writerrad - Posted - 05/23/2010:  13:24:23

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I have contributed a lot to various threads about Gus Cannon. My research has been a bit more intensive since the last time I posted, so I thought that using a post here might be a good idea of summing my thought up and getting some feed back before putting things into print. My ideas are strongly informed by many posts by many bo folk, by folk on banjo-l and the Black banjo group and by the friendly collaboration of scholars like Bob Winans and David Evans

Cannon played the banjo many ways, although I am focusing on how he played banjo on his 1927-1930 recordings done for Paramount as Banjo Joe, for Brunswick as one of the Beale Street Boys, and most famously for Victor as Cannon's Jug Stompers. Oner problem is that films of his playing from the 1960s that can be found on Youtube illustrate that Cannon had such a total mastery of the instrument and the music that he could switch in the middle of a tune from the most awsome clawhammer to great finger picking and then just strum the banjo all whjile singing and all while not missing a beat. Trying to figure out what he did is thus a bit of a guess as he had many techniques and could do things that many of us could never dream about.

Outside of these recordings, Cannon was an ace drop thump clawhammer player, apparently the first banjo style he learned at the age of 12 in 1895 (although sometimes he said he learned banjo at eight years old.) He apparently learned a bit of fiddle first. His Stax recordings and recordings in the 1950s and 1960s by folklorists caputure some of his clawhammer, but some of them reflect either poor recording quality of Cannon's drunkenness. There are non published recordings from the 1960s that indicate a much higher class of clawhammer playing similar to the best of the Black Banjoists recorded in the Upper South in the late 20th Century.

Cannon also learned a traditional two finger style a few months after he learned clawhammer. As far as I know there are no published recordings of his playing this style, but I have heard a great two finger 6/8 jig he played in 1967 illustrating how he first learned that style.

The recordings he made 1927-1930 appear to use none of these styles. The chief style that he played was a finger style. It is possible that this was done with either two, three, or four fingered playing. I tend to believe that it was probably done with three or four fingered playing, but it is possible that he played a two finger style. It is even possible that some of his tunes were played with a straight pick, though I doubt it.

Cannon's playing usually aimed at a single note lead and the playing of single note riffs and figures, punctuated by grabbed chords, often with the bass note plucked as the first part of a duple unit with the treble strings then plucked with two or three strings in unison. He would rarely strum or down pick the banjo for flourishes, and seems to have developed tremelo affects similar to those developed by the classic banjo recording stars. On a few tunes where he sings and on a few tunes where he is playing the jug or the kazoo furiously, his banjo playing subsides to gapping chords, or drops off all together.

Cannon's banjo playing is much more precise and even delicate. He rarely brushes the banjo when he chords and usually up plucks or grabs. On a few instances he may down pick on a single string to get more of an impact, and in a few flourishes he slamms the banjo pretty hard.

His playing involves none of the alternating bass or alternating thumb playign associated with traditional African American and European two and three finger banjo. His approach may be based on parlor or classic banjo and guitar practices.

On the other hand, his single string approach may reflect the influence of tenor, guitar, mandolin, and plectrum banjoists who were at center stage in banjo playing in general, and blues, jazz, pop music, and pop ragtime playing, in the years he recorded. Most other Black string bands of Cannon's times used tenor, guitar, mandolin, or ukulele banjos, not five-string banjos. The absence of an alternating thumb may reflect the needs of maintaining a single string rhythm.

At the same time, it may be that Cannon's finger style approach reflected a type of late 19th Century and early 20th Century banjo playing that African American and other banjoists used to play the new dance musics that emerged out of the Black South in those years, music that was both at the roots of ragtime and a folk reaction to ragtime in piano and popular music, music that reflected the dances associated with the Blues and early Jazz.

I originally believed that Cannon's inclusion of several songs that were part of the Black show business repertoire in the late 1890s and early 20th Century and his participation in big time medicine shows might represent a special connection in his playign with Black show business. However, the work of folklorists collecting in the Black South in the early twentieth century, indicate that both Black and white pop songs associted with ragtime, including a few Cannon alludes to in his songs were popular with some of the same Blacks in Mississippi and other parts of the South who were the sources of many traditional songs and the earliest collected Blues. So whatever his connection with show business, very much of this kind of music was int he air in the late 1890s and the first twenty years of the twentieth century.

One thing is clear, that despite weaknesses in the capacities of the instrument that would lead to the displacement of the five string and then the tenor, guitar, and plectrum banjos in Black folk and popular music, Cannon indicates how his style of banjo playing could be used to play African American blues of several different kinds, from the very folk blues that he played with Ashley Thompson and Noah Lewis, to the more sophisticated "vaudeville blues" featured on Cannon's Banjo Joe, Beale Street Boys, and Jug Stompers with Hosea Woods recordings, to the pop song style that called itself blues of the Jug Stomper's last recording "The Prison Wall Blues."

Cannon's playing also confirms the fact that the old time traditional music associated with fiddle tunes, clawhammer banjo, set dancing, and "old time music" was no longer popular throughout the Black South by the time he recorded. Out of thirty-four recordings, there is only one such piece "Feather Bed." Even though I initially accepted the common assumption that he down picked on this piece, there is no evidence for that.

There are signs that Cannon continued to perform some of these tunes as part of his work with medicine shows which privileged what was seen as old fashioned and rural; entertainment even when performing in big cities like Chicago. There he apparently performed as a Black face entertainer, possibly as "end man" in medicine show's attempts to follow minstrel show conventions. On the other hand, though he was earlier known as a fiddle particularly when he lived in Tennessee in the mid 1910s, he gave up fiddling in 1920 as too old fashion, probably meaning he never made the transition from old time fiddling to the kind of Blues, Jazz, and Rag influenced fiddling that would go with his 1920s repertoir. Cannon also said the move away from fiddling was do to working with fiddlers who were much better than him in later years. There is evidence that by 1920, old time music was dead among rural African Americans in the Mississippi Delta where Cannon lived his musical life.

Research into Cannon's 1927-1930 playing poses a number of questions for banjo history. Compared to study of the evolution of down picking from African playing styles to late twentieth century Black and white folk players, we know little about the history of finger picking banjo, Black and white, outside the history of classic banjo. While there is intense documentation of pre and Civil War minstrel playing and recordings of the great classic banjo stars of the early 20th Century, we have little knowledge of how show business banjoists Black or white played in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

There is so much that we do not know and may never know that definite statements cannot be made about many things. There is some testimony on his playing by folks still living, and indeed on Banjo Hangout, who took lessons from him in the 1960s. However, I know that if I( were asked to teach a student to play the guitar, I would not teach him how I played guitar 40 years ago {I have only played banjo 12 years]. My teaching would take advantage of what I have learned since, so that the student would not learn how I played guitar in 1967 or 1968 or even in 2002. I would think a musician of so much greater capacity and love of the music as Gus Cannon might have the same approach.

All of this is very flawed, very weak, very iffy. Please help me.

oldwoodchuckb - Posted - 05/23/2010:  13:48:52

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Can't be of any help Tony, but thanks for your efforts.
Iffy - sure. But the subject is worth any amount of iffy research. It is only by comparing research in this sort of endevour that you can ever hope to get anywhere. Best of luck on the project and I hope to see it in print eventually.

Supertone - Posted - 05/23/2010:  19:21:08

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"All of this is very flawed, very weak, very iffy. Please help me".
Thanks for the thoughtful post Tony. What do you feel like you need help with?

brokenstrings - Posted - 05/23/2010:  22:21:39

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This doesn't answer any of your questions, writerrad, but I was just rereading something in THE DEVIL'S MUSIC about Gus Cannon and how he hated working for those medicine shows. He was required to put on blackface and had to get pretty stinko to go through with it. What you have turned up about all the different styles he knew and used is really impressive. Good research!

writerrad - Posted - 05/24/2010:  04:53:23

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Thanks for the reminder about Oakley's book, even though most of what he has is from Olssen's liner notes to the Herwin reissued of the 1927-30 recordings

writerrad - Posted - 05/24/2010:  05:39:22

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I forgot to speak about keys. It is very lucky for me and others trying to figure this out that Cannon seemed to be devoted to playing in concert pitch. Of course, all of the Jug Stomper recordings included Noah Lewis's harmonic as the lead instrument which meant he had to play in concern pitch. However, he is in concert pitch in solo out take performances and interviews made in the 1960s as well. There are none of the agonizing needs to retune your banjo to match up with where he is.

Cannon seemed to prefer playing old time tunes in open G which is not unusual for African American traditional players Otherwise he seemed to prefer what was the standard banjo tuning of the time the C tuning. In an un published interview with him I have, you can hear him tuning back and forth from G tuning to C as he changes the type of tune he is playing.

However, he also seems to have played the banjo in a guitar-like open E tuning, the Sebastopol or Reuben tuning tuned up to E rather than D. He uses this on his very guitarish "Poor Boy" and apparently uses this on his one old time tune "Feather Bed," although it is very hard to hear the banjo on that recording.

His bandmates from Ripley Tennessee, Noah Lewis and Ashley Thompson seemed to have a penchant for performing blues tunes in the Key of G. These are the only G tunes he recorded. Liner notes on the various collections which simply reproduce the sloppy and inaccurate notes Olssen prepared for the Herwin notes attribute one song sung by Noah Lewis in G to Cannon, but all the G tunes he recorded are blues sung by Lewis or Thompson and one instrumental, a harmonica blues called "Ripley Blues," with Ripley Tennessee being the small town where Thompson and Lewis lived.

Most of Cannon's most articulate banjo tunes were played in the key of C as were most tunes he played that had some connection with Black popular music extensions of ragtime like the "The Colored Man" or "Money never runs out"

The Madison Street Rag appears very curious in this regard. In the Banjo Joe Recording with Blind Blake, it appears to be in D sharp while his recording with the Jug Stompers appears to have been in F. I have the feeling that for whatever reason, Cannon tuned his banjo down two steps for that particular Blind Blake session as his next tune "Jazz Gypsy Blues" is in B flat. We do not have exact session dates for the Paramount recordings to be sure that these two recordings were at the same session, or at least I havent found them. F is actually not that hard of a key to play in with the C banjo tuning. Cannon returns to that key in the Jug Stomper's last recording "Prison Wall Blues."

It may be that his medicine show partner and sometime housemate and neighbor Hosea Woods prefered a higher pitch than C. The two Beale Street Boy blues Cannon and Woods recorded in 1928 are both in D sharp. Blues guitarists like Charlie Patton and Lonnie Johnson quite commonly tuned their guitars above concert pitch or used capos to achieve more sustain, and it seems that on those two tunes, Cannon probably tuned his banjo higher or perhaps used a Capo to get up there. When the Jug Stompers, now featuring Woods, recorded "Last Chance Blues," one of the Beale Street Boy tunes, they did it in D. Similarly Cannon's Jug Stomper's version of "Jones Town Blues" is also done in D. I believe Cannon played these tunes in D in the C tuning without a capo or tuning up. His playing is noticeably less articulate on them than his playing on the original Jonestown Blues or even "The Wolf River Blues" which has the same tune and uses the same banjo figures. What seems constant is several licks and riffs that are just as easy playing in that tuning in either D or C. Cannon also does his duet of "Mule Get up in the Alley" with Woods in D too.

Most of us are used to evaluating fully traditional musicians who played in open or modal tunings or in banjo styles derived from this. While Cannon could play the old time down picking and two finger styles as well as anyone, the banjo style he used with his band was clearly related to more chromatically oriented banjo playing oriented to addressing several keys without capos or retuning. I cannot tell whether he retuned for the G tunes, though ideas on this are needed, but I do think that he played the D tunes in the C tuning without a capo.

He probably did tune up or use a capo for the Beale Street boys recordings. Those two blues worked well because of the close playing and interchange between Wood's guitar leads and Cannon's banjo which sound very similar. However, even here it is conceivable that he played those up the neck fo the banjo without a capo. Here my task is to listen for open strings.

Cannon's playing confronts us with a different level of musical mastery than what we are used to with purely traditional players. We are hearing a musician who grew up when the five string banjo was used for all forms of popular music as well as traditional music and a banjoist had to master keys different from what we are used to hearing old time banjoists play

majikgator - Posted - 05/24/2010:  16:44:42

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It would be nice if i could hear Gus Cannon better on the Jug Stompers recordings or with Blind Blake for that matter, the banjo seems to get lost behind other instruments. Thanks for the info about all the other styles of playing he did, i had always thought of him as being a three finger player although some of the tunes sounded like two finger and from some of the full chord sounds i can make out i can see why you might think three and a thumb, or a least for the four note pinches and them seems to return to three finger. To me the "ifiness" of the playing is due to not being able to hear the banjo well enough so i guess a lot of it will have to remain a guess. Very well could be that Cannon tuned down playing with Blind Blake, listening to Blake's guitar it is very possible that he tuned lower than concert pitch on at least some of his recordings.

writerrad - Posted - 05/24/2010:  18:25:04

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quote:

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Originally posted by majikgator

It would be nice if i could hear Gus Cannon better on the Jug Stompers recordings or with Blind Blake for that matter, the banjo seems to get lost behind other instruments. Thanks for the info about all the other styles of playing he did, i had always thought of him as being a three finger player although some of the tunes sounded like two finger and from some of the full chord sounds i can make out i can see why you might think three and a thumb, or a least for the four note pinches and them seems to return to three finger. To me the "ifiness" of the playing is due to not being able to hear the banjo well enough so i guess a lot of it will have to remain a guess. Very well could be that Cannon tuned down playing with Blind Blake, listening to Blake's guitar it is very possible that he tuned lower than concert pitch on at least some of his recordings.

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What I need to do is compare with the Blind Blake recordings done in the same session and try to get the keys. The level of the recordings does vary. Part of that seems to have to do with who he is playing with. The recordings done with Ashley Thompson and Elijah Avery on guitar are harder to figure out than the ones with Hosea Woods because they strummed the guitar more, especially Avery, and Thompson played a lot of treble lead, so it is harder to figure out whether it is the banjo or the guitar that is playing at times. Also when Cannon was really blowing the jug hard, his banjo playing gets weak and hard to hear, not surprising giving the magnificent playing he does on the jug, or should I say can.

However, on the recordings with Hosea Woods, you do get to hear a lot of Cannon's banjo as Woods tends to use bass runs as much as chords and stays in the background a little more distinctly.

One question that has become clear in figuring Cannon's playing out is that I start from the narrowness of someone who has learned to play the guitar and then the banjo first in a two and three finger style using an alternating thumb and learned banjo clawhammer where brushing and strumming is a big part of everything.

I have learned to associate articulate finger picking with three finger picking, but I learned that articulate guitarists like Gary Davis and Mance Lipscomb of a similar age and songster repertoire played two finger. I associate single note lines with flat picking or with thumb and index emulation of that, then I listen to the great classic banjoists who fire off single note runs faster than anything Cannon ever does.

Finally as I say above, in his old age he showed he could leap from finger picking to drop thumb frailing to strumming from barre to barre in the same tune, so caution needs to come in.

Thanks.

John Gribble - Posted - 05/25/2010:  14:36:52

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I have nothing to add except thank you so much for your wonderful work. Cannon is one of the truly great banjo players and one sadly neglected. So when will the book be available? I want the tab!

I do have one question: Why do you think Cannon didn't use a pick on those recordings where it sounds so much like a pick-style banjo? What right hand approach do you believe he used?

Thanks again. Great stuff!

Banjowik - Posted - 05/26/2010:  01:13:33

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I'd swear he's gotta pick when he plays "Bring it with you when you come" An absolute corker of a tune, my fave!
Any information on this tune? I play it (sorta) with a pick outta G tuning.



Thanks for sharing your research!

Couchie - Posted - 05/26/2010:  06:00:16

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Tony, thank you for posting your thoughts and observations. I know very little about Gus Cannon as his recordings were not available here in Canada. I remember seeing a picture of him playing the banjo with a jug in a holder and thought that that was the most unusual thing I had ever seen in my life. I would love to hear how he plays, and from your description he must be well worth a listen.

Dave Douglass - Posted - 05/26/2010:  08:38:50

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Did I ever tell you about the time I watched Gus throw his banjo into the air then catch it and continue his singing and playing. This would've been in 1966 in his living room in Memphis. He still had his custom made neck strap copper jug from way back yonder. Oh, and he was playing a heavy, resonated Bacon(?) banjo while doing that heartstopping trick. He finger picked all of his licks which were mostly just "seconding" on the banjo while singing. He said he didn't frail anymore because his fingernails were too thin. He wouldn't let us record him. He was still feeling pretty burnt about his treatment from Walk Right In.

Dave

Dave Douglass - Posted - 05/26/2010:  08:39:44

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Did I ever tell you about the time I watched Gus throw his banjo into the air then catch it and continue his singing and playing. This would've been in 1966 in his living room in Memphis. He still had his custom made neck strap copper jug from way back yonder. Oh, and he was playing a heavy, resonated Bacon(?) banjo while doing that heartstopping trick. He finger picked all of his licks which were mostly just "seconding" on the banjo while singing. He said he didn't frail anymore because his fingernails were too thin. He wouldn't let us record him. He was still feeling pretty burnt about his treatment from Walk Right In.

Dave

BobTheGambler - Posted - 05/26/2010:  08:58:37

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Very interesting thread. I opened up "Madison Street Rag" in iTunes while I read, and it has some amazing stuff going on banjo-wise. Seems like a variety of picking styles threaded quite fluidly together. I've got to grab my banjo and see if I can still do "My Money Never Runs Out". Thanks for posting your research, I'm finding this line of inquiry intriguing.

writerrad - Posted - 05/26/2010:  13:41:13

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It is possible on some tunes Cannon may have used a pick. I was given that idea by a mistaken transcript of an interview where remarks that said he tried using finger picks but could not keep them on his hands were changed to that he used picks.

During the period I thought he used picks I was advised to listen to the great finger style classic banjo players of Ragtime like Ossman and Van Eps. I also had the priviledge of having great classic players like Greg Adams, bob winans, and Eli Kaufman play ragtime and bluesy tunes to me. My judgment is that classic banjo style afforded banjoists much more sing string playing capacity than Gus Cannon used on any of his recordings.

Beyond that, if one listens closely to Cannon's playing you will hear things that indicate he finger picks. There is almost no strumming or brushing of chords except in a few flourishes. When Cannon wants to play several notes, usually several treble notes, he pinches or up plucks them together sometimes with sounding the bass string of the banjo.

Something that may confuse the listener is that on several recordings, including the one you mention, Hosea Woods uses a guitar banjo played with a pick. Similarly, listenings say that Elijah Wood played either or both mandolin and guitar banjo on some of the recordings he was on.

As has been mentioned earlier, the low quality of the recordings, the interference of other musicians and of Cannon's own singing and jug playing make figuring out exactyly how he played difficult. Moreover, Cannon was quite capable of switching from one banjo style to another.

I think that there is probably a strong influence of pick playing banjo on Cannon's playing. We have records of concert banjoists playing five-string banjos with picks starting in the 1890s. In the 1910s some of the Classic Banjo stars may have used picks for some of their recordings and stage recordings. By the time Cannon made his recordings, Tenor Banjo playing had become more popular in popular music, dance bands, Jazz, and in string bands like his own than the five string banjo, along with mandolin and guitar banjos which may have been used by members of his band on these recordings.

As much as some of the playing suggests this, I do not think he used a flat pick on any of his tunes. I think that is quite possible, and, indeed I once speculated that he did so on many of his tunes.

Tony

writerrad - Posted - 05/26/2010:  13:45:55

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What I need to do is compare with the Blind Blake recordings done in the same session and try to get the keys.

The matrix numbers for Cannon's accompaniment of Blind Blake on "In the Jailhouse Now" interrupts those of the Banjo Joe recording. The recording is in the awkward key of B, with Blake apparently capoing his guitar up two steps and playing in A. Cannon's guitar sounds really awkward and out of step, perhaps, because he is trying to play a banjo in the tune B.

People I know familiar with trying to learn Blake tune do say Blake did tune in Concert pitch although he capoed he guitar up several steps often as many blues players of his time did.

Still, I think Cannon probably tuned his banjo down two steps for the Paramount Madison Street Rag and the Jazz Gipsy Blues.

Tony

writerrad - Posted - 05/26/2010:  13:54:37

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dave Douglass

Did I ever tell you about the time I watched Gus throw his banjo into the air then catch it and continue his singing and playing. This would've been in 1966 in his living room in Memphis. He still had his custom made neck strap copper jug from way back yonder. Oh, and he was playing a heavy, resonated Bacon(?) banjo while doing that heartstopping trick. He finger picked all of his licks which were mostly just "seconding" on the banjo while singing. He said he didn't frail anymore because his fingernails were too thin. He wouldn't let us record him. He was still feeling pretty burnt about his treatment from Walk Right In.

Dave

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That trick was a quite common one for banjo entertainers bck in the day, but at the age Cannon was in 1966, that was a sign of his incredible agility, strength, and musial dexterity. He told Olsson that this trick was a regular part of his act in the Mediciine shows. He did a number of tunes quite differently in the 1960s than on his recordings. This would stand to reason since all of his 34 recordings, save the first recording of "Jonestown Blues" were done in a band or with a guitar accompaniest. Except when he was signing or blowing his brains out on his jug, Cannon never played simple backup on his banjo, he was always playing the kind of lead or obligato that makes a swinging commentary on the lead that Noah Lewis was sometimes playing, although sometimes the lead was being taken by either Ashley Thompson or Hosea Woods Gutiar.

Indeed, after his solo attempt on Jonestown Blues, Cannon never made a solo recording again. Even in his Stax recording he had to find Will Slade and another musician to accompany him.

TT

Dr. Jug - Posted - 05/26/2010:  15:01:47

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Finest thread I ever saw on BHO, Tony. Thanks.

BANJOJUDY - Posted - 05/27/2010:  09:04:12

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Picked this up off Banjo-L e-mail list, offered with usual disclaimers, but I did watch the trailer and it looks as though this is a great purchase.

The DVD 'Chasin' Gus' Ghost' was released on DVD last Thursday May 20, 2010:
chasingusghost.com/

Anybody that is a Gus Cannon fan may want to check it out. Movie
trailer here:
youtube.com/watch?v=-5fZXwmfzms

The DVD is $20 here:
rediscovermusic.com/product/3425/143

drybones - Posted - 05/28/2010:  04:53:18

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I'm a big fan of Cannon's Jug Stompers and the Memphis Jug Band but I find the banjo usually plays a supporting role and that the beauty of the songs comes from the singing, the rhythm, the witty lyrics, and the ensemble playing.

db

writerrad - Posted - 05/28/2010:  08:41:13

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quote:

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Originally posted by BANJOJUDY

Picked this up off Banjo-L e-mail list, offered with usual disclaimers, but I did watch the trailer and it looks as though this is a great purchase.

The DVD 'Chasin' Gus' Ghost' was released on DVD last Thursday May 20, 2010:
chasingusghost.com/

Anybody that is a Gus Cannon fan may want to check it out. Movie
trailer here:
youtube.com/watch?v=-5fZXwmfzms

The DVD is $20 here:
rediscovermusic.com/product/3425/143

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That it was just released indicates the severe difficulties that come when someone is trying to do a documentary film, even a documentary film that has gotten to support and involvement of musicians like John Sebastian and Jim Kweskin and other fairly well known folks who agreed to appear in it and promote it for no profit.

I had the opportunity to talk to the person who did most of the Gus Cannon banjo playing for the film about two years ago who gave me my first ideas about Cannon's playing. They opened the door to very much of my knowledge. Every day when I come down to check the mail, I keep hoping my copy of the DVD will be there!

writerrad - Posted - 05/28/2010:  09:16:30

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quote:

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Originally posted by drybones

I'm a big fan of Cannon's Jug Stompers and the Memphis Jug Band but I find the banjo usually plays a supporting role and that the beauty of the songs comes from the singing, the rhythm, the witty lyrics, and the ensemble playing.

db

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Yes that is quite important. Most of current banjoists outside of bluegrass are into solo banjo playing or a lot of banjo lead and perhaps singing.

Cannon seems to have had the approach of being a band musician. Everything he said about playing music from being a teenager is about being in bands. Before he finally settled in Memphis around 1918, no matter where he lived, and he lived everywhere from Mississippi to Cairo, Illinois, Cannon would travel great distances to play music with the musicians he saw as his band mates.

Even though he had not lived in the Ripley-Hennings area of Tennessee since 1916 or 1915, when he had an opportunity to record in 1927, he called in his band mates from when he lived there, Ashley Thompson and Noah Lewis to record with him, even though they were of another generation and were more inclined to the newer "deeper" Blues.

The kind of single string lead banjo playing Cannon played on his recordings simply isn't sustainable for solo playing. He went into the Paramount studio in 1927 to start recording solo. That lasted just one recording, Jonestown Blues, and even though it is a masterful banjo solo, they brought in Blind Blake to accompany him. He never made a solo commercial recording again.

On the other hand, when Cannon played clawhammer in the old time African American style, he was pretty much able to provide great accompaniment for himself and probably for dancers without a band, although it seems that earlier when musical tastes were like that, he still was always in or looking for a band, although part of that might be that probably up until around 1915 he was as much of a fiddler as a banjo player. It is interesting that in the 1960s when he usually did not have a band, he tended to plays some tunes he had done in tht finger style in frailing or strumming to fill in the gaps that would have been left.

This is a big challenge to me and others who have tried to help me figure out his playing. We do have the Jonestown Blues where he playts solo. It may have needed accompaniment, but you can see pretty much everything that Cannon does on any of the recordings in that and with him playing alone there is a lot more lead than he plays on anything else, of course. However, from then on, even in the pieces where Paramount brought in Blind Blake to accompany him, what Cannon plays is more designed to back up or make commentary on the pace and swing than to play a lead.

When Cannon put together the Jug Stompers, he recognized the brilliance of Noah Lewis. In almost every recording Lewis takes the lead and cannon supports him even if he takes a lead now and then himself. Like many singers, and particularly many African Americans in the Blues tradition, when Cannon sings himself he often doesn't play banjo at all.

Then we have the magnificent often unbelievable jug playing that Cannon does on many of the recordings. Granted Cannon used a small oil can--this seems to be what many "jug band" musicians actually used--and he had his own rack like a harmonica player used. He treasured that and folks I have met on BH and elsewhere who had the opportunity to meet him in the late 1960s and early 1970s said he still had that can and treasured it even then. Still, that anyone could play the jug the way he did just playing the jug is amazing, and that he could do so much on the banjo whilst playing the jug is amazing too.

On the other hand, this question is part of how we need to look at five-stringf banjo playing not with the distorted lenses of banjo in our time, but with the eyes that Cannon and his contemporaries had. Banjos did not necessarily play a lead or straight rhythm role in music in the way we are accustomed to look at them in either bluegrass or old time music. James Reese Europe one of the leading band leaders of the pre WWI period who used scores of banjo players in big orchestras he organized for Black cultural events and who have at least five banjo players in the dance band he led that was New York's leading dance band in this period--the Fox Trot among other major dances were introduced by the Castles, the dancers who danced with his band, all based on Black southern roots---Europe said he and his arrangers put the banjos in the place of the second violins or the violas in orchestra scoring.

Cantwell has a great explanation of how Earl Scruggs' banjo creates the swing and Africanness of Bluegrass beyond the role of lead playing. In many ways he describes the role that Cannon's banjo playing provided in his band recordings. He is rarely playing straight rhythm, except when he is either singing so intently or playing jug so intently that there is little else he can do. More often, he is making comments ont he melody and the rhythm that keeps the music from being straight, that accents its syncopation and accents its bluesiness. He is rarely providing the hard and heavy rhythm that the dancers need to base which foot to move, but he is spicing up the rhythm so that besides moving a foot, the dancer is given the opportunity to swing this or that part of their body.

Again, as a banjo player I and others I have worked with on this are used to listening to a banjo tune where the banjoist plays lead or a lot of lead and figuring out a solo banjo lead to play. Figuring out Cannon is hard because much of what he does only makes sense when you are playing with other musicians.

Moreover, Bob Winans did a very good transcription in standard notation of Cannon's solo Jonestown Blues. He also made a MIDI of that. Both of us found that both the transcription looked and especially the MIDI sounded very much like a blues to ragtime piano piece in the way the treble and bass parts worked together,t he way that the lead and the chords worked together.

I started with a view that his playing was rough and rowdy and very folky. I think that view is given to much jug band music. I also get the picture that some of the young revivalists who came around Cannon in the 1960s especially Bengst Olsson who wrote the liner notes for his Herwin recordings (all the Document, JSP, and other reissues of Cannons 1927-1930 recordings are simply reduplications of the Herwin recordings) were interested in painting Cannon up in this kind of image, trying to use Black blues and songsters as a justification for their own romantic bohemian ideas about life.

However, attention to his music on those recordings gives me the picture of a very serious and developed musician, someone who might not have played dainty music, but who always seems to be controlled, organized, concious and delicate in his touches with a very strong level of technique and a very strong sense of the music he wanted to make.

I think this comes off in the way that although Cannon was the leader on all of his sessions, he does not impose his banjo playing or even his singing on very much. He lets Noah Lewis play the lead on most tunes. He lets the guitar of Ashley Thompson and a few times the guitar of Hosea Woods take leads, and allows the banjo guitar of Hosea Woods to intervene now and then too. He lets everyone else in the band except Avery sing. He allows Ashley Thompson and Noah Lewis to play songs that are clearly more of their joint repertoire and their kind of music. His aim seems to be the best music, not the expansion of his ego or his own playing.

In this he reminds me of bandleaders like Count Basie and Bob Wills who put getting good music out of band members and soloists far ahead of their own playing, and who focused on the product their bands were producing for dancers as the key to having a good band.

writerrad - Posted - 05/28/2010:  09:22:32

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Just one point. Several people, mostly folks I have met on BL who had an opportunity to meet Gus Cannon in the late 1960s and 1970s, have told me that the Gus Cannon they met was a dignified and wise man in the ways of the world. One person who I know of as a very good musician and who comes highly recommended to me by friends of his tells me Cannon was the greatest man he ever knew, not for music but for the moral and spiritual life example he provided. It seems that despite a very bad economic situation and problem with drinking, to his dying days, Cannon showed an intelligence and sparkle and knowledge of life, including enjoying life that gave a glow to him that folks who met him then still glow from today.

Olssondied just before I began this research. I have been told by people in contact with him that Olsson felt a bit sorry about the weaknesses of his approach to Cannon and other black musicians in his writings in the early 1970s and had wanted to return to the US and do more research and paint a more respectful picture of Cannon and other Memphis Jug band artists.

drybones - Posted - 05/28/2010:  16:01:27

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Do you see similarities with Uncle Dave Macon's playing? He seems to vary styles based on what adds to a particular song.

writerrad - Posted - 05/29/2010:  11:33:53

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quote:

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Originally posted by drybones

Do you see similarities with Uncle Dave Macon's playing? He seems to vary styles based on what adds to a particular song.

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Macon played the banjo a long time and like Gus Cannon was from a generation where the five-string banjo was used in all kinds of popular and folk music throughout the United States and much of the English speaking world. Macon had a lot of assets to bring to banjo playing. Macon also recorded from the 1920s until the early 1950s in a variety of different bands.. Macon worked with Sam McGhee, who both realized was a better banjoist than Macon by the 1930s. McGhee explained to interviewers that in this period they sometimes attempted to pass off McGhee's playing as Dave's in banjo contests to continue marketing Dave as the greatest banjoist in the world,. and some of the banjo on records attributed to Uncle Dave from that period may actually be McGhee's work.

Any serious musician is going to play different tunes different ways.

I havent spent much time comparing to Uncle Dave. Uncle Dave's playing really has two periods. The first was when he predominantly used finger style banjo in recordings he made in the 1920s and early 1930s. While a hoary air of traditionalism surrounds him in legion, Macon was very much in touch with vaudville, minstrel show, and other show business banjo techniques popular in the early 20th and late 19th Century. His parents maintained a theatrical hotel or boarding house, and from childhood he was exposed to show business banjo players from across the country.

In the old time music business and the grand ole opry as it came into being in the 1920s, Macon adjusted to present the image of the "hillbilly" which grew up with the nascent country music industry. He tended to team up with some of the more progressive blues influenced players on the circuit like the Delmore Brothers, the McGhee Brothers, and the GREAT FIDDLING ARTHUR SMItH.

As age advanced, arthritis struck Macom. By the late 1930s and 1940s, Macom's fingers could no longer support the finger picking he was once a master of. On the other hand people who have seen him and talked to him about this have told me that his right hand congealed and locked into a perfect claw for clawhammer. So his later playing was overwhelmingly clawhammer.

From the mid 1930s, Macom worked the image as the anti-modernism, old fashioned, country rube, and later the old crotchity remnant of old time music, an image Granpa Jones continued. Jones started this act long before he was an old man. Jones actually started as a country music guitarist and entertainer on the radio in Boston. According to his autobiography, Jones learn the banjo during his service in the army in WWII, not from any traditional engagement with the music. Still he continued that same image created by Macom and others.

Across the late 1920s and the 1930s the five string banjo receded from any use in Hillbilly music as it became country music. The string bands and fiddlers that once graced it disappeared by and large and bands focused around crooining singers like Roy Acuf or really modeled on Western Swing combos predominated. The music became more and more influence by contemporary pop music and swing.

The role of the banjoist became that of a comedian who acted out the stereotype of an old fashioned backward country bumpkin. If that person also expressed the stereotype of the old foggie, so much the better. Stu Jamison, a banjoist, folklorist, and scientist who used the freedom and money he had left over after getting out of the Army during WWII to travel to the South and find out about old time banjo and fiddling, told me that Macon was pretty much shocked to find a young, good looking, accomplished seeming fellow from New York who was seriously interested in old time banjo playing. He told me that Macon who was not known for being a friendly person at the time, was delighted to talk to his about how he played.

By the time Earl Scruggs came along, Macon and others of his type were not quite ready for a banjoist whose music was first and foremost or who took country music into its future. Famously

writerrad - Posted - 05/29/2010:  11:40:00

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quote:

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Originally posted by writerrad

quote:

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Originally posted by drybones

Do you see similarities with Uncle Dave Macon's playing? He seems to vary styles based on what adds to a particular song.

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Macon played the banjo a long time and like Gus Cannon was from a generation where the five-string banjo was used in all kinds of popular and folk music throughout the United States and much of the English speaking world. Macon had a lot of assets to bring to banjo playing. Macon also recorded from the 1920s until the early 1950s in a variety of different bands.. Macon worked with Sam McGhee, who both realized was a better banjoist than Macon by the 1930s. McGhee explained to interviewers that in this period they sometimes attempted to pass off McGhee's playing as Dave's in banjo contests to continue marketing Dave as the greatest banjoist in the world,. and some of the banjo on records attributed to Uncle Dave from that period may actually be McGhee's work.

Any serious musician is going to play different tunes different ways.

I havent spent much time comparing to Uncle Dave. Uncle Dave's playing really has two periods. The first was when he predominantly used finger style banjo in recordings he made in the 1920s and early 1930s. While a hoary air of traditionalism surrounds him in legion, Macon was very much in touch with vaudville, minstrel show, and other show business banjo techniques popular in the early 20th and late 19th Century. His parents maintained a theatrical hotel or boarding house, and from childhood he was exposed to show business banjo players from across the country.

In the old time music business and the grand ole opry as it came into being in the 1920s, Macon adjusted to present the image of the "hillbilly" which grew up with the nascent country music industry. He tended to team up with some of the more progressive blues influenced players on the circuit like the Delmore Brothers, the McGhee Brothers, and the GREAT FIDDLING ARTHUR SMItH.

As age advanced, arthritis struck Macom. By the late 1930s and 1940s, Macom's fingers could no longer support the finger picking he was once a master of. On the other hand people who have seen him and talked to him about this have told me that his right hand congealed and locked into a perfect claw for clawhammer. So his later playing was overwhelmingly clawhammer.

From the mid 1930s, Macom worked the image as the anti-modernism, old fashioned, country rube, and later the old crotchity remnant of old time music, an image Granpa Jones continued. Jones started this act long before he was an old man. Jones actually started as a country music guitarist and entertainer on the radio in Boston. According to his autobiography, Jones learn the banjo during his service in the army in WWII, not from any traditional engagement with the music. Still he continued that same image created by Macom and others.

Across the late 1920s and the 1930s the five string banjo receded from any use in Hillbilly music as it became country music. The string bands and fiddlers that once graced it disappeared by and large and bands focused around crooining singers like Roy Acuf or really modeled on Western Swing combos predominated. The music became more and more influence by contemporary pop music and swing.

The role of the banjoist became that of a comedian who acted out the stereotype of an old fashioned backward country bumpkin. If that person also expressed the stereotype of the old foggie, so much the better. Stu Jamison, a banjoist, folklorist, and scientist who used the freedom and money he had left over after getting out of the Army during WWII to travel to the South and find out about old time banjo and fiddling, told me that Macon was pretty much shocked to find a young, good looking, accomplished seeming fellow from New York who was seriously interested in old time banjo playing. He told me that Macon who was not known for being a friendly person at the time, was delighted to talk to his about how he played.

By the time Earl Scruggs came along, Macon and others of his type were not quite ready for a banjoist whose music was first and foremost or who took country music into its future. Famously

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I forgot to add and continue that Famously when Early Scruggs emerged with Monroe in 1945, Macon said that Earl would not make it as a banjo player because "he ain't a bit funny" because the role Macon had seized to continue working as a banjo player was not so much as a master musician but a rube comic.

I have been lucky enough to hear life air checks from the Grand Ole Opry of Earl's 1945 appearances with Bill Monroe. The speed and swing of Scruggs' music is astoundi9ng even compared with the records. The thrill that the Opry audiences respond with is also massive. Knowing a bit about Bill Monroe and his pride and ego, it must have been something the way the group was introduced as Bill Monroe and his terrific banjo player Earl Scruggs.

Please do not turn this into a thread about Dave Macom

writerrad - Posted - 05/29/2010:  16:30:24

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I have been going back through the Gus Cannon repertoire with the extra time that retirement brings a person. So many other things from grading my students papers, to cleaning the dishes, I realize that press of working two jobs have not allowed me to examine properly, that I am coming up with things, sometimes simple that are quite obvious.

Moreover, I have been accompanied in my researches by several people who got to know Cannon in the 1960s and by Bob Winans who has even transcribed a Cannon tune. There are more than a handful of such folk who can be found at banjo hangout.

Here is something pretty certain, contrary to the liner notes on both the Document and the Earlier Herwin issues of Cannon's recordings--which are pretty much the same-- Gus Cannon is not the only jug player in the band, at least in the recording made by with Hosea Woods in the band.

On several tunes where Cannon sings, such as "Wolf River Blues," the Jug Stompers recording of "Money Never Runs Out" and "Bring it With You when you come" Gus Cannon cannot possibly be the jug player because the jug--or probably the oil can as Cannon never played a jug--is being played while Cannon sang. On the tunes where this is true, there is jug playing during some of Cannon's most energetic lead banjo playing, something that does not happen on most of his other recordings, and not at all before Hosea Woods joined the band.

I do believe that Cannon played jug on most of the jug stomper recordings including when Woods was in the band. You can tell the difference in jug playing sounds. Cannon has much more of a bass sounding jug playing with lower rounder fuller notes, and he is a bit better at staying in the background of a singer or when he is backing a player. The other jug player is higher pitched, more sputtery, and more forceful and plays more of a lead style even when he should not be getting so far out in front of a singer or soloist.

One possibility in this is Hosea Woods. Woods played the trumpet, and although my trumpet career ended with the fifth grade, that kind of sputter seems more of what I have seen folks do with a trumpet mouthpiece without a jug in my time, not that I think that is what Woods did. It is believed that Woods played kazoo on at least one of the Jug Stomper recordings with Elijah Avery.

If I get time, I will but the jug selections in Audacity or one of my sound programs and analyze the wave forms.

Olssen's liner notes for the Herwin recording are pretty much what has been continued on and on for the various reissues of Cannon material since then. Chris Smith wrote either in this group or in a letter to me, I forget which in my old age (my 63rd birthday today), that document never gave him enough time or resources to do anything else. David Evan's JAF review of Olssen's notes is pretty scathing for its errors, none of which were corrected in the document or any subsequent issues of his work.

There are a series of other errors especially attributing songs sung by Noah Lewis to Cannon.

witty banjo related username - Posted - 05/29/2010:  18:43:00

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Brilliant, I have been awaiting more products of your research for a while.

I have often wondered about Cannon's place among other old time three finger players, most notably Frank Hovington and Belton Reese (and even Charlie Poole, in as much as Poole's North Carolina Ramblers are a white version of Cannon's Jug Stompers). I wonder what sort of evidence has been found for the existence of a three finger banjo style among African Americans?

Marc Nerenberg - Posted - 05/29/2010:  19:51:28

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This is such a delightful thread...I wish I had something concrete to contribute, aside from my appreciation. It's got me listening to Cannon a whole lot, and working out my own arrangements of some of his tunes.

Marc Nerenberg - Posted - 05/29/2010:  20:17:02

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quote:

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Originally posted by witty banjo related username

... Poole's North Carolina Ramblers are a white version of Cannon's Jug Stompers ...

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I, myself, find this statement to be somewhat of a stretch. I don't see any significant similarities between these two bands at all.

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Edited by - Marc Nerenberg on 05/29/2010 20:19:42

writerrad - Posted - 05/31/2010:  11:16:09

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quote:

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Originally posted by witty banjo related username

Brilliant, I have been awaiting more products of your research for a while.

I have often wondered about Cannon's place among other old time three finger players, most notably Frank Hovington and Belton Reese (and even Charlie Poole, in as much as Poole's North Carolina Ramblers are a white version of Cannon's Jug Stompers). I wonder what sort of evidence has been found for the existence of a three finger banjo style among African Americans?

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As I have indicated before, the body of worki that we need about finger style banjo players, outside the classical method, and African American finger style players in particular is so small that we can do nothing but speculate about it. I have very exhaustive recordings of Black Banjoists, including unpublished field recordings and outakes that never made it to record, but apart from Hovington, I do not know of a larger body of finger style playing, although there are collisional African American finger style picking by a few of the Black banjoists from the Upper South like Dink Roberts or Rufus Kasey.

Charlie Poole is put by some to be like Cannon only in the sense that both musicians contradict ignorant stereotypes people have about old time banjo in similar ways and are heard in the ways that other musicians that might place them in context are not. Both reflected the influence of popular music of a Ragtime and early Jazz nature, in Cannon's case more Ragtime than Jazz, along with whatever traditional music influence they had. In Poole's case, he really wanted to perform popular music using piano, drums, and tenor banjo, but the recording companies told him that his Old time music sold and they could find many better people playing pop in New York than him.

What they share is that they were strongly influenced by the dominant style of banjo in the world from the civil war until the rise of the tenor, classic banjo. Cannon and Poole seem unique or special in some degrees only insofar as most current banjoheads are old time music and bluegrass lovers who come out of the folk music revival. Our ideas about the banjo come from overconcentration on folk and traditional techniques, and ignorance of how broad classic banjo was, how many recordings were made---more in ragtime than piano--and how strong an influence it must have had on the development of traditional music.

Cannon, of course, adaptated it to the rhythms of Black country dancers in the Mississippi Valley, since his bread and butter was playing for their dancfers, and having a good enough band to be hired in juke joints and country dances.

Poole's music related to the kind of small town urban music that was being put together by the millions or so white textile workers and their families who gathered in Piedmont, very many of them coming out of towns in the mountains of thje South. He mixes traditional music coon songs, popular music tunes of the early 20th Century, and attempts blues and ragtime music.

Cannon's band swings as it is oriented to Black dancers. When the music is more that of his Ripley Band mates, Noah Lewis and Ashley Thompson, the music swings a bit harder and has more of a triplet feel born to the deeper blues, than when they do not call the tune. As one writer points out like Charlie Jackson and Handy himself, Cannon's own rhythm is a bit of a mixture between the on the beat structures of ragtime bass and the swingier music of early Jazz.

Charlie Poole doesn't swing except a few tunes--Milwakee Blues being one where I love his swing. If I listen to the two bands back to back on my car CD player, Poole's music sounds pretty square, stilted, and tame. You get the picture that Poole was more of a Spade Cooley like bandleaders (I cannot help it I am very deep into Western swing) who had an idea of how everything had to be done right as he wanted it, and how the musicians had to fit in just som with his banjo setting the rhythm. There is not much improvising and no one gets far away from the tune.

Cannon is the opposite. He seems to let the different talents of his band members explode in each tune. To be sure, Cannon sounds like he is closer to the kind of music Hosea Woods made with him than what Ashleyt Thompson wanted or what Noah Lewis wanted and recorded on his own. However, he lets their music come out in the band, even if they are playing rhythms where Cannon's banjo playing is not as not as useful and or in keys that restrict his solo ability. Cannon pretty much lets everyone except Elijah Avery sing and changes the key to suit their voices, not his banjo.
After dance rhythm, improvisation is what the whole band is about in wild solos by Ashley Thompson, some nice guitar and guitar banjo by Hosea Woodes, and great jug and Kazoo playing by Cannon and Woods, all of it presided over by the ruling musician Noah Lewis playing lead on the harmonica on almost every piece.

There is not much similarity between Poole and Cannon except that they were both from the same era, both were finger style banjoists whose music was obviously based on classic banjo, and reflected to one degree or another the influence of the kind popular music,. sometimes influence by Ragtime, prevelant in the first decades of this century.

writerrad - Posted - 05/31/2010:  11:18:42

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No person should speak about Charlie Poole without reading Patrick Huber's masterpiece __Linthead Stomp__ Indeed this is a book that should be in every home.

writerrad - Posted - 05/31/2010:  11:28:18

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One more difference is that Cannon's playing shows the definite influence of pick played banjo in Jazz and Blues and Ragtime banjo. His music is very largely single string leads or gapped or pinched chords. In the 1927-1930 recordings, I cannot find any trace of arpeggios or rolls being part of Cannon's playing.


We know Poole recorded a couple VLO or van epps banjo pieces and wanted to record more and wanted to refashion his group based on the combos that Van Epps and other classic banjoists put together but was blocked by the record companies. Poole's accompaniment style is pretty strongly based on rolls and arpeggios rather than the kind of riffs and lines--to use jazz terminology--that are at the center of Cannon's playing.

Poole's accompaniment seems pretty strictly based on the chords he is playing and moving his fingers across the banjo, whereas Cannon's accompaniment seems to be based on the lines he is playing and the rhythmic, blusing, or syncopating comment he is making on what the other musicians are playing.

No one would dance to Charlie Poole's band at the dances that Gus Cannon played at. No one at the dances Poole Played for might know the dances that Gus Gus Cannon's tunes were designed for.

Tamarack - Posted - 05/31/2010:  17:32:55

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Writerrad - thanks for sharing all your hard work and detailed research. I feel like I have been to Banjo University. This information both makes connections and broadens horizons.

witty banjo related username - Posted - 06/01/2010:  04:48:13

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Wow, Tony! You ain't half eloquent, are you?

Clearly you have thought more about this than I have.

Lucky I have read "Linthead Stomp", who knows what variety of fool I would have felt like if I hadn't...I recommend it, too.

writerrad - Posted - 06/01/2010:  08:50:26

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marc Nerenberg

This is such a delightful thread...I wish I had something concrete to contribute, aside from my appreciation. It's got me listening to Cannon a whole lot, and working out my own arrangements of some of his tunes.

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I would be very interested to see what your experience and comments are trying to arrange some of his tunes. After a year or so of practically thinking and talking about his playing and getting so many things wrong, I found looking at the way a few people play his tunes and then trying to play them myself got me thinking about how he actually played in a useful way. I think I got the most out of watching Mark Layne, a banjoist who has several Cannon tunes on You Tube and then listening to Cannon.

Dont get me wrong Layne is a great banjoist and has a lot of interesting stuff from a number of the old time greatests online. He captures the SPIRIT of Cannon even if his playing is not exactly what Cannon did.

But his playing helped me understand the difference between the way Cannon approached the music living in the era that he did and how Layne played which is probably what I would have done if I had the chops he has, but reflecting the limitations of the background as a revivalist banjo player.

The member of this list who wrote about trying to play Cannon's tunes with a flat pick got me to do a lot of thinking about the links between Cannon's music and pick played banjo and helped me add some nice material to my article and the book about that. It also recalled what I learned from my own attempts to play his tunes with a flat pick.

SO IT WOULD BE GREAT IF PEOPLE RESPONDED TO THIS FORUM BY TALKING ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES TRYING TO PLAY CANNON'S MUSIC

Supertone - Posted - 06/01/2010:  09:06:25

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Hi Tony,
Did you mean Nate Layne (youtube.com/watch?v=mXAFH8S9Cpc)?

writerrad - Posted - 06/01/2010:  09:09:13

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quote:

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Originally posted by Tamarack

Writerrad - thanks for sharing all your hard work and detailed research. I feel like I have been to Banjo University. This information both makes connections and broadens horizons.

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The big problem in the banjo world is there are a bunch of people, perhaps hundreds of people who has spent their lives accruing massive amounts of information about the banjo and the music. There are many, many other people who in their lives has gotten together significant information and significant facts. These things are in our minds, in our emails, or get passed around when we get together.

God, I am still glowing from how a few months ago I was rooming in a hotel room next to Tony Trishka at a banjo conference and how we talked at breakfast and back in our rooms.

The problem is that we need to get this written down in books and organized web sites so that the world can have that knowledge. Those of us who want to do this have to adopt the discipline that others who do research and publication. That means not just saying the first thing that comes into our heads, but researching all the information and all the angles, and looking at the work of others.

Right now working on this stuff, even with allt he knowledge and research I have put into things, I keep finding there is no standard reference work on the history of five-string banjo playing. The great history of Bollman and Gura on the history of the instrument only goes to the early twentieth century and has nothing about banjo playing. It took a query on my part to a banjo list to set people in research to find exactly when and how the tenor banjo came into being.

As someone who has written a lot of stupidities on banjo lists, that when you have to do research to support your ideas, when you have to think, and then when you try to subject your ideas to the criticism of people who are knowledgeable in the subject, you find that a lot of things you thought were true were not true. You also find that a lot of things that you are trying to figure out will never be figured out, and you realize how humble you should be.

That is what I am trying to do here. I am writing about Cannon for a book that we are putting together which will be the first scholarly collection of researched articles about the five string banjo.

I would add something very important: The whole generation of people who got interested in Gus Cannon, or Dock Boggs, or Rufus Crisp in the 1960s and 1970s are senior citizens like me. We are not going to be around forever, and our headlights are starting to go dim. Last year we lost two of the greatest banjo heads--and greater people--in Mike Seeger and Ray Alden. If the old traditional banjo players like Cannon who are our grandparents, great grandparents, or parents' generations are gone, the boomers and pre boomers like me and several others here are going.

We have a lot to get down for history that was given to us by the inspiration of the people who made this music. We should each treasure what we have and find some way of getting it down.

For example, several people have written me because of this thread off list about how they cannot comment on Gus Cannon's music in the 1920s, but they have memories of visiting him in the 1960s. Most of those memories have been of how besides the music Cannon impressed them as a person, including one person who sees him as a spiritual guide. This has been a wonderful supplement to what we know about the music.

These things should not die!

writerrad - Posted - 06/01/2010:  09:10:48

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quote:

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Originally posted by Supertone

Hi Tony,
Did you mean Nate Layne (youtube.com/watch?v=mXAFH8S9Cpc)?

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Yup. I just wrote our headlines are going dim. Mine when names are getting pretty dim. I have actually not only corresponded him, but met him, but get it wrong.

Age, but then without the age, I would be at work pushing bus parts instead of sitting here on a pension and social security writing about the banjo!

gailg64 - Posted - 06/01/2010:  12:58:26

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Tony, Interesting!
Charlie Poole's son Bunk played tenor banjo & one of Charlie's own favorite records was known to have been a copy of a 78 by Big Chief Henry's Inidan Stringband playing Banks of the Kaney, which heavily featured tenor banjo. So that was probably the direction he would have been headed.
As for the North Carolina Ramblers, they had to have had a dance repertoire with Posey Rorer fiddling. He was from Franklin County & you can hear them playing at dance rhythm and speed on a couple of cuts in that configuration,. That wasn't their money-maker, of course.

quote:

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Originally posted by writerrad

One more difference is that Cannon's playing shows the definite influence of pick played banjo in Jazz and Blues and Ragtime banjo. His music is very largely single string leads or gapped or pinched chords. In the 1927-1930 recordings, I cannot find any trace of arpeggios or rolls being part of Cannon's playing.


We know Poole recorded a couple VLO or van epps banjo pieces and wanted to record more and wanted to refashion his group based on the combos that Van Epps and other classic banjoists put together but was blocked by the record companies. Poole's accompaniment style is pretty strongly based on rolls and arpeggios rather than the kind of riffs and lines--to use jazz terminology--that are at the center of Cannon's playing.

Poole's accompaniment seems pretty strictly based on the chords he is playing and moving his fingers across the banjo, whereas Cannon's accompaniment seems to be based on the lines he is playing and the rhythmic, blusing, or syncopating comment he is making on what the other musicians are playing.

No one would dance to Charlie Poole's band at the dances that Gus Cannon played at. No one at the dances Poole Played for might know the dances that Gus Gus Cannon's tunes were designed for.

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drybones - Posted - 06/01/2010:  16:20:39

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I like your distinction between Poole's playing and Cannon's playing -- (I can't figure out how to insert the exact quote, sorry --

db

writerrad - Posted - 06/02/2010:  10:02:20

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quote:

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Originally posted by drybones

I like your distinction between Poole's playing and Cannon's playing -- (I can't figure out how to insert the exact quote, sorry --

db

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Yeah it is pretty much a problem figuring this stuff out. It is not so much the distinction but the range of playing. If the main finger picking banjo playing tunes related in some way to early 20th Century pop music influenced by Ragtime you have heard is Charlie Poole and Gus Cannon, then you do recognize the similarity of Gus Cannon to Charlie Poole. This will be especially true if your idea is that these are exceptional banjo players and that the main line of banjo playing for their times were the clawhammer old time banjo players.

However, if you realize the huge range of finger style banjo playing that was going on at that time and in the earlier times they come out of, and then you see the difference.
It is all relative.

Compared to Clarence Ashley or Dink Roberts, Charlie Poole and Gus Cannon do have similarities in the kind of music they play for the most part and in the style of banjo playing they used, even if Tom Ashley did record a few Charlie Poole songs.

A more interesting and meaningful comparison might be to compare Charlie Poole with his contemporary Mack Woolbright. You will probably find Woolbright being closer to Charlie Poole than to Gus Cannon. On the other hand, if you then listen to Vess Ossman, given the kmd of music he plays he might be miles away from either, although closer to Gus Cannon in the amount of single string lead he plays.

Then of course, to the non-banjo head, they all sound the same. Whether they hear Earl Scruggs, Charlie Poole, or Gus Cannon, they start making their Deliverance Jokes.

Marc Nerenberg - Posted - 06/02/2010:  12:27:49

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quote:

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Originally posted by writerrad

I would be very interested to see what your experience and comments are trying to arrange some of his tunes.

SO IT WOULD BE GREAT IF PEOPLE RESPONDED TO THIS FORUM BY TALKING ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES TRYING TO PLAY CANNON'S MUSIC

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I'll try to post something soon. I don't know if my way of approaching it will be of any use to you in terms of figuring out what Cannon himself did, since my approach is never to try and figure out what the original player did. I always just start from scratch and try to find a way of playing the song that suits me.

In this particular case, I was inspired by your comment that Cannon played stuff clawhammer style when playing alone that he had originally played 3 finger style with the band.

So I'm working on a rhythmically vigorous clawhammer version of Walk Right In, at the moment (well, it's not pure clawhammer either...my clawhammer playing tends to include right hand elements not normally associated with clawhammer style - especially when dealing with bluesy or ragtimey rhythms as are found here). I'll try to record and post it some time next week.

writerrad - Posted - 06/02/2010:  16:10:44

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marc Nerenberg

quote:

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Originally posted by writerrad

I would be very interested to see what your experience and comments are trying to arrange some of his tunes.

SO IT WOULD BE GREAT IF PEOPLE RESPONDED TO THIS FORUM BY TALKING ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES TRYING TO PLAY CANNON'S MUSIC

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I'll try to post something soon. I don't know if my way of approaching it will be of any use to you in terms of figuring out what Cannon himself did, since my approach is never to try and figure out what the original player did. I always just start from scratch and try to find a way of playing the song that suits me.

In this particular case, I was inspired by your comment that Cannon played stuff clawhammer style when playing alone that he had originally played 3 finger style with the band.

So I'm working on a rhythmically vigorous clawhammer version of Walk Right In, at the moment (well, it's not pure clawhammer either...my clawhammer playing tends to include right hand elements not normally associated with clawhammer style - especially when dealing with bluesy or ragtimey rhythms as are found here). I'll try to record and post it some time next week.

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see this you tube clip
youtube.com/watch?v=XdGR9duRZ7...e=related .

Here is a portion of Gus playing Walk Right in Clawhammer style with a finger picked introduction including the kidn of rolls he did not use on the 1927-30 recordings.

My own view of things is the wisdom of George R. Gibson who says that one should not imitate but emulate other banjoists. Cannon played one way with his band in the 1920s and another way by himself in the mid 1960s. He would probably play another way in Montreal in 2010. He would have to change his beloved Schlitz for Labatt's. Do they still say "Donnez moi un ciquante?"

writerrad - Posted - 06/06/2010:  13:47:09

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One thing that may confuse listeners about whether Cannon used a pick is that Hosea Woods played guitar and perhaps Mandolin banjo on several of the jug stompers tunes and I also believe on the Beale Street Boys "Fourth and Beale" blues. On several tunes he uses tremelo flourishes with his [pick played banjo that sound like Cannon is playing them if you do not listen hard, which is complicated byt the fairly poor sound. On Prison Wall Blues, I believe much of the lead is actually done by Woods using either a mandolin or guitar banjo, and you can hear this overwhelming the accompaiment Cannon plays.

Now, I am not 100 percent sure, and I would love someone with better ears to show that I am wrong.

TT

majikgator - Posted - 06/06/2010:  19:53:32

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You state that Cannon didn't actually play a jug ever. Is the photograph of him with a jug around his neck just that then, a prop?

writerrad - Posted - 06/07/2010:  07:54:28

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Originally posted by majikgator

You state that Cannon didn't actually play a jug ever. Is the photograph of him with a jug around his neck just that then, a prop?

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No of course not. Cannon played the jug on most of the Jug Stompers recordings vPeople who met Cannon in the 1960s report that he treasured his jug playing and that he kept the oil can he used to play jug with him in a place of honor in his home until his dying day.

. However, there are about four or five of the recordings after Hosea Woods joined the band where Hosea Woods, rather than Cannon played the jug. This contradicts the liner notes which say only Cannon played the jug.

I havent listened to identify this on the recordings of the earlier version of the band. However, it is believed that on one of the last recordings with Elijah Avery, Woods may have sat in with the band to play kazoo.

Woods was a very close friend and sometimes housemate of Cannon who worked with Cannon in medicine shows for a decade before they recorded. Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff found a clipping from the Indianapolis Freeman, an African American newspaper that focused on entertainment news, from around 1920 that describes Cannon as a member of "Professor Wood's" band. His comments during the recordings like Bob Wills's suggest that he was used to playing the role of interlocator or MC in minstrel parlance, while we have photos of Cannon acting as an End Man along with Jim Jackson. Several of the tunes that were copyrighted like "Walk Right In" were copyrighted by Woods and Cannon jointly.

You can tell Cannon is not playing the jug because there is jug playing while Cannon is singing and the banjo playing during jug playing is much more energetic than it is while Cannon plays the jug. Cannon's Jug playing is more rounded, and is more of a bass rhythm and bottom for the whole band than Woods' playing. Like his kazoo playing on several recordings, Wood's jug playing is more sputtery, less rounded and is a bit more lead oriented and is sharp. Among others instruments, Hosea Woods played the trumpet.

Curiously one of several stories Cannon told about his first encounter with a jug player was of a trumpet player like Woods playing with the trumpet mouth piece and then doing the same thing with a tin oil can. Cannon's jug playing is superb and is a bit overwhelming.

In the 1950s and 1960s Cannon developed several different stories about himself that he told at different times to folklorists and blues enthusiasts. The stories often conflict.

For example, his standard story was that he plearned to play the banjo when he was 12 years old when he had been sent to help his brother crop cotten near Clarksdale. Sometimes, Cannon said that he learned to play the banjo when he was eight years old. In both stories, Cannon claims he fashioned a banjo using an old guitar neck and "one of momma's pans." If Cannon learned the banjo when he was 12 in the Delta, his mother and her pans were back in the Hill Country. He may have begun fooling around with a banjo when he was eight years old at home where he had a brother who played the banjo and then gotten into serious picking in clarksdale. His story may also confuse fiddling which he took up first perhaps around eight years old when still at home.

writerrad - Posted - 06/07/2010:  08:02:04

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Originally posted by majikgator

You state that Cannon didn't actually play a jug ever. Is the photograph of him with a jug around his neck just that then, a prop?

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I have never seen a picture of Gus Cannon with a jug. Cannon used metal can designed to carry kerosene or similar oil products mounted on a metal rack. If you have seen a picture of Cannon with an actual jug from the 1920s as opposed to the 1960s, that would be quite interesting and rare.

One alternate story to the trumpet player story is that Cannon first played with a jug player around 1910-15 around Henning who also played with an oil can which may have given him the idea, although since you can make the same sound with an oil can that is lighter and easier to carry around, it was probably a fairly popular choice compared to fragile mason jugs.

Tony

gailg64 - Posted - 06/07/2010:  08:10:04

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Agreed!

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Originally posted by writerrad

No person should speak about Charlie Poole without reading Patrick Huber's masterpiece __Linthead Stomp__ Indeed this is a book that should be in every home.

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