My nice new Blues Calendar

[johncorrigan]

Here's the 91 year-old Robert Lockwood shortly before his death singing 'Sweet Home Chicago', a song he learned from Robert Johnson, born 27th March in 1915 in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_7UkcMVzag

Mr Lockwood shares a birthday with pianist Leroy Carr, born 10 years earlier in Nashville, Tennessee. Leroy hung out with Scrapper Blackwell and here they are together on 'Memphis Town'. You cannae beat a good train song, in my books.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC-w0YhwfCs

Sadly Leroy only reached the age of 30 killed by the effects of alcohol after years singing in the clubs. He left behind a rich legacy of music, and was cited by the likes of Ray Charles and Nat King Cole as a major influence.

[Padraig]

Don't know much about Snooks Eaglin. Heard this on the R3 Saturday programme - where protest demos took place on cue - a nice gentle sounding heartbroken blues I hadn't heard for years. Brought a tear to my eye, so it did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2QLh2GvrP8

[johncorrigan]

Don't know much about Snooks Eaglin. Heard this on the R3 Saturday programme - where protest demos took place on cue - a nice gentle sounding heartbroken blues I hadn't heard for years. Brought a tear to my eye, so it did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2QLh2GvrP8

She loves a bit of Snooks does Cerys, Padraig. Such a wonderful low-key performer. I love his version of St. James Infirmary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5QCMWi53h4

[Globaltruth]

She loves a bit of Snooks does Cerys, Padraig. Such a wonderful low-key performer. I love his version of St. James Infirmary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5QCMWi53h4

Well we could have a whole thread dedicated to versions of that JC. There's bad weather on the way, so how a Cab Calloway version in the snow (represented as a clown obv.)...

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

[johncorrigan]

Well we could have a whole thread dedicated to versions of that JC. There's bad weather on the way, so how a Cab Calloway version in the snow (represented as a clown obv.)...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDATXtewPrg

Great call, GT.

Just to say that Alberta Hunter was born this day in 1895 in Memphis, Tennessee. She made a comeback at the age of 83 and here she is singing 'Nobody Knows you when you're down and out'.

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

We could probably have a thread dedicated to that one too, G.

[johncorrigan]

Don't know much about Snooks Eaglin. Heard this on the R3 Saturday programme - where protest demos took place on cue - a nice gentle sounding heartbroken blues I hadn't heard for years. Brought a tear to my eye, so it did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2QLh2GvrP8

By the way, Padraig, delighted to hear her playing Liam and Seamus doing 'The Given Note'. Ideal for a Saturday afternoon on R3, I thought.

[johncorrigan]

Tomorrow, of course, marks 50 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King, on April 4th 1968, a giant of a human being.

Tomorrow is also the 105th anniversary of McKinley Morganfield's arrival on this planet, in Jug's Corner, Mississippi to be precise. Here's a short film about when he and Sister Rosetta, and Sonny and Brownie came to Chorlton in Manchester.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8I95Nb-y8k

[johncorrigan]

Like 'Little' Walter, Big Walter was also a harmonica player of great distinction. My slightly aging Blues Callendar tells me that Big Walter Horton was born exactly 101 years ago in Horn Lake, Mississippi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUB_LQ9jfwk

Effortless, it seems to me!

[johncorrigan]

April 7 in 1915, Lady Day enters this World In Philly, Pennsylvania.
On the Sunny Side of the Street - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5sLxmCYJ7s

[johncorrigan]

Sorry...been a bit lax since return from the Hebs, in my defence, partly because the interweb's been playing up. So I missed the likes of Albert King and the legendary Johnny Shines both on the 25th; Johnny of course played with Robert Johnson. I missed Ma Rainey, born 26th April 1886 in Columbus, Georgia among others. Today is the anniversary of the birth of Duke Ellington on 29th April 1899, and also the anniversary of Otis Rush born in 1935 in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Rush was a great influence on the white, blues of the 60s. Here he is on 'I Can't Quit You Baby'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy2tEP3I3DM

[Globaltruth]

Sorry...been a bit lax since return from the Hebs, in my defence, partly because the interweb's been playing up. So I missed the likes of Albert King and the legendary Johnny Shines both on the 25th; Johnny of course played with Robert Johnson. I missed Ma Rainey, born 26th April 1886 in Columbus, Georgia among others. Today is the anniversary of the birth of Duke Ellington on 29th April 1899, and also the anniversary of Otis Rush born in 1935 in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Rush was a great influence on the white, blues of the 60s. Here he is on 'I Can't Quit You Baby'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy2tEP3I3DM

Playing left-handed on a left-handed guitar strung upside down is enough to make anyone sing the blues...

Well, as you've offered an excuse JC, then we'll let slip the matter of Big Jay McNeely
One hell of a dirty horn player (one of a group of tenor sax honkers apparently)....a sprightly 91 years old today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVo7J4c2R9w

He wore bright banana- and lime-colored suits, played under blacklights that made his horn glow in the dark, used strobe lights as early as 1952 to create an old-movie effect, and sometimes walked off the stage and out the door, usually with the club patrons following. At one point, in San Diego, police arrested him on the sidewalk and took him to jail, while his band kept playing on the bandstand, waiting for him to return.

I imagine you are often seen imitating his style around your locality JC? I think we should all aspire to similar heights of sartorial elegance.

[johncorrigan]

I imagine you are often seen imitating his style around your locality JC? I think we should all aspire to similar heights of sartorial elegance.

Everyday, Global! Everyday! The very essence of haute couture...and cold couture, me!
In fact yesterday I was so busy cavorting round the pole (you need cold couture for that) that I omitted to mention the birthday of the great Chicago harmonica bluesman, Little Walter, born Marion Walter Jacobs in Marksville, Louisiana on Mayday 1930; so a belated HB to the only person inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame specifically as a harmonica player. Here's a bit of him in action with Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers in the last year of his all-too-short life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dlZM_zJzh0

Pretty awesome actually!

[Lat-Literal]

Everyday, Global! Everyday! The very essence of haute couture...and cold couture, me!
In fact yesterday I was so busy cavorting round the pole (you need cold couture for that) that I omitted to mention the birthday of the great Chicago harmonica bluesman, Little Walter, born Marion Walter Jacobs in Marksville, Louisiana on Mayday 1930; so a belated HB to the only person inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame specifically as a harmonica player. Here's a bit of him in action with Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers in the last year of his all-too-short life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dlZM_zJzh0

Pretty awesome actually!

And today is also the birthday of blues rock which is to say that it was Link Wray who invented the power chord and he was born on 2 May 1929.

He was not admitted yet again this year into the Hall of Fame:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucTg6rZJCu4

[johncorrigan]

'Nobody plays the Blues like Blind Willie McTell', born this day in 1901 in Thomson, Georgia. Certainly nobody had a voice like him.
Lord, Send Me An Angel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qux0DTr_28

[johncorrigan]

Robert Johnson, 8th May 1911 Hazelhurst, Mississippi...what to chose...this I suppose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuSKX_gqHn4

There's b'day cake awaiting in there, and it's bound to be rainin' outdoors!