Entertainment For Lively Minds
Same ole pre-war blues...
Having just spent a pleasant afternoon reading Gayle Dean Wardlow's 'Chasin' That Devil Music', on the subject of earnestly rambling around the delta in the '60s looking for people who might have recorded music in the '20s and '30s (and being remarkably successful in finding such individuals), it seems appropriate to post this vid and start a themed thread...
The vid's a surprisingly lovely song by Hat Fitz & Cara Robinson - an act whose style is more usually full-on, foot-stomping Seasick Steve territory - which namechecks a fair few long-lost blues pioneers. Cara's an old pal from round my way (Co Down, NI) who made soul music around Leeds for a few years before hooking up with Hat and retreating to Australia to fill that nation's pressing 'acoustic White Stripes' void. (They play a festival in Plymouth in late April and are then back for more UK & Irish dates in May-June.)
The theme of thread is this: let's see how many songs we can post which namecheck pre-war blues artists - and I suspect the most interesting will be those from without the pure blues genre. Offhand, I can think of a few (mostly by Van Morrison!), but I'll be fascinated to see/hear the results from everyone else...
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Hi Colin, here goes
Martin Stephenson and the Daintees on their debut album Boat to Bolivia had a song called 'Tribute to the late Reverend Gary Davis'. Martin himself is deeply influenced by the blues and bluegrass players between the wars and has a fine picking style that is definitely to the fore in the live shows I have seen him perform.
Blind Willie McTell
First thing that springs to mind is the rather spiffing Bob Dylan song 'Blind Willie McTell'.
His version isn't on youtube as far as I can tell, so here's a passable substitute.
Good start, chaps...
...wasn't aware of the Martin S one at all, and though I've heard OF the Bob one (and even read Michael Grey's unweildily dry and far too long Blind Willie biography) I've never heard it, in any version. Funny, I can imagine Bob's version being more understated and effective than those guys, whoever they may be (trying far too hard anyway!). Nice song.
Mississippi John...
I was looking on youtube for a version of Wizz Jones' 'Mississippi John', which just came to mind, but there seems to be none there. However, I did find this - 'Requiem For Mississippi John Hurt', by Charlie Patton biographer/guitar iconoclast John Fahey. It's apparently based on Patton's recording of the trad 'Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed'.
(Fahey - a master of tune titling - also recorded a piece once called 'The Assassination Of Stefan Grossman'. But as Grossman himself made no recordings in the pre-war era - just oodles of post-war recordings in pre-war style - that doesn't count!)
'those guys'
'those guys' are in fact remnants of The Band (post Robbie and Richard).
Bob's version(s) is sublime, but Sony (or whomever) don't like him being on youtube too much.
I haven't read Michael Gray's McTell book, I have read his (even longer, even drier) Dylan stuff because I am a lunatic.
Fellow needs an editor but I like him more than Clinton Heylin. His blog can be hilariously pooterish.
Joni Mitchell's 'Furry sings the blues' about Furry Lewis:
(again the original's been blocked, this is ok - coincidentally it's from the Last Waltz - the verse that she sees fit to sing in an 'impersonation' of a gnarled old bluesman however, oh dear)
Anyway, I've been meaning to read that Wardlow book - any good?
Wardlow... Gray...
...well, I don't know them personally but I don't get a sense from their books of people with whom I'd care to spend time, although one can admire their dedication. Both rather dry and somewhat (over) earnest, as far as one can tell. I'm not exactly sure I could say I was truly enjoying reading Wardlow's book - despite a slightly tetchy remark in the intro about wanting to be viewed as a 'blues writer' rather than a 'blues researcher', he just isn't much of a writer. Frankly, there's more soul, more sense of a real effort to communicate what it is about the music that so inspires, in a few paragraphs of Peter Guralnick's Robert Johnson biog/monograph than there is in the whole of Wardlow's book (a collection of his pieces for earnest blues magazines). But one can't escape the fact that it was Wardlow, not Guralnick, who traipsed those highways in the 60s looking for people on the verge of being lost forever to history - and as such, I'm prepared to put up with his lack of sparkle as a writer.
Hope that's useful in helping you decide to spend a tenner!
And you're right about Michael Gray: boy does he need an editor. His opening chapter of 'colour' on Blind Willie, recounting the events around his final recording session, was like sunlight bursting into the tomb of Tutunkamun, revealing the riches of a lost age. And then it felt like about 400 pages before we ever find out anything more about the guy who's meant to be the subject of the book. But if you wanted to know about Blind Willie's grandfather, the Civil War, local governance in the southern states in the early 20th century and suchlike, then those 400 pages are certainly for you.
And Big Steve - yes, we'll allow mentions of pre-war hillbilly artists into the mix!
Meanwhile, here's Rory Gallagher's tribute to 'The Mississippi Sheiks' (a little known prewar 'race record' act, all individually namechecked in the song). I think it was Rory's best song by a mile:
It's far too late to get my brain working properly...
....but
Lucinda Williams mentions Mr. Johnson(I assume it's Robert)in 2 Kool 2 B 4-gotten(or whatever it's called)from her "Car Wheels" CD.
Charlie Poole.....probably closer to a sub-country genre...but there's blues there too. Anyway, one of Loudon Wainwright III's recent albums is a tribute to Mr. Poole. If I remember correctly, one of the Cds is covers that Poole played and the other is songs played in the style of Poole where Loudon names him in at least a couple of songs..."Charlie's Last Song" being the only one I can think of right now.
John Mayall..
"The Death Of JB Lenoir"
Done a few gigs with Ol' Fitz.
He's a rascal.
Nice one Shane...
...and a nice track too. I'm recalling that Mayall also had a track called 'I'm Gonna Fight For You J.B.', on a 1969 album, for JB Lenoir. Forgive my ignorance - was JB a pre-war recording artist? Pre-war city blues I'm guesing...? (And yes, I could just nip over to wikipedia...)
He's was more active in the 50s actually..
I went outside the brief.
..because I don't pay attention.
I've been scratching my head...
....over this most of the day and I'm struggling.
Pre-war hillbillies...Hank Williams obviously comes up time and again. Even the 2 artists I mentioned earlier...Lucinda mentions Hank in the title song of Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, and Loudon has a song called Hank and Fred(I think) on Here Come The Choppers.
Another pre-war hillbilly is Jimmie Rogers. I can't for the life of me think of a song where he is namechecked, but Steve Forbert must do somewhere, as he hails from the same town and did an album of covers of his.
What about Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry? They certainly played plenty pre-war but I don't know about recordings. Anyway, John Hiatt namechecks both(along with Mose Allison and John Lee Hooker)on the song Old Days from the Same Old Man CD.
I'm sure Sonny & Brownie...
...must have recorded before the war, if only on Library of Congress (commercially unissued at the time) recordings. I'll check! But it sounds like a good call, Steve. Pretty sure the earliest John Lee recording is from 1949... Mose from the 50s... but we're going in the right direction!
I feel that there MUST be a few more song references to pre-war guys out there...
Sonny & Brownie
...didn't get together until the forties. They both recorded before the war, but not with each other. Sonny with Blind Boy Fuller, and Brownie with others including Jordan Webb on harp. Saw them at the 100 Club in the 70s - they could never stand each other!
Some more...
Half Man Half Biscuit's Letters sent mentions Peetie Wheatstraw:
I'm fairly sure there are other HMHB ones but damned if I can bring them to mind.
Oh wait, there's the bit in 24 Hour Garage People where he compares the Garage attendent to Leadbelly at the depot. Marvellous. ("I got HAM, I got CHEESE, I Got TUNA SWEETCORN!)
Bob Dylan's sort of the American HMHB in many respects, including blues namechecking;
'High Water (for Charlie Patton)'
'Tombstone Blues' - "Ma Rainey and Beethoven once unwrapped the bedroll"
'Song for Woody'
Which reminds me, there's the Band's 'Bessie Smith', although I'm not sure that it's really about 'Bessie Smith'.
Anyhow, once again it doesn't appear to be on youtube, but there is a nice version by Norah Jones...
Very impressive Sam'n'Jan...
"Peetie Wheatstraw had a better voice" - fantastic!
I'm sure there dozens of passing references in Van Morrison songs/stage extemporisations - but somebody else can look for them and list them all. My contribution is this one - namechecking Mahalia Jackson (coming through the ether) at 2:47. The studio version namechecks Mahalia - okay, yes, we're including pre-war gospel singers now! - alongside those other well-known cotton-picking delta blues icons Yeats, Lady Gregory, TS Eliot, Wordsworth, Coleridge and William Blake. Most of whom were apparently smokin' dope up at Kendal. Indeed, William Blake's 'Kendal Mintcake Blues' is one of the great lost Paramount 78s of the genre...
Tom Paxton
knew John Hurt in the Village in the early 60's. When John passed, he wrote this song for him. The version on Youtube was recorded last year and Tom is a bit past his best. But it's a good song.
India.Arie
...namechecks both Robert Johnson and Charley Patton in Interlude on Acoustic Soul
Nice ones Paul and Jo...
...Mississippi John does seem to be the guy who's inspired the most tributes doesn't he? That's John Fahey, Tom Paxton and Wizz Jones who've all recorded tribute songs, plus Peter Case organised a whole V/A tribute album to him a couple of years back - covers of his songs I believe, rather than new songhs in honour (but I'll check...)
Tom Paxton has certainly got a lot of mileage out of that hat hasn't he?