My nice new Blues Calendar

[johncorrigan]

Francis 'Scrapper' Blackwell was born this day in 1904 in Syracuse, South Carolina. He was part Cherokee and his family moved to Indianapolis where he spent most of his youth. All I can say is what a wonderful guitarist he was. This one's the 'Goin' Where The Monon Crosses The Yellow Dog' which seems to describe a couple of freight lines around the Mississippi River.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQd1yWNp-ss

This track was recorded in 1961 after Scrapper was rediscovered. Sadly Scrapper died a couple of years later, when he was shot and killed in a mugging in Indianapolis; and of course it was from Scrapper that Kokomo Arnold got the tune for Kokomo Blues, which eventually became Robert Johnson's 'Sweet Home Chicago'.

[Globaltruth]

Good start to the day JC.

I'm relieved - my faulty memory has him as part of a duo. Turns out he was!
Here he is with Leroy Carr... Scrapper Blackwell influenced Robert Johnson, Leroy Carr influenced Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. Not bad for two self taught musicians.
Blues before sunrise (your favourite time for posting JC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOuFZ9NXPHo

[johncorrigan]

Here's a bit of film of Ida Cox nee Prather, born this day in 1896 in Toccoa, Georgia, I am reliably informed by my Blues Calendar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyUFxp1zDRk

Ida performed with a range of greats including King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith and for her final recording in the early 60s with Coleman Hawkins. This Queen of the Blues performed through the 20s, 30s until the mid-40s when a stroke forced her to retire, reappearing in the late 50s. Here she is in the late 30s extolling the virtues of the 'One Hour Mama'. Saucy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3eJlJ1m63M

[Lat-Literal]

Here's a bit of film of Ida Cox nee Prather, born this day in 1896 in Toccoa, Georgia, I am reliably informed by my Blues Calendar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyUFxp1zDRk

Ida performed with a range of greats including King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith and for her final recording in the early 60s with Coleman Hawkins. This Queen of the Blues performed through the 20s, 30s until the mid-40s when a stroke forced her to retire, reappearing in the late 50s. Here she is in the late 30s extolling the virtues of the 'One Hour Mama'. Saucy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3eJlJ1m63M

She is very good.

We're used to thinking of the 1970s as being a long time ago but I am sure that the time between the 1920s and the 1960s was twice as long culturally.

She had longevity!

[johncorrigan]

Back in the way back when (about 1970) there was a band that hung around the central belt of Scotland called 'East West' who used to finish every gig with 'Fixin' to die Blues', and we hung on, prepared to miss the last bus to Paisley just to catch it. It's a pivotal song in my musical upbringing and they always gave Bukka White a mention. I only say this because Bukka died this very day in 1977 in Memphis Tennessee at the ripe old age of somewhere around 70 depending on where you look for information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szGRsuK8MbM

You can catch a bit of Booker White on this film recorded in his home in Memphis shortly before his death which came from Alexis Korner's show, back in the days of the healthy ashtray.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00lk3lz/the-devils-music-series-2-episode-1

[johncorrigan]

Kentucky blues from Blind Teddy Darby born 2nd March in 1906 in Henderson - here he is in 1929 with this wonderful 'Lawdy Lawdy Worried Blues'. I hadn't heard of him before but I really liked this song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLNDO_zNL1M

[Globaltruth]

Kentucky blues from Blind Teddy Darby born 2nd March in 1906 in Henderson - here he is in 1929 with this wonderful 'Lawdy Lawdy Worried Blues'. I hadn't heard of him before but I really liked this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLNDO_zNL1M

Tom Waites references him in The Mule Variations:

I've seen it all boys
I've been all over
Been everywhere in the
Whole wide world
I rode the high line
With old Blind Darby
I danced real slow
With Ida Jane

he does admit that he may not have actually ridden the high line with him, simply exercising his poetic licence...

[johncorrigan]

Tom Waites references him in The Mule Variations:


he does admit that he may not have actually ridden the high line with him, simply exercising his poetic licence...

Thanks, GT. I enjoyed that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4zDaTESGvQ

By the way I pinged a couple you know where!

[johncorrigan]

A bit of ragtime today from William Moore who was born 125 years ago today in Dover, Georgia...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxzOaN021bg

[johncorrigan]

Spoiled for choice today - Teddy Tucker who had the hit with 'High Heal Sneakers' complete with that 'wig hat on your head', had his birthday on the 5th as did Peg Leg Howell who would have celebrated 130 today. Peg Leg got to be peg legged when he was shot during a fight. However tomorrow, the 6th, is Furry Lewis' birthday, born 1893 in Greenwood Mississippi, and as GT pointed out lately, the subject of Joni's 'Furry Sings the Blues'. I suppose he's best known for 'Kassie Jones' which turned up on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Music, but this is one of my favourites, 'Good Mornin' Judge'. Wonderful slide playing and singing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIb0YWKVcxk

Happy 125th Furry!

[Lat-Literal]

Spoiled for choice today - Teddy Tucker who had the hit with 'High Heal Sneakers' complete with that 'wig hat on your head', had his birthday on the 5th as did Peg Leg Howell who would have celebrated 130 today. Peg Leg got to be peg legged when he was shot during a fight. However tomorrow, the 6th, is Furry Lewis' birthday, born 1893 in Greenwood Mississippi, and as GT pointed out lately, the subject of Joni's 'Furry Sings the Blues'. I suppose he's best known for 'Kassie Jones' which turned up on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Music, but this is one of my favourites, 'Good Mornin' Judge'. Wonderful slide playing and singing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIb0YWKVcxk

Happy 125th Furry!

I wonder if there will be a time when people are actually 130 and 125. Folk are so variable. At the surgery today, there was a poor lady of 71 who could have easily been 100. My remarkable Mum is to be 88 next week, still has hardly any grey hair, keeps moving furniture around my parents' house and is regularly mistaken for being ten years younger. I like "Good Mornin' Judge" by Furry Lewis. What I am pondering is how little I know of the blues and how much of the blues you know, JC. You are helping me with my blues mind map.



Oh - spoke too soon - have just had a call to say that she has had a fall and is at the hospital. Everything is going wrong. I don't have any hot water either, among many other things. But the good news is that she has had a CT scan and hasn't broken anything, even with osteoporosis, although she has a bruise on her face. My parents are on their way back in a taxi.

It's just been one thing after another for about six months now.

[johncorrigan]

Oh - spoke too soon - have just had a call to say that she has had a fall and is at the hospital. Everything is going wrong. I don't have any hot water either, among many other things. But the good news is that she has had a CT scan and hasn't broken anything, even with osteoporosis, although she has a bruise on her face. My parents are on their way back in a taxi.

It's just been one thing after another for about six months now.

Glad nothing broken with your Mum, Lat. My Mum's just past 90 and does the occasional header. Comes with the territory I suppose, but it's a worry isn't it. Here's a bit more Furry Lewis playing and at a fair age I guess...before Joni went to visit him, I reckon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHTpwDCfYQ4

[Lat-Literal]

Glad nothing broken with your Mum, Lat. My Mum's just past 90 and does the occasional header. Comes with the territory I suppose, but it's a worry isn't it. Here's a bit more Furry Lewis playing and at a fair age I guess...before Joni went to visit him, I reckon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHTpwDCfYQ4

The occasional header.

I know what you mean.

Oh dear oh dear. .

Best wishes to your Mum.

We have a certain amount of equilibrium so far as it is possible other than a face that is badly bruised. I've now heard all about how nice everyone was at the hospital from the staff to a painter and decorator who wanted to save them the taxi fare and drive them home. Oh and poor old Irene, how she is in the same hospital, and that they feel bad for not seeing her, having been there at the same time "just" for scans. She's one year older but anyone might think that there were about 30 years between them. It's like living in Wild and Wacky World.

Probably the first blues artist I ever bought on vinyl was Memphis Slim who always seems quite jazzy to me.

It must be the piano.

Memphis Slim - Every Day I Have The Blues - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24isoA6xdL0

[Lat-Literal]

Sadly, Irene, our friend and neighbour, died in hospital today. She was 89. Had my parents managed to visit her on Thursday, they may have been able to help her by being there as they did so many times before. This time, though, she was destined to lose her independence. It wasn't what she wanted. She was like my Nan who lost her husband to ill health and then lived on her own for 43 years. In Irene's case, it was 29 years. An only child like me - when I think about it, I have lived singly for 26 years - and with no sons or daughters, what mattered to her was friends and the supportive if ageing community in this road of 15 houses. My Mum in particular loses a pal. She also loses a role in which she was effectively a daughter. That made life easier for her and also harder for her as the years went by. We are probably all more aware today of our own respective ages. That feels not a little raw.

Irene kindly signed my mortgage papers so I could move here in 2005. I'd carry her shopping bags down the steep steps if I saw her and later meals from my parents until she needed meals-on-wheels. The routine arrival of the van is something I will miss along with her ability to feed animals in the garden long after she was able to take care of herself. But mostly I will never forget when she went missing and I was a part of the search party from this road. Ultimately the police had to be called in to find her. When she was brought back on a very cold night, I was told by the police officer that she had been found in her car in an industrial estate over 15 miles away. She had no recollection of where she had been or how she had got there but she had successfully travelled along a motorway. When a lot of the mind stops working, it may just be that one key part which refuses to give in is the spirit of freedom.

Mavis Staples - Freedom Highway - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpeEN84JYT4

[johncorrigan]

Sadly, Irene, our friend and neighbour, died in hospital today. She was 89. Had my parents managed to visit her on Thursday, they may have been able to help her by being there as they did so many times before. This time, though, she was destined to lose her independence. It wasn't what she wanted. She was like my Nan who lost her husband to ill health and then lived on her own for 43 years. In Irene's case, it was 29 years. An only child like me - when I think about it, I have lived singly for 26 years - and with no sons or daughters, what mattered to her was friends and the supportive if ageing community in this road of 15 houses. My Mum in particular loses a pal. She also loses a role in which she was effectively a daughter. That made life easier for her and also harder for her as the years went by. We are probably all more aware today of our own respective ages. That feels not a little raw.

Irene kindly signed my mortgage papers so I could move here in 2005. I'd carry her shopping bags down the steep steps if I saw her and later meals from my parents until she needed meals-on-wheels. The routine arrival of the van is something I will miss along with her ability to feed animals in the garden long after she was able to take care of herself. But mostly I will never forget when she went missing and I was a part of the search party from this road. Ultimately the police had to be called in to find her. When she was brought back on a very cold night, I was told by the police officer that she had been found in her car in an industrial estate over 15 miles away. She had no recollection of where she had been or how she had got there but she had successfully travelled along a motorway. When a lot of the mind stops working, it may just be that one key part which refuses to give in is the spirit of freedom.

Mavis Staples - Freedom Highway - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpeEN84JYT4