Anyone hear like blues?

Brownie and Sonny, they ROCK, eh!? Brownie was born in Tennessee, Sonny in North Carolina, and both spent years playing at tobacco auctions, fish fries, barrelhouses, etc., in the rural South. Both played with Blind Blake and Woody Guthrie, and later stayed together as a duo for over 40 years.

Brownie had polio as a child, and still limps. Sonny has been (virtually) blind since childhood. They've had many hard times on the road, over the years, but have no complaints.

In the 40's, they made their way to Harlem, and have since had roles in Broadway shows and Hollywood movies. Here's an extended live presentation of one of their many performances from places ranging from Carnegy Hall, to local bars in small towns--where I have met them both. It kinda reveals their personalities.

One final post in this thread, which kinda served as my personal jukebox when I was here.

I'm sure I have posted this tune, "How many more years?," by Howlin Wolf (with Ike Turner on piano and Willie Johnson on guitar), before in this thread somewhere, but if once is good, then twice is more better, I always say.

Needless to say, Wolf is playing harp on this tune. It was first recorded by Howlin Wolf in Memphis in what became Sun Records in 1951, by Sam Phillips. Some have called it the first rock and roll song. Almost 70 years later, it's still a classic and one of my all-time favorite blues tunes.

The eminent musicologist and blues historian, Robert Palmer, has cited Willie Johnson's electric guitar work on the track as the first use of the power chord.

Well fella, I'll miss your contributions on this thread, if nowhere else. you obviously have a lot of knowledge about and love for this music. In another world I would have enjoyed discussing it with you.

"Cheese-Eater Blues"?

I shouldn't have posted this, but I can't delete it now.

This is the one I kind of think of as the paradigmatic Wolf song, (don't know whether it's been posted here, I would have thought so, but it too can bear repetition). Took the British blues kids by storm in the 60s, the Yardbirds with Clapton on guitar covered it with enthusiasm.
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Canton, Missippi Breakdown--Elmore James.

The vocals kinda busted down, but not the intruments, eh?

Classic Hound Dog Taylor, leavin the South Side with Muddy, Little Walter, and them to play for a big-ass crowd of white boys and girls in Michigan, eh?

Drunk, as always, and just havin a good time on stage with his cheap J.C. Penny amp and his crew.

This here tune was written and first recorded by Stick McGhee, Brownie McGhee's brother. They called him stick, because as a kid he used a stick to push around a wagon with Brownie in it. Brownie had polio, and couldn't walk.

Problem was, when he went to record it, around 1947, they wouldn't let him use the lyrics. At least not the recurring use of "************" that it contained. He had to come up with a substitute word with the same number of syllables to keep the tempo right. So "'************" was replaced with "spo-dee-o-dee."

That way, everyone knew what he was really sayin. If you're in polite company, you can always call some bastard spo-dee-o-dee, ya know?

Here's another Killer tune from the london sessions, done with a buncha british pervs backing him up. Can't nobody never get enough Jerry Lee, I figure, eh?

Those "buncha british pervs" on video

Thanks for the post, Walt. Yeah, that's them, sho nuff.

Here's how you take an old country music standard (by Hank Williams), blues it up real good with a shuffle rhythm, a 12-bar structure, some slide guitar, and ****, and turn it into what most people would call "rock and roll," eh?

John done this here tune at Chess Records (with Little Walter on harp) in Chicago in 1953. About 30 years later some white boys came along, stole it, and made a hit out of it, eh?

It's the last fair deal goin down, Good Lawd, on that Gulfport Island Road.



I declare, don't cry this time...
If you cry about a nickle, you'll die about a dime.
Why doncha try, put your money with mine?

Just for the record, I know Johnson didn't say "I declare" in that last tune. He said "Ida Belle." I had to take literary licence to generalize it to all Babes, not just po ole Ida Belle, know what I'm sayin?

Good ole Mississippi Fred, eh?

Big Bad Bo:

Keb Mo and crew, doin a bluesy version of the Stones with some strong Dixieland Jazz and Cajun Zydeco elements throwed in, eh? All said and done, it, like, ROCKS, eh!"