The Blues Thread

[The Grand Wazoo]

Well, we've got threads about folk & jazz & prog rock - even one about Tangerine Dream.
Now it's time to twang yer Diddley Bow on the porch (.........so to speak).

Let's hear about The Blues.

[The Grand Wazoo]

To kick off, I thought some of you guys might like to hear about a blues CD that I love.

The Unknown John Lee Hooker 1949 Recordings
Flyright – FLYCD 57


The story behind the album is just as fascinating as the music on it – It’s the tale of a private recording session in Detroit made by a cartoonist who now lives in Prague. Gene Deitch drew cartoons for the ‘Record Changer’ magazine & went to see Hooker who was all but unknown at the time. After the gig he told Hooker about his group of friends who were into the blues. The guitarist offered come to his house to play for them, which he did.

John Lee was only interested in playing sophisticated blues for the tastes of the folk living in the northern cities but he was coaxed into playing some of the old country stuff from back home in the south – “I don’t think anyone wants to that old stuff today”. The recording was made on a portable mono tape recorder on cheap fragile paper tape and was later transferred to more conventional stock.

Deitch took one reel of the tape with him when he moved to Prague in the 1960, played it to friends for a while & then stored it in his basement, where it lay for 35 years.

One day in 1999 Deitch was leaving his house, he met a guy who was hanging around outside, waiting for him. They got chatting & it turned out that the stranger had come looking for Deitch after reading his book of memoirs about Communist Prague. They went to lunch & started talking about the blues & it turned out that the stranger at the door was Paul Vernon – a true blues aficionado, so Deitch, wanting to trump him, mentioned that he had once recorded John Lee Hooker. Vernon couldn’t believe him & asked if he still had the tapes, so they went to the basement & raked around for a while till they found one marked John Lee Hooker – Reel 2. Deitch had forgotten where Reel 1 was and had to be reminded by his son in New York that he’d loaned the tape to a well known record collector, Tony Schwartz. Through a bizarre coincidence, it turned out that Schwartz had recently bumped into one of Deitch’s friends in New York & they had exchanged phone numbers! Schwartz was 80 years old and very ill but finally the loaned tape was returned after 50 years!

The tapes were unknown in the world of the blues & contained Hooker playing material that he never recorded again, so their importance is incalculable. Deitch & Vernon realised that the world should hear these songs & that they should not profit from the enterprise. The music, being 50 years old was out of copyright in Europe, so a CD was released there, but not in the US as it lasts for 75 years. Hooker’s management accused them of trying to ruin his career & reputation & threatened to sue the bejeezus out of them if they didn’t get the tapes. Deitch said they could have them as long as he could be assured that John Lee would get to hear them after all those years. They didn’t give that assurance, so he didn’t sell. In the end Hooker’s daughter contacted Deitch when she heard about the tracks & it turned out that the manager and lawyer were keeping all of these developments from him. She played a copy of the tapes to the 84 year old Hooker who couldn’t remember anything about the session, but of course he loved them. Deitch passed the masters over to the keeping of Zakiya Hooker, herself a blues recording artist.

The ‘unofficial’ album I have was a necessarily a limited release, but has been re-issued as ‘Jack O'Diamonds’ on Eagle Records.

The music is, of course intimate and very different from the usual one chord Boogie-Chillun style that he later came to be known for. I like John Lee Hooker’s music a lot, but much of it is pretty ‘samey’ – this is different. I have a good handful of Hooker albums, some of them are worth a lot of cash, but if I could only own one, this would be it.

The whole story of the recording is on Gene Deitch’s website:
http://www.genedeitch.com/
Select pages 10 to 14.
Page 14 has audio clips from the album.

[symon]

Wow! That sounds great. I'll have to keep an eye out for that.

I've been listening to teh blues for quite a long time. I got to it through bands like Cream, and originally listened to John Lee Hooker, and white boy blues.
Eventually, I moved deeper and found the true greats - Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie Johnson, Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Son House. Then came Mississipi John Hurt, Blind Blake, Reverend Gary Davis. All these guys scare the hell out of me because their guitar playing is astonishing. For a genre that is known as being simple, these guys prove all of that to be very very wrong. Some of them in particular played with just two picking fingers and were able to do more than I can even dream of doing with a full hand!

Great stuff, great voices, great sense of atmosphere from their playing. Delta blues is where it's at, man!

[Beechwoods]

I'll be honest and say that 'the blues' is a form of music that I've never really got into, though certain forms of country (in particular dobro stuff) have a clear blues influence, and I enjoy that. Early music recording history however is fascinating and this story is superb in that respect! It is also illustrates the very difficult issues around copyright working against the saving and archival of old and fragile recordings, some of which will be dust by the time such lengthy rights (lobbied for by the big organisations like Disney) expire.

Thanks for the story Chris!

[John]

I can enjoy the blues I like players like Buddy Guy Albert King Albert Collins Clarence Gatemouth Brown and Freddie King
Here are a few of my favs
Buddy Guy Live at the Checkerborad
Howling Wolf The Lonon sessions
Muddy Waters Live at Newport
Over the weekend I try and write review for oneof my favorites
Everyone loves Clapton but he never really did it for me The other player at the time who did is Peter Green now he has anamazing tone

[The Grand Wazoo]

I'll be honest and say that 'the blues' is a form of music that I've never really got into, though certain forms of country (in particular dobro stuff) have a clear blues influence, and I enjoy that.

Haha!......We appear to be polar opposites in that respect. Though there is so much country influence in a lot of what I like, I can't get my head around 'proper' country music. However, The Band, Jayhawks, Byrds, Neil Young, Lucinda Williams.......all that stuff, I can listen to all day long.

Horror of horrors though, I find 'Sweetheart at the Rodeo' all but unlistenable, yet, strangely, I love 'Grievous Angel' - now work that one out!

[The Grand Wazoo]

I can enjoy the blues I like players like Buddy Guy Albert King Albert Collins Clarence Gatemouth Brown and Freddie King
Here are a few of my favs
Buddy Guy Live at the Checkerborad
Howling Wolf The Lonon sessions
Muddy Waters Live at Newport
Over the weekend I try and write review for oneof my favorites
Everyone loves Clapton but he never really did it for me The other player at the time who did is Peter Green now he has anamazing tone

Clarence Gatemouth Brown, I love.

I agree with you about Clapton. I can admire his playing & he has good taste in his choice of blues covers, he always wanted to be Buddy Guy, but never came close.

Peter Green will always be special for me. It was his playing on things like 'The Stumble', 'The Supernatural', 'Need Your Love So Bad' etc that got me investigating blues. Great stuff!

[John]

Here is a clip of Gatemouth Brown not Strictly Blues but boy does he play with a lot of heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ40kVRvcdk
Here is a Freddie King Clip you cn hear where players like Page and Clapton get there influnces from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdyvPg0c6bI
This is a great Howling Wolf track
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1M1SzMDPso
Muddy Waters with Otis Spann I love the JohneLennon story when he first goes to Amercia some journlist asks him what hemost wants to do he says to see Muddy Waters the journlist says where is that ;enjoy!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7NxY3uMpSc
Buddy and Junior playing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UYY1...eature=related
Albert Collins A converstaion with Collins I love the humour and lovethe way hemakes his guitar talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUSw9_38xAo

[hifi_dave]

Blues and Blues inspired is my main listening fare. Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson, Dylan (early), Hendrix, Zeppelin, Yardbirds and too many more to mention are what excite me. I can never get over how someone in the depths of despair, singing out their sorrows and woes can cheer me up like no other music.

I just love seeing these old boys, effortlessly singing and playing their hearts out, they make it look so easy.

[Beechwoods]

Haha!......We appear to be polar opposites in that respect.

Horror of horrors though, I find 'Sweetheart at the Rodeo' all but unlistenable, yet, strangely, I love 'Grievous Angel' - now work that one out!

Polar opposites we are! I love the stuff on Sweetheart but cannot abide Gram Parson's solo stuff! Live is something else, but on record...

Must be a left brain right brain thing!