytVgQFVlBacldm2C8zwslbkVNpwauxFlJ7OiTyPnDP5r3f6L5I/s320/ElvisPresley-studio.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />It's not easy being King.<br /><br />In September 1957 Elvis Presley went into a Hollywood recording studio to cut a Christmas album. After three days in the studio, he ran out of material. But still he needed one more song. So Rock and Roll Hall of Fame songwriters Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller <em>(Hound Dog, Jailhouse Rock, Smokey Joe's Cafe)</em> went away together and quickly came back with a classic double-entendre blues number for Elvis called "Santa Claus is Back in Town."<br /><br />It would become the last song of the session, and very nearly the last song ever to feature Elvis' original sidemen, guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black.<br /><br />As Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick tells in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Train-Memphis-Elvis-Presley/dp/0316332259">"Last Train to Memphis" </a>the band had been promised they could make some extra money by cutting some instrumentals for an album with the remaining studio time. But when they were instead suddenly denied the opportunity, both men wrote a letter of resignation and quit in disgust. They had to be pretty angry in order to leave the biggest selling music act in the world.<br /><br />Elvis at first wished them luck in finding new jobs, but eventually offered each a $50 raise. They each declined. A few weeks later on September 27 when Elvis played a second (and final) homecoming concert in his hometown of Tupelo, Scotty and Bill were nowhere to be seen. In their places for the first time ever, Hank Garland played guitar and Chuck Wiginton was on bass. They played well, but one week later Elvis relented and hired Scotty and Bill back on a per diem basis.<br /><br />It was a rough year for Elvis. In December he got a letter from Uncle Sam informing him that he'd just been drafted. For the King of Rock and Roll, it would be a blue Christmas.<br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/30%20Santa%20Claus%20Is%20Back%20in%20Town.wma ">(Click to hear Elvis sing Santa Claus is Back in Town)</a></strong><br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/24%20Blue%20Christmas.wma">(Click to hear Elvis sing Blue Christmas)</a></strong></div>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-4949787858404207812008-12-17T21:32:00.014-06:002009-05-03T21:49:01.317-05:00Merry Christmas, Pretty Baby<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRu64eL6yORHSsAgX45Zd3xCn92i7fm7O41FE4P6iF87Gj4SWP4a1yI7qsU-i_Tk2QSwsR5bW6lCuUjAtk-ISVZQ0oJDhT22qZ3Z3oTr-ZjRsz9EbdtYHCDByRdLpFv_3EXFdUzc_i8wE/s1600-h/pinetop.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280610874612669346" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 242px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRu64eL6yORHSsAgX45Zd3xCn92i7fm7O41FE4P6iF87Gj4SWP4a1yI7qsU-i_Tk2QSwsR5bW6lCuUjAtk-ISVZQ0oJDhT22qZ3Z3oTr-ZjRsz9EbdtYHCDByRdLpFv_3EXFdUzc_i8wE/s320/pinetop.jpg" border="0" /></a>How might music history be different if Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins wasn't such a nice guy? Born in Belzoni, Ms. in 1913, the affable piano man got his start playing the keyboards for Robert Nighthawk's KFFA radio show in 1943. Then a short time later Sonny Boy Williamson offered Pinetop more money to play with him on the King Biscuit Flower Hour. Pinetop's boogie woogie piano style was in high demand then and would be for many decades to come. </p><p>When Otis Spann left Muddy Waters in 1969 to go out on his own, Muddy didn't have to look long for a replacement, he wanted the man with the old-school Delta style, Pinetop Perkins. Pinetop contributed to Muddy's sound for the next ten years.</p><p>But it was back at a dance in Moorehead in the 40's when Pinetop was flying high as Sonny Boy's boogie woogie right hand man that a single act of generosity perhaps turned out to be his greatest contribution to music. As Robert Palmer tells it in his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Blues-Musical-Cultural-Mississippi/dp/0140062238/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229567984&sr=8-1">essential blues history "Deep Blues" </a>Pinetop befriended a precocious kid from Clarksdale who idolized the piano star and wanted to learn to how to play that boogie woogie piano. The kid was Ike Turner. </p><p>Pinetop didn't have to take the time to give some kid free music lessons, but he did. And they took. Ike of course went on to become quite a good musician and while still a teenager wrote and recorded in 1951 what is largely regarded as the first rock and roll song "Rocket 88" with his saxophone player Jackie Brenston on lead vocals at Sun Studio with Sam Phillips. Phillips leased the song to Chess Records in Chicago, it hit number one and Phillips used the money to start his own record label, Sun Records. </p><p>Music fans the world over would be indebted for years to come.</p><p>Most remember Ike today because he went on to have a successful career with another lead singer, Anna Mae Bullock, whom he married and gave the stage name Tina Turner. </p><p>At 95, Pinetop still has that boogie woogie going on. He records and tours and is now considered an elder statesman of the blues. Ike died a year ago this month.</p><p>Both men recorded the classic 1947 Charles Brown song "Merry Christmas Baby."</p><p>Turner's 1964 arrangement is soulful and intense, as you might expect. Perkins' version from just a few years ago is laid back and cool, just like the man. Both draw from a piano style learned years before in the Mississippi Delta. </p><p>They take different stylistic paths, but both the teacher and the student eventually arrive at the same location, just like they did back in Moorehead in the early 40's. Merry Christmas, baby.</p><p></p><p><br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/9%20-%20Merry%20Christmas%20Baby%20Pinetop%20Perkins.wma">(Click to hear Pinetop Perkins' Merry Christmas Baby)</a></strong><br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/MERRY_%20CHRISTMAS_%20BABY_%20Ike_Tina%20Turner.mp3 ">(Click to hear Ike & Tina Turner's Merry Christmas Baby)</a></strong><br /><br /></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz0z0UK1-R5dr895ecnnhkpbdrfnAOkKQERJjq4vyMS1HzpxSw_4gitSCmqP6aEmJvO0w8VFZFnyvydmwksKaV2DC2vxi1UaBZsERkjFMSqHNfpqoZDdNBx1IsT18UINOgpB6dDPQ9WiU/s1600-h/itturner.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280933926973434642" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 226px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz0z0UK1-R5dr895ecnnhkpbdrfnAOkKQERJjq4vyMS1HzpxSw_4gitSCmqP6aEmJvO0w8VFZFnyvydmwksKaV2DC2vxi1UaBZsERkjFMSqHNfpqoZDdNBx1IsT18UINOgpB6dDPQ9WiU/s320/itturner.jpg" border="0" /></a> <p></p>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-82041409364607792132008-12-16T07:51:00.028-06:002009-05-03T21:14:43.376-05:00Blues For Christmas<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNla3iPsPcnZz42Fq09nPmTfvGKOXM0oMhWxt3KzFStwSUZle-0xc8yBLgSD5VIi4r16wga4zXMtnh0r7aUFxULKvWpdTl_Oliw2y8MhjOFUyWcMcXTovoT-Pwzazfph-mcYgkSYOKAMg/s1600-h/JohnLeeHooker.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280420185935540738" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 260px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNla3iPsPcnZz42Fq09nPmTfvGKOXM0oMhWxt3KzFStwSUZle-0xc8yBLgSD5VIi4r16wga4zXMtnh0r7aUFxULKvWpdTl_Oliw2y8MhjOFUyWcMcXTovoT-Pwzazfph-mcYgkSYOKAMg/s320/JohnLeeHooker.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Born in 1917 near Clarksdale, John Lee Hooker had 10 older brothers and sisters. His first instrument was an inner tube nailed to the barn. His first father was not musically inclined. Luckily, his mother then married a man who was. Hooker's step-father, William Moore was a guitar player. William Moore played fish fries and parties, sometimes joining blues legends Charlie Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake. William Moore also taught young John Lee how to play the blues.<br /><br />It was a lesson that lasted a lifetime.<br /><br />John Lee ran away from his Clarksdale home at either 14 or 15 to play the blues in Memphis. He wound up working as a movie usher, but also working with Robert Nighthawk. Then he moved to Cinncinnati to live with relatives. For the next ten years John Lee sang gospel and worked a variety of manual labor jobs.<br /><br />But it wasn't enough to hold him, after a stint in the army, he settled in Detroit, working at a receiving hospital and later at Dodge and Comco Steel (possibly also as a janitor at the Chrysler car plant). Through it all, however he paid the rent, John Lee never put down his guitar. He played in clubs, but it took a little luck before John Lee got to really boogie.<br /><br />Someone with connections to a local record distributor heard him playing at a house party, noticed that he was very good, and in 1948 John Lee Hooker recorded his first hit record, the classic "Boogie Chillen." It was in a style he learned long ago from his step-father back in Clarksdale.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBhE0VLiYB5KBjkuJ0pIotk_jkRj0UgA5ov4ihKDJ1QIGJUTFm_yZXGKQFRrF1rp1YU4QMX_sfzqZmS8VNyLm2mhB0NRvihL2UwoWOIJ4ZKvGupoVC7tHvdfMRqu086rUAJU2uzJ7-J4Q/s1600-h/blues+for+christmas.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280419951244253538" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 194px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBhE0VLiYB5KBjkuJ0pIotk_jkRj0UgA5ov4ihKDJ1QIGJUTFm_yZXGKQFRrF1rp1YU4QMX_sfzqZmS8VNyLm2mhB0NRvihL2UwoWOIJ4ZKvGupoVC7tHvdfMRqu086rUAJU2uzJ7-J4Q/s200/blues+for+christmas.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>"Blues for Christmas"</strong> isn't a boogie tune. it's far from it. <strong>"Blues for Christmas"</strong> is a laid back drinking blues with a jazzy feel augmented by Bob Thurman on piano, Jimmy Miller on trumpet and Johnny Hooks on tenor saxophone. Hooker wrote and recorded it in Detroit in 1954.<br /><br />William Moore never got to hear this or any other John Lee Hooker record. He died before his step-son got to Detroit. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/Blues_For_Christmas.mp3 "><strong>(Click to hear John Lee Hooker's Blues for Christmas)</strong></a><br /><br /><a href="http://web.telia.com/~u19104970/johnnielee.html">Click here for John Lee Hooker Tribute Page</a>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-73985533006969510182008-12-15T10:08:00.017-06:002009-05-03T21:46:08.349-05:00Bawdy BB The Back Door Santa<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxr_oPbao1cYuorxqEsiGYezCxeN3EQub7B7Q9-9g6M-USBPp4eBgjWlbF5nxdPe5uzZOvW3tLMi854ke5WMz0NPxv2eI96S6bJCfUYm063GiUSR1Rp0GK7AlE0jKsSujpQZTVkKDAv8M/s1600-h/bbking.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280049605628873618" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 272px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxr_oPbao1cYuorxqEsiGYezCxeN3EQub7B7Q9-9g6M-USBPp4eBgjWlbF5nxdPe5uzZOvW3tLMi854ke5WMz0NPxv2eI96S6bJCfUYm063GiUSR1Rp0GK7AlE0jKsSujpQZTVkKDAv8M/s320/bbking.jpg" border="0" /></a> Surely the most recognizable blues musician alive in the world today has to be B.B. King. The man from Itta Bena, Mississippi has said that as a young man he would sing gospel songs on the street corner in Indianola and the passersby would applaud or shake his hand and tell him how wonderful it was to hear such songs. But they didn't drop any coins into his hat.<br /><br />When he went across the street to sing blues songs, that's when he made his money. Playing the blues paid better than gospel. And it sure paid better than sharecropping.<br /><br />The blues are what took Riley King out of Indianola to Memphis. And the blues are what made B.B. King an international star. Along with his obvious talent as a blues singer and guitarist is B.B.'s image as one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet. Regal, just like his name, but folksy at the same time.<br /><br />But don't be fooled. B.B. knows how to get down and dirty with the blues. Even at Christmastime.<br /><br />Take for example, <strong>"Back Door Santa,"</strong> a song written in 1968 by Clarence Carter, which obviously is molded after Vicksburg native Willie Dixon's classic "Back Door Man" from a decade earlier.<br /><br />Back Door Santa Lyrics:<br /><br /><blockquote>They call me back door Santa,<br />I make my runs about the break of day,<br />They call me back door Santa,<br />I make my runs about the break of day.<br />I make all the ladies happy,<br />while the men are out to play.<br />Well I ain't like old Saint Nick,<br />he don't come but once a year<br />Well I ain't like old Saint Nick,<br />he don't come but once a year.<br />But I'll come runnin' with my presents,<br />every time you call me dear.</blockquote> B.B. King recorded "Back Door Santa" in 2001 for an album called "Christmas Celebration of Hope." All the money went to the charity "City of Hope," a world-renowned biomedical research and treatment center for people with HIV/AIDS and cancer.<br /><br />Sure, he could have recorded a nice gospel album for the charity. But you know what? The blues pay better.<br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/03_-_Back_Door_Santa.mp3">To enjoy B.B. King's "Back Door Santa", click here.</a></strong>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-44801716852025095822008-12-13T02:17:00.023-06:002009-05-04T14:13:58.966-05:00Bo Knows Santa Claus<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXjpsQXs4cn_82fe9f_0wxtYO3U6xL3TiUOmu774xTBFIJ3d73tYZduqc6tdbMzcht61_UEBnRCkdEuw24vnkHwz1ZLGtZdDZhqqN4f74VNcCMAUDg7lgjP5DtOPJ3nWDwJaYtLZOxjss/s1600-h/bo_carter.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279186486018555970" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 169px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXjpsQXs4cn_82fe9f_0wxtYO3U6xL3TiUOmu774xTBFIJ3d73tYZduqc6tdbMzcht61_UEBnRCkdEuw24vnkHwz1ZLGtZdDZhqqN4f74VNcCMAUDg7lgjP5DtOPJ3nWDwJaYtLZOxjss/s320/bo_carter.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />He was born Armenter Chatmon to former slaves in 1893 at a plantation between Bolton and Edwards, Mississippi. Both his mother and father sang and played music. But it was "Bo" who made the family famous. Well, Bo and his half brother Charley Patton.<br /><br />As Bo Carter he made over 100 blues or "race" records in the 1930's. Many of those records were as a solo artist. But he also sang and recorded with his brothers in a group they called the "Mississippi Sheiks." They were a famous string band and their "Sitting On Top of the World" is in the Grammy Hall of Fame.<br /><br />As a solo artist in 1928, Bo was the first to record the blues standard "Corinne, Corinna." But music historians mostly remember Bo as the man who sang bawdy blues songs like <em>"Let Me Put My Banana in Your Fruit Basket"</em> and <em>"Your Biscuits Are Big Enough For Me". </em><br /><br />Bo obviously didn't know subtlety. <br /><br />Even in his 1938 Christmas song, when he sings, <strong><em>"when I get to using your Santa Claus, wanna use him different ways. I wanna use your Santa Claus baby both night and day," </em> </strong>you what Bo's talking about, and it aint a fat man in a red suit.<br /><br />So here's a little gift, mama, that Bo Carter wants to stuff into your Christmas stocking tonight. <br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/Santa_Claus_Bo_Carter.mp3 ">(click here to hear Bo Carter's Santa Claus)</a></strong>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-18854124765048116682008-12-11T19:23:00.012-06:002009-12-12T16:15:31.130-06:00Sonny Boy and Santa Claus<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB4iS4vhDwcdQXjBBqyJZoCh7OXPh3ryk7oT6vWDO4Fc41SrdjfnoMCR42Mo0gk1BITdBdfob9xf3kxXqUt53pB8ep3bZGwy5BaIJKJe_De8bFMxrxOGlSqUkFnpEgh0PL9YOpjUcpMkc/s1600-h/sonny3.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278708853219290930" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 228px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB4iS4vhDwcdQXjBBqyJZoCh7OXPh3ryk7oT6vWDO4Fc41SrdjfnoMCR42Mo0gk1BITdBdfob9xf3kxXqUt53pB8ep3bZGwy5BaIJKJe_De8bFMxrxOGlSqUkFnpEgh0PL9YOpjUcpMkc/s320/sonny3.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Seeing as how we just missed posting anything about the birthday of Glendora's own Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller Dec. 5, 1897) and beginning with Bobby Lounge we're starting to post Christmas songs, I'd like to try and rectify the inexcusable ommission of Sonny Boy with a seasonal post and a tip of the bowler hat dedicated to the King of the Harmonica.<br /><br />Sonny Boy recorded "Santa Claus" in April, 1960 and he sounds a little bit like Howlin' Wolf. Kind of funny 'cause it was Sonny Boy who taught Wolf how to play harmonica. But then you could argue that Sonny Boy taught the world.<br /><br />Merry Christmas, baby. Many more songs to follow.<br /><br /><strong><strong><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/Santa_Claus_sonnyboy.mp3">(Click here to hear Sonny Boy's Santa Claus)</a></strong></strong><br /><br />FYI: The term "Santa Claus" is often used in blues and gospel to mean the Christmas gift, not Mr. Claus himself.<br /><br />The lyrics:<br /><blockquote>My baby went shoppin yesterday,<br />Said, "I'm gonna buy what you need for Santa Claus."<br />My baby went shoppin yesterday,<br />Said, "I'm gonna buy what you need for Santa Claus."<br />"I'm gonna take mine with me,"<br />"But I'll leave yours in my dresser drawer."<br />So, that started me to ramblin,<br />Lookin in all of my baby's dresser drawers.<br />Wow, that started me to ramblin,<br />Lookin all in my baby's dresser drawers.<br />Tryin to find out,<br />What did she bought me for Santa Claus.<br />When I pulled out the bottom dresser drawer,<br />The landlady got mad and called the law.<br />When I pulled out the bottom dresser drawer,<br />The landlady got mad and called the law.<br />I was just tryin to find,<br />What did she bought me for Santa Claus.<br />The police walked in and jarred me on the shoulder,<br />"What you doing with your hand in that woman's dresser drawer?"<br />I hand the police a letter my baby wrote me,<br />Showin where I should find my Santa Claus.<br />I just kept on pullin out all of my baby's dresser drawers.<br />I walked out and left the police and the landlady arguin,<br />Said, "Look at the man done pull out all the lady's dresser drawers."<br />Yes, I walked out and left the police and the landlady arguin,<br />Said, "Look at the man done pull out all the lady's dresser drawers."<br />But he said, "I got the letter and show the judge."<br />"The boy just tryin to find his Santa Claus."<br />Oh yeah.</blockquote>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-61769941995312559092008-12-10T16:30:00.017-06:002008-12-11T09:31:13.736-06:00It Aint Gene Autry<a href="http://media.npr.org/music/sotd/2008/10/lounge300.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 225px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://media.npr.org/music/sotd/2008/10/lounge300.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />McComb's playful piano pumper Bobby Lounge (aka Dub Brock) never met an unusal character he couldn't relate to or sing about with soul. Such is the case with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Back when Gene Autry sang about the classic caribou in 1949 it was a quaint tale about how our individual characteristics, no matter how different they may be, are strengths rather than weaknesses, if only the world allowed us to use them correctly.<br /><br />Put Bobby Lounge behind the piano and Rudolph not only rocks, he gains even more underdog strength and respectable coolness.<br /><br />NPR has taken note of the Lounge act before with a 2006 feature story on All Things Considered called <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5387232">"Wild Man of Jazz Fest."</a> Most recently the public radio network shone a light on Lounge back in October when they chose Lounge's version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as the NPR Song of the Day. <a href="http://www.upload-mp3.com/files/48753_zbfsq/09%20Track%209.wma">(Click here to listen)</a><br /><br />Said writer Marc Silver:<br /><br /><blockquote>A pianist hammers out a jaunty intro that sounds familiar, yet seems hard to place. There are octave runs and an insistent bass line, as well as repeated chords that conjure up "Heart and Soul." Wait, could it be? It sure could, as Bobby Lounge begins yelping like Jerry Lee Lewis and singing words that everyone knows by heart: "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer / Ow, he had a shiny nose..."<br /></blockquote><br />Silver goes on to explain the not so subtle differences between the Gene Autry and Bobby Lounge versions: <br /><br /><blockquote>In case you were wondering, "Lord, they loved that boy" is not part of the original lyric. Nor is the scat-filled ending, as Lounge growls and howls a "Shab a dap" denouement as bright as Rudy's shiny schnoz. </blockquote><br />Lounge recorded Rudolph for his latest CD <strong>"Somethin's Wrong". </strong>It aint Gene Autry. And there's nothing wrong with that.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95285616">(Read the full article here.)</a>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-76437232133269092062008-12-03T10:44:00.027-06:002009-05-04T14:16:43.720-05:00Rolling Out The Red Carpet In Rolling Fork<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE412nmjhk9aMvNAKV5HW-G1hsg4F-1Sv1eKahd4L0hAvpwNG60RgQ6ygKXKFrvQTqzo6M0onzklq6JdDLhr27GGTWYCotFEttNc9WuZcxDfO8aId8vQfCbNtlnhflWC840mpB_7Pz7Tg/s1600-h/muddy+and+sims.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275606705821911186" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 288px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE412nmjhk9aMvNAKV5HW-G1hsg4F-1Sv1eKahd4L0hAvpwNG60RgQ6ygKXKFrvQTqzo6M0onzklq6JdDLhr27GGTWYCotFEttNc9WuZcxDfO8aId8vQfCbNtlnhflWC840mpB_7Pz7Tg/s320/muddy+and+sims.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Today Muddy Waters recieved his blues marker in Rolling Fork as the birthplace of McKinley A. Morganfield. Eleanor Barkhorn writes about the big day in <a href="http://www.ddtonline.com/articles/2008/12/03/news/news5.txt">yesterday's Delta Democrat</a>:<br /><blockquote>“We're just so excited to have this tangible evidence of Muddy Waters here in Rolling Fork,” said Meg Cooper, coordinator for the Mississippi Lower Delta Partnership, who spearheaded efforts to bring the blues marker to Rolling Fork.<br /><br />Cooper said international tourists flock to Rolling Fork, searching for signs of Waters, who was born McKinley Morganfield in 1913 and lived in the Delta until the 1940s, before moving to Chicago.</blockquote><br />That's fine, except, Muddy was not born in Rolling Fork.<br /><br />Muddy Waters biographer Robert Gordon was on hand for the ceremony, so nobody's trying to fool tourists. Because the first page in Gordon's biography of Muddy details where Muddy was born and why so many wrongly believe it to be Rolling Fork. Apparently the marker will explain that while Muddy often said he was born in Rolling Fork, he actually was born in neighboring Issaquena County at a place called Jug's Corner and Rolling Fork was the nearest post office. Here's an excerpt of an interview with Muddy's brother Robert Morganfield for Robert Gordon's 2002 documentary <strong>"Can't Be Satisfied", </strong> a companion to the biography of the same name.<br />If you really want to see where Muddy Waters was born, <strong><a href="http://www.pbs.org/cgi-registry/mediaplayer/videoplayer.cgi?playeraddress=videoplayer.cgi;media=%2Fwnet%2Fammasters%2Fwaters_m%2Fclip01-lo.rm%2C%2Fwnet%2Fammasters%2Fwaters_m%2Fclip01-hi.rm;playertemplate=%2Fwnet%2Famericanmasters%2Fmedia_players%2Fvideo.html">Click here to see unused video</a></strong> and interviews from Robert Gordon's American Masters documentary on Muddy Waters.<br /><br />And if you really want to find out how it really wasn't Alan Lomax who "discovered" Muddy Waters, then read Gordon's bio. Here's what music writer and historian Dave Marsh had to say about it following Lomax's death in 2002: <br /><br /><blockquote>Lomax's obit made the front page mainly because he "discovered" Son House and Muddy Waters. But in Can't Be Satisfied, his new Muddy Waters biography, Robert Gordon shows that Lomax's discoveries weren't the serendipitous events the great white hunter portrayed. Lomax was led to House and then Waters by the great Negro scholar, John Work III of Fisk University. Gordon even shows Lomax plagiarizing Work, and not on a minor point. (See page 51) In his book, Lomax offers precisely one sentence about Work. He eliminated Work from his second Mississippi trip. He also burned Muddy Waters for the $20 he promised for making the records.</blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/marsh0721.html">Click here to read the full Marsh article.</a><br /><br />Yes, they rolled out the red carpet today for Muddy Waters in Rolling Fork. Hopefully, it's a really long carpet that stretches all the way to Jug's Corner. Like the $20 Lomax never paid him, Muddy deserves it, and so much more.<br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/waters_m.html">Click to see the PBS American Masters Muddy Waters page.</a></strong><br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/25_-_Country_Blues.mp3">Click here to hear a young Muddy sing "Country Blues"</a></strong> as recorded by Alan Lomax on the Stovall Plantation.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-12205938027530498662008-12-01T18:31:00.018-06:002009-05-03T23:11:31.446-05:00Mannish Boy<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYmJSEOTkNnX2cSQgXyNLxDbkn9nrJknpoUOHo-lYSgHhaAp00T0ICHkex-zfrycL7F86Rg4TzCowpIFZ8lpyZ-ZjkyxWbKDwzxed9VTx8JvG9hj791krHIsiTbV8t1SElMtHHnXcIc8c/s1600-h/muddy_waters2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274984578767695938" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 190px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYmJSEOTkNnX2cSQgXyNLxDbkn9nrJknpoUOHo-lYSgHhaAp00T0ICHkex-zfrycL7F86Rg4TzCowpIFZ8lpyZ-ZjkyxWbKDwzxed9VTx8JvG9hj791krHIsiTbV8t1SElMtHHnXcIc8c/s320/muddy_waters2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />The earliest known photograph of Muddy Waters is with his first true love; the first recording he ever made. It would be a beautiful and lasting relationship, Muddy and blues records. He would of course become one of the most influential musicians ever to strike a chord.<br /><br />Hollywood is late in telling the Muddy Waters story with the release this weekend of "Cadillac Records", but music writers have been telling his story for decades. Still, it took a long time for a proper biography to emerge.<br /><br />"Muddy Waters usually told people that he was born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi," begins Robert Gordon's 2002 biography of Muddy called <strong>"Can't Be Satisfied".</strong><br /><br />He continues:<br /><blockquote>Rolling Fork is where the train stopped, where Muddy's family would get their mail and do their shopping. Rolling Fork was on the map. But Muddy's actual birthplace is to the west and north of there, in the next county over -- Issaquena, pronounced "Essaquena," the initial "e" the only thing soft in this hard land."</blockquote><br />On Wednesday, December 3rd at 10:30 a.m., Rolling Fork once again will be called the birthplace of Muddy Waters, this time by the state of Mississippi with another historic marker along the growing <a href="http://www.msbluestrail.org/">blues trail.</a> Waters already has a marker in his name in Clarksdale, six miles from where he grew up at the Stovall Plantation, where he lived and worked and learned to play the delta blues by watching and listening to his idol Son House.<br /><br />Later, Gordon writes inaccuracies in Muddy's life story were not uncommon, sometimes with Muddy acting as the innacurate source:<br /><br /><blockquote>"Although his parents never married, the child was given his father's last name: McKinley A. Morganfield. In years to come, after he moved to Chicago, Muddy usually told people he was born in 1915, oddly shaving only two years off his age (if his goal was to appear younger for the entertainment field). He thus became a man born in a year he wasn't born in, from a town where he wasn't born, carrying a name he wasn't born with."</blockquote><br />That nickname, Muddy Waters, was given to him by his grandmother, Della Grant. And that is the name that today the world remembers him by. Whether the world remembers that he actually was born a county away from Rolling Fork, at a bend in the road next to the Cottonwood Plantation in an area known as Jug's Corner is of little consequence. Robert Johnson, after all, lays claim to three burial sites. Giving Muddy two birth sites is the least the blues world can do.<br /> <br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwPGvNF0LRwyprcX2HzpO69Nni1fcC0MIgC0yVyIaOXV1nIVV6dRykysmMKSqZEbSsHcOZTmKwZUFku6sPf5XjTcFXotQXMz_Q0ypWPEYZy2wsHgPnR-27DBlcRq6hLqDyqMgrXcC3sp8/s1600-h/waters-muddy_cant-beBOOK.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275013440960094338" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 250px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 250px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwPGvNF0LRwyprcX2HzpO69Nni1fcC0MIgC0yVyIaOXV1nIVV6dRykysmMKSqZEbSsHcOZTmKwZUFku6sPf5XjTcFXotQXMz_Q0ypWPEYZy2wsHgPnR-27DBlcRq6hLqDyqMgrXcC3sp8/s320/waters-muddy_cant-beBOOK.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97588797">Click to hear Robert Gordon October 3, 2002 interview on NPR.</a></strong><br /> <br /><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/05%20Mannish%20Boy.wma ">Click to hear Muddy's "Mannish Boy"</a>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-52706939762575624792008-11-30T21:40:00.011-06:002009-05-04T14:20:51.918-05:00B.B. King Drawing Fans South<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_c6iGq5z-nl4glndciOHTz5YXp2WGLDq42_4uThIjV6sZEe9HymiidoMqYWIQw43nSHOQ5jOzD66yUg-M4dZLLA0VimtSILgY9fTVjdqkyfZYO-fqTm0wZP5dI13XQgC4jLZI9ezpqlU/s1600-h/King5.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274663651354934930" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_c6iGq5z-nl4glndciOHTz5YXp2WGLDq42_4uThIjV6sZEe9HymiidoMqYWIQw43nSHOQ5jOzD66yUg-M4dZLLA0VimtSILgY9fTVjdqkyfZYO-fqTm0wZP5dI13XQgC4jLZI9ezpqlU/s320/King5.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Word has spread about the new B.B. King museum in Indianola. And the word is good. It's been open for less than three months and blues fans from all over are feeling a pull to the delta to pay homage to the man and the delta blues art form.<br /><br />Tom Uhlenbrock of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is a recent visitor. But he wanted to see more than artifacts and photographs in a museum honoring the past.<br /><br />Here's an excerpt:<br /><br /><blockquote>Rave reviews about the B.B. King Museum, which opened in Indianola in September, inspired me to head out on a road trip through Mississippi, which is busy setting up highway markers for a Blues Trail. But I didn't want to make a dead-man's tour of markers, museums and grave sites. I wanted live legends, "real-deal" Delta bluesmen.</blockquote> Uhlenbrock also mentions the new documentary "M for Mississippi" and interviews one of the bluesmen featured, T-Model Ford:<br /><br /><blockquote>"I was born in Forest, Miss., picked cotton, plowed mules, worked in a sawmill," he said. "Can't read, can't write, never been to school a day in my life. Taught myself how to play the guitar. When I was 18, guy tried to kill me. I killed him and went on the chain gang in Tennessee. It didn't make a bad man out of me, made me a good man. I been quiet ever since."<br /><br />Although his doctor told him to cut back on the Jack, Ford still tours and just got back "from this place with a great big blue lake." He couldn't remember the name, but Stella, who is 50ish, yelled from the porch, "Barbados." </blockquote> Read the <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/stories.nsf/lifestyle/travel/story/2e93e9c28b4df6978625750c00785d92?OpenDocument">full article here.</a><br /><br /><strong><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/05%20Three%20OClock%20Blues.mp3 ">Click here to hear B.B. King's 3 O'Clock Blues</a></strong>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-41059905942833219612008-11-24T10:28:00.024-06:002008-12-01T20:21:29.549-06:00Forty Days With Muddy WatersWhat would it have been like to watch Muddy Waters cut one of his many classic records in the legendary Chess Records studio at 2120 South Michigan in Chicago?<br /><br />A new movie attempts to show us how "Forty Days and Forty Nights" might have went down in 1956 with Muddy and Little Walter.<br /><br /><a href="http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=46903759">Cadillac Records Exclusive Clip</a><br /><object height="360" width="425"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="movie" value="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=46903759,t=1,mt=video"><embed src="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=46903759,t=1,mt=video" width="425" height="360" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object><br /><br />The movie is Cadillac Records, the story of Chess Records. <em>(<a href="http://birthplaceofamericanmusic.blogspot.com/2008/11/theres-great-story-to-tell-about-chess.html">see earlier blog mention</a>)</em> That's Jeffery Wright portraying Muddy Waters and Columbus Short as Little Walter. That's Buddy Guy's vocal on the soundtrack. The movie opens December 5th, just two days after Mississippi once again honors Muddy with a second blues trail marker. The first marker is placed at Muddy's cabin site on the Stovall Plantation in Clarksdale. This time around, a blues trail marker will be unveiled at his birthplace in Rolling Forks.<br /><br />From <a href="http://www.pressregister.com/articles/2008/11/23/news/doc492735c45acba850612903.txt">the Clarksdale Press Register</a> we find that the Delta Blues Museum has secured $1.8 million in grants to expand the museum, including a new home for the Muddy Water's cabin exhibit where it can be erected to its actual height. Right now, the top section of the cabin is not included, as the ceiling height of the museum is too low.<br /><br />Will this star-studded new movie renew interest in Mississippi's blues greats like Muddy Waters? Absolutely. And many of those will come to check out the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale and the blues trail markers across the state. With 58 markers now in place, to view them all, it just might take someone, oh I don't know, something like forty days and forty nights.<br /><br />Click to hear Muddy's <a href="http://www.upload-mp3.com/files/41787_zl18r/07%20Forty%20Days%20and%20Forty%20Nights.wma">Forty Days and Forty Nights.</a>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-41859764161303908932008-11-22T11:06:00.029-06:002009-05-05T10:47:23.793-05:00Elvis Gets Planted<a href="http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/img/1/1/3/3/24143311-24143318-lmedium.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 170px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 170px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/img/1/1/3/3/24143311-24143318-lmedium.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Who is the greatest singer in the rock and roll era? In it's newest edition, <strong><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/issue1066">Rolling Stone Magazine</a></strong> tries to settle the question, or at least start another worthwhile debate. The magazine polled singers, producers, journalists and other music insiders to find out who is the most respected singer. For <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/24161972/page/3">Led Zepplin's Robert Plant</a>, there is only one answer - Tupelo's Elvis Presley.<br /><br />Says Plant:<br /><blockquote> <strong>"Anyway You Want Me" <a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/12/19/2230219/Any%20Way%20You%20Want%20Me.wma ">(click to hear)</a> </strong>is one of the most moving vocal performances I've ever heard. There is no touching "Jailhouse Rock" and the stuff recorded at the King Creole sessions. I can study the Sun sessions as a middle-aged guy looking back at a bloke's career and go, "Wow, what a great way to start." But I liked the modernity of the RCA stuff. "I Need Your Love Tonight" and "A Big Hunk o' Love" were so powerful — those sessions sounded like the greatest place to be on the planet.</blockquote> This of course means that when Rolling Stone's panel of experts looked at every remarkable singer from the past 70 years, they collectively decided on the top five singers, and three have Mississippi roots: Clarksdale born and bred Reverend C.L. Franklin's daughter Aretha finished first, Ray Charles second, and Elvis third. Sam Cooke, also born in Clarksdale, finished fourth.<br /><br />Other notable mentions: Howlin' Wolf at 31, Muddy Waters at 53, and John Lee Hooker at 81.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-308132344480111232008-11-20T13:24:00.025-06:002008-11-22T12:42:49.299-06:00Vanity, Thy Name Is Blues<a href="http://mtblog.vanityfair.com/online/daily/Bean.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 281px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://mtblog.vanityfair.com/online/daily/Bean.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Who knew Vanity Fair was a blues publication? Last month the magazine which bills itself as one of of culture, fashion, and politics, published an extensive article on a purported new photograph of Robert Johnson.<br /><br />And now this.<br /> <br />When Roger Stolle and Jeff Konkel sat down at Ground Zero blues club to speak with Terry Harmonica Bean for their documentary <strong>"M for Mississippi", </strong>they weren't concerned with their own vanity. But they are today, after what can truthfully be called a vanity printing featuring the two. <br /><br />Normally, that's a derogatory term meant to diminish the work of an artist as he or she builds up the ego with blatant and usually undeserved self promotion made at the artist's expense. But this is no slap at the producers of <strong>"M for Mississippi".</strong> Quite the contrary. While it's more than fair to call this latest interview a vanity printing, it's still nothing but a good thing and definately a tribute to the good work of Cat Head Record's Roger Stolle and Jeff Konkel, owner of Broke and Hungry Records.<br /><br />Both men sat down for an interview with a writer for <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/online/culture/2008/11/19/qa-is-the-blues-on-the-verge-of-extinction.html">Vanity Fair online </a> to discuss their new documentary of Mississippi blues called <strong>"M for Mississippi". </strong><em><a href="http://birthplaceofamericanmusic.blogspot.com/2008/10/m-for-mississippi.html">(see earlier blog mention)</a></em><br /><br />And you know what? They didn't have to pay a single penny for this Vanity printing. Obviously Vanity Fair is loving it some Mississippi blues.<br /><br />Here's an excerpt:<br /><br /><blockquote>VF Daily: One of the interesting things about this movie is how well you captured the essence of real-life juke joints. I think many people nowadays think of a juke joint as being House of Blues or B.B. King’s club in Times Square.<br /><br />Roger Stolle: I think that’s true. I think the term “juke” has just been abused. People started calling a regular old club a juke joint. But if you look at these real joints, these rag-tag places, it’s totally different. You get the crowds that talk back to the acts. You have lighting that’s very dim. There’s a real atmosphere.<br /><br />Sometimes you see the spotlight behind the artist, shining in the audience’s faces, and sometimes there’s no real stage, just a patch of carpet, and when you look around, you can’t help but think, How is it possible that a fire marshal didn’t get involved here? But I’m grateful for that, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The audience really becomes a part of what’s going on. They are not just the observer; they’re the participants.</blockquote><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uqVc652oTVI&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uqVc652oTVI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4132281047549828583.post-48071609752469836652008-11-13T12:37:00.017-06:002008-11-22T12:13:43.566-06:00The Book on Delta Blues<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvjxsGHs-CV99-MZB19zDBLSIw-FBDPgEa5w1ZC6vZYXLDCrdD48thQLLpbgqjGPoK-LUagoiVRjO6o34nEcj47BMYS17n8K30Lo3alcEjp3xc5SwTqOwASN5BpphF48VjPFtdzevwT6M/s1600-h/delta_blue-198x313.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268214314110675778" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 198px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 313px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvjxsGHs-CV99-MZB19zDBLSIw-FBDPgEa5w1ZC6vZYXLDCrdD48thQLLpbgqjGPoK-LUagoiVRjO6o34nEcj47BMYS17n8K30Lo3alcEjp3xc5SwTqOwASN5BpphF48VjPFtdzevwT6M/s320/delta_blue-198x313.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Does the world really need another book about the history of the Delta Blues? Ted Gioia thinks so. "<strong>Delta Blues</strong>" is Gioia's sixth non-fiction book. His "The History of Jazz" was selected as one of the twenty best books of 1997 by Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post, and was also chosen as a notable book of the year in The New York Times. Gioia’s new book, "Delta Blues", published in October by Norton, is getting good reviews too. <br /><br />Here's an excerpt from Ben Ratliff's November 7 review <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/books/review/Ratliff-t.html?ref=books">in the New York Times: </a><br /><br /><blockquote>The chapter on John Lee Hooker — and here Gioia really hits his stride — deals with Hooker’s endless variations on a one-chord groove, but also with the profligacy of his recording career. He could make dozens of records in a single year, some under different names, sometimes lending himself to producers who had no idea what to do with him. There’s an embedded narrative here about the way certain blues musicians — not just Hooker, but Son House and others — might have taken too much pride in the quantity of their work, and not enough in the quality, as an emotional defense against exploitation. But there’s another, too, about the opportunism of both Hooker and his employers. Gioia follows Hooker to the end of his long life with a clear fascination for even some of his lesser achievements, through his ’70s recordings with Canned Heat and his Grammy-winning final days. </blockquote><br />And in this YouTube video, Gioia himself explains what motivated him to write "Delta Blues."<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ydsMML3cerg&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ydsMML3cerg&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />Gioia is in Oxford tonight at 6 p.m. at "Off Square Books" 129 Courthouse. Tomorrow night at 5:00 he's in Jackson at "Lemuria Books" off I-55 North.<br /><br />This may be the latest of many books, but it's certain that it will not be the last word on the Mississippi Delta blues.Nolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11792109446073313315noreply@blogger.com2