oh, and Cyndi Lauper too
Why aint they no blues thread?
- Thread starter Hopper
- Start date
Hopper
Banned
Well, Mo, yo da winner of this here little contest, it seems. If I wuz gradin on da curve, ya would git yo sef a A+, cuz you wuz da best. Course, ya don't git no prize, cuz that wasn't the condition. Ya clean missed out, I tellya!
The prize wuz a five-gallon jug of my own special blend of homemade grape/apple wine, with the grapes mashed with great, delicate care in a tub by my own feetz and crusty toes. To spice it up a bit, I throws in a couple gallons of Everclear. It ROCKS! But, if ya wanna come seez me sumtime, ya can still git some, eh!?
The prize wuz a five-gallon jug of my own special blend of homemade grape/apple wine, with the grapes mashed with great, delicate care in a tub by my own feetz and crusty toes. To spice it up a bit, I throws in a couple gallons of Everclear. It ROCKS! But, if ya wanna come seez me sumtime, ya can still git some, eh!?
Hopper
Banned
Mo, yo gunna end up gittin yo po sef smoked, Darlin, if ya keeps on runnin round claimin that Cyndi Lauper plays da blues, eh? Peoples don't cotton to that kinda slander, I tellya.
Hopper
Banned
Well, here's the problem, see? White boys, they can sho nuff plays the blues on guitar, and stuff, but they just caint hardly never saing them worth a crap. It all goes back to Africa, where the cultures had a 5-note (pentatonic) musical scale.
When the slaves got caught in the jungle and shipped over here, the 7-note European musical scale just wasn't right for them. If they were tryin to sing an american toon, like camptown races or swanee river, they would cut that scale down to 5 notes by flattnin the 3rd and 7th notes (E and B, in the key of C), and plumb skippin over the second and 6th notes (D and A, in C). So they done all the tunes different, ya know? That's one thang that makes it the blues. Listen to Chippie Hill on trouble in mind I just posted, and mebbe ya can seez what I talkin bout. Most white boys just don't git it. I mean, they understands, but it just don't come natural to them.
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Hopper
Banned
Or Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee, neither, eh, Mo?
Now Janis, that lil gerl could SAINGS (not just plays) da blues with the best of em.
I just seen a clip of Willie Nelson (the "country" singer who later hooked up with Waylon Jennings-who played with Buddy Holly--doin "outlaw country" in Austin) talkin bout music. He said he had been told that there were really only two songs ever written: (1) the star-spangled banner, and (2) the blues. He said, like I done said, that Hank Williams, Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash were just singin the blues.
Talkin bout Buddy makes me realize that I aint even posted none of that white boy's great rockabilly/blues toons, eh? Lemme fix dat up, rite now. Howze bout this hear classic tune, covered by the Stones and John Lennon, mungst many others:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnN1PUxml18&feature=related
"My love mo bigga danna Cadillac...I trys ta shows ya, but ya drivva me back" One Buddy toon just aint gunna do justice, I figure. Here's another Buddy toon the Stones stold. It ROCKS!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veyPHzxNjog&feature=related
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Hopper
Banned
Here's a great Little Walter toon which demonstrates the use of pentatonic blues scale, called "Blues with a Feelin." Walter's voice is just runnin down the pentatonic scale when he saings "blues (flat 7th) with (5th) a (4th) fee (flat 3rd) lin" (root note, or first note in the scale), while he kinda "bends" the notes as he goes--like when he wobbles round a bit on the word "blues:"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMUEPzVVV-A&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMUEPzVVV-A&feature=related
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Hopper
Banned
Back to the theme of recurring melodies in the blues for a minute, eh? I already said how Mississippi John Hurt took Sam's melody for his tune "aint no tellin." Here the tables are turned, with Sam doin a tune he calls "Brownskin Woman," which is really just a straight up imitation of Tommy Johnson's classic "Big Road Blues," later covered by John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and just about every other boy, white or black, who ever saings da blues. Johnson also done the classic tune "Canned Heat Blues," from which the 60's group got their name. Back in the 20's, during prohibition, a lot of po foke took to drinkin sterno (canned heat) as a substitute for alchohol, and so that's what that tune is about. Here, Sam even steals Johnson's "signature" line by throwin in phrases like "Doncha hear me talkin to ya, purty Mama?" in the interludes and "do me like ya do, do, do" in the lyrics. At the very end, Sam actually throws in a line from Johnson's "big road" lyrics, so the theft aint hid, but otherwise the lyrics are mostly different.
First Sam's tune. It's about a Babe who dumped his ***, then up and died on him. "I went to the graveyard...looked down on yo face....I feel your condition, Mama, but I sho caint take yo place."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKpE_R0pW9A
Purty sure Tommy Johnson done this here toon, round 1928, first, though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU6eLg3GWuA
Tommy his self steals the line "sun gunna shine in my back door some day" from Chippie Hill's Trouble in Mind.
First Sam's tune. It's about a Babe who dumped his ***, then up and died on him. "I went to the graveyard...looked down on yo face....I feel your condition, Mama, but I sho caint take yo place."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKpE_R0pW9A
Purty sure Tommy Johnson done this here toon, round 1928, first, though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU6eLg3GWuA
Tommy his self steals the line "sun gunna shine in my back door some day" from Chippie Hill's Trouble in Mind.
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Hopper
Banned
Up a few posts I said nobuddy gotz royalties back then, which wuz mainly true. I didn't say they weren't entitled to them, just that they never got them. Made me think of the time I wuz talkin to Brownie McGhee. He eventually left the country south and settled (for a while) in NYC (harlem) where there were a lot a bigshot lawyers and people who were more sophisticated about the recording industry.
Brownie told me many people he ran into there suggested that the guy recordin his tunes wuz, or probably wuz, rippin him off. Brownie told me: "He helped me out a lot. There's a lot of costs makin records, with the recording studios, marketing outlets and things. Whatever he made offa me, he deserved it. I never questioned him about it."
That was a typical attitude among blacks back then. The Chess brothers stold bigtime from Muddy and alla them. As long as they had their big-*** Cadillacs and plenty of pocket money, they felt they were highly privileged (well, except for Chuck Berry, who was much more ambitious). They never even considered that they could git "rich" just by playin the music they loved and had been playin all their lives, merely for entertainment and nickels and dimes on street corners.
Also kinda make me think of the time Sonny Terry was sent (by Pete Seeger) to audition for a Tennessee Williams Broadway play where they wanted someone to play a musical introduction as the curtain opened.
After hearin him, the producer said: "That's exactly the kinda thang we're lookin for! Can you play it just like that, every night?"
Sonny said: "Naw, I can't do that. It would always be a little different, dependin on what I was feelin at the time. I never play the exact same thing twice."
So, they went round and round for a spell. The producer kept insistin that the tune must be the same every night, and Sonny kept insistin that it wuz impossible for him to guarantee that.
Finally, Sonny asked: Well, looky here, just how much are you plannin on payin me?
The producer said $100 a night (for one harp solo), an unfathomable sum for Terry.
Sonny immediately said: Hell, yeah! I can play it just exactly like that, every night, year in, year out, if that's what ya really want.
He got the job.
When Muddy sang (in a tune writ by Willie Dixon) "I got seven hunnid dollaz, donchoo mess wit me," it wuz just as good as sayin "seven million" as far as they were concerned.
Brownie told me many people he ran into there suggested that the guy recordin his tunes wuz, or probably wuz, rippin him off. Brownie told me: "He helped me out a lot. There's a lot of costs makin records, with the recording studios, marketing outlets and things. Whatever he made offa me, he deserved it. I never questioned him about it."
That was a typical attitude among blacks back then. The Chess brothers stold bigtime from Muddy and alla them. As long as they had their big-*** Cadillacs and plenty of pocket money, they felt they were highly privileged (well, except for Chuck Berry, who was much more ambitious). They never even considered that they could git "rich" just by playin the music they loved and had been playin all their lives, merely for entertainment and nickels and dimes on street corners.
Also kinda make me think of the time Sonny Terry was sent (by Pete Seeger) to audition for a Tennessee Williams Broadway play where they wanted someone to play a musical introduction as the curtain opened.
After hearin him, the producer said: "That's exactly the kinda thang we're lookin for! Can you play it just like that, every night?"
Sonny said: "Naw, I can't do that. It would always be a little different, dependin on what I was feelin at the time. I never play the exact same thing twice."
So, they went round and round for a spell. The producer kept insistin that the tune must be the same every night, and Sonny kept insistin that it wuz impossible for him to guarantee that.
Finally, Sonny asked: Well, looky here, just how much are you plannin on payin me?
The producer said $100 a night (for one harp solo), an unfathomable sum for Terry.
Sonny immediately said: Hell, yeah! I can play it just exactly like that, every night, year in, year out, if that's what ya really want.
He got the job.
When Muddy sang (in a tune writ by Willie Dixon) "I got seven hunnid dollaz, donchoo mess wit me," it wuz just as good as sayin "seven million" as far as they were concerned.
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Gyp Rosetti
Banned
I had my sunglasses on.
Gyp Rosetti
Banned
Does ebonics have similar roots? Do tell.
Hopper
Banned
That professorial type interviewer of Sam Chatmon mentioned that the blues were the first medium to bring explicit eroticism to the American public. That's true. If ya want sumthin explicit, look up Lucille Brogan's "shave em dry" on youtube (I caint post it here, or I sho nuff would). But mainly blues was a lot of thinly-disguised innuendo (such as Brownie's mechanic blues or Minnie's chaffeur tune). That's part of what got blues a bad name, especially among the highly religious foke (white and black) in most of the south.
But, in truth, almost every blues toon is some kinda innuendo, whether sexual in nature or not. Southern blacks almost knew, instinctively, (and if they didn't they quickly learned) that there wasn't much you could say or do that was in any way critical of whites without riskin an ***-whuppin by some mob, or mebbe even lynchin. They learned to air their complaints indirectly by way of what they called "signifyin," often in music. This is what Sonny Boy was talkin bout in "Don't start me to talkin" when he says: "Imma break up all this signifyin....awww, sumbuddy got to go." A blues toon about a man's dog, and his misbehavior, for example, was most likely in truth directed at their white straw boss or some other cracker with cracker-*** ways. That was the only way they could really say what was on their mind.
So blues came to be regarded with deep suspicion by whites, for that reason also. "Race" recordings never got airplay on mainstream radio, north or south. When Elvis started doin it as a white boy, all hell broke loose about him, too. So, all in all, blues, and bluesmen, aint never had no easy time. They generally were just a minute or two away from bein beaten and throwed in jail on some trumped-up charge which just boiled down to not kissin Charlie's ***. By common standards of the day, bluesmen were far too uninhibited, expressive, and "disrespectful" to be accepted in "polite society."
One of Howlin Wolf's homeys once told a story about how wolf had ran into his Mama when he was about 40 years old, and hadn't seen her for years. She had thrown him out at a young age, and considered his soul lost, and him to be an agent of the devil, for playin blues. He was back in his hometown in Mississippi, but knew better than to try to go see his Mama. But when he ran into her in a drug-store he tried to make up. He pulled $500 dollars (a virtual fortune in those parts and those times) out of his pocket and put it in her hand. She stared at him for a few seconds, then, without sayin a word, she threw the money on the floor, turned her back, and walked out. His homey said he cried almost all the way to Memphis after they immediately left town.
But, in truth, almost every blues toon is some kinda innuendo, whether sexual in nature or not. Southern blacks almost knew, instinctively, (and if they didn't they quickly learned) that there wasn't much you could say or do that was in any way critical of whites without riskin an ***-whuppin by some mob, or mebbe even lynchin. They learned to air their complaints indirectly by way of what they called "signifyin," often in music. This is what Sonny Boy was talkin bout in "Don't start me to talkin" when he says: "Imma break up all this signifyin....awww, sumbuddy got to go." A blues toon about a man's dog, and his misbehavior, for example, was most likely in truth directed at their white straw boss or some other cracker with cracker-*** ways. That was the only way they could really say what was on their mind.
So blues came to be regarded with deep suspicion by whites, for that reason also. "Race" recordings never got airplay on mainstream radio, north or south. When Elvis started doin it as a white boy, all hell broke loose about him, too. So, all in all, blues, and bluesmen, aint never had no easy time. They generally were just a minute or two away from bein beaten and throwed in jail on some trumped-up charge which just boiled down to not kissin Charlie's ***. By common standards of the day, bluesmen were far too uninhibited, expressive, and "disrespectful" to be accepted in "polite society."
One of Howlin Wolf's homeys once told a story about how wolf had ran into his Mama when he was about 40 years old, and hadn't seen her for years. She had thrown him out at a young age, and considered his soul lost, and him to be an agent of the devil, for playin blues. He was back in his hometown in Mississippi, but knew better than to try to go see his Mama. But when he ran into her in a drug-store he tried to make up. He pulled $500 dollars (a virtual fortune in those parts and those times) out of his pocket and put it in her hand. She stared at him for a few seconds, then, without sayin a word, she threw the money on the floor, turned her back, and walked out. His homey said he cried almost all the way to Memphis after they immediately left town.
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