Anyone hear like blues?

Elmore James disciple, Hound Dog Taylor, from Chicago, fully juiced up (as always) and having a good time on stage in 1973.

has jpb checked in here?

Yeah jpb is a big fan of N'orleans funk and blues.

Nobody can mention Nawlins with me thinking of the Fatman (among others, of course):

The great Carl Perkins, one of Sun Records' "Million Dollar Quartet" (along with Johnny Cash, Elvis, and Jerry Lee). All southern white boys who grew up in the cotton fields with the blues, and all to end up in Memphis in the same studio as Howlin Wolf, Ike Turner, and boys like that.

Well, the doctor, he done told me...
Carl, ya don't need no pills
Justa handful of nickles....
and a jukebox will cure all your ills

No introduction needed:

Tell your Mama...
Tell your Pa...
Gunna send ya
back to Arkansas...

Down at Sugarland Prison in Texas there used to be a railroad track that ran past, a couple of miles out, that they called "the Midnight Special." One night, due to some fog and strange distortion, the headlight of that train got bent and shined directly on a prisoner, standing at his barred window. The very next day, he was pardoned by the Governor. Ever since that day, the others have been asking God to "let the Midnight Special shine a light on me."

One verse they always leave out when they cover Lead Belly's Midnight Special:

Well, Jumpin Little Judy...
She was a mighty fine girl....
Judy brought jumping...
to the whole round world...
She brought it in the morning...
just a while before day....
She's the one who brought the news...
that my wife was dead....
that started me to grievin...
then hollerin anna cryin....
then I began to worry....
about my great long time....

Frank Stokes, sometimes called "the father of Memphis blues guitar," doing an early tune that was later covered by Bessie Smith, Billie Holliday, and many others. Frank was playing on corners of Beale Street in Memphis in 1900, when he was only 12 years old.

Here's another precocious blues musician, Elizabeth Cotton. This tune, "Freight Train," since covered by dozens of musicians, was written by her around 1908, when she was about 13 years old. She plays a piedmont "ragtime" style of guitar, favored by Mississippi John Hurt, among many others. Some just call it "Cotton Pickin" (after her). It's hard to hear her play without being amazed by her skill, dexterity the complexity or her rhythm patterns.

Another one from the always unique Sam "Lightnin" Hopkins (who Stevie Ray Vaughn liked to steal tunes from).

Doctor told me I better be careful.....
set down and don't dance no more....
My wife, she told me the same thing, I said....
shut up, before you find yourself getting up off the floor...

Cause I knowed she wasn't no Doctor

Just today, I heard Etta James sing 'tell Mama, all about it'. And as hard as this is for me to say Janis Joplin did it better. But I do love Etta James.

Thinking about Etta reminded me of this scene from the movie "Cadillac Records." Willie Dixon narrates as Muddy Waters eggs Little Walter into some rather rash action.




From the same flick--again Willie narrates as Howlin Wolf confronts Muddy Waters by putting the moves on Muddy's girl. Very good acting, not to mention great music, in this movie. I would recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it.

If you didn't know, here's the kinda thing I was talking about with Lightnin and Stevie Ray. Stevie covered this tune ("Sky Hop" from 1954) virtually note for note and called it "Rude Mood."

Those good old Texas boys don't call it stealin amongst themselves, though. They just call it a compliment. You can also hear strains taken for Charley Ryan's "Hot Rod Lincoln" (1955) in it.

I must say, this is a great thread for our appreciation of American Blues music.

I've studied and played the Blues for 40 years and I'm learning a lot here.
The comparison to Hot Rod Lincoln was very good.

Where else but A2K can you get a free course in the Arts?

Very kind of you to say that, Panz, but, ya know, people here don't do that.

Touche
I guess i was wrong

Seriously though, it's nice to here some reaction, especially positive reaction, of course. Otherwise, I don't know if I just writing to myself, for one thing. But, more to the point, I don't know if anyone even likes the songs and/or which ones they like.

Tommy Johnson was a talented contemporary of Robert Johnson, and is sometimes confused with him. In the movie "Brother Where Art Thou," for example, they pick up a hitchhiker at a Mississippi crossroads who just sold his soul to the devil, whose name is "Tommy Johnson."

Among other lasting tunes, Tommy recorded "Canned Heat Blues," which Bob Hite, Alan Wilson, et al, took for a group name in the 60's. "Canned heat" was actually sterno, which many people (especially poor ones) used as a substitute for alchohol during prohibition. It was NOT a good thing to drink.

This tune, Big Road Blues, recorded by him in 1928, has since been covered many, many times, by artists of all stripes.

The repeal of prohibiton, and thereof resort to the "hootch" (like sterno) that he says his partner was killed by, led Peetie Wheatstraw, the devils' son-in-law, (remember him) to rejoice with tunes like "good whiskey blues." Now he can guzzle to his heart's content, without having to pay doctor bills, he says.

PS: You always know it's Peetie when you hear him repeating his trademark filler, "oh, well, well" (also adopted by Hite of Canned Heat).

For the hell of it, I'm including the clip from Brother wherefore art thou that I mentioned:



The actor in this movie is Chris Thomas King, who is an actual blues musician from Louisiana. Later in the movie he does a faithful rendition of Skip James' "Killing Floor." He also played the part of Blind Willie Johnson in Wim Wenders art house film "The Soul of a Man," which was one of the segments included in Martin Scorese's documentary series called "The blues." I have already posted a clip showing him in that role. Edit: After checking, I did post "soul of a man" by Blind Willie (here: http://able2know.org/topic/269506-5#post-5906934 ), but I didn't choose the clip where King was playing the part.

Here's another (the singing is actually Blind Willie, King is just lip-syncing here)