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Tom Hanway - Posted - 06/02/2008: 16:11:46
quote:
Originally posted by Hillbilly Gypsies
Oh I forgot to mention... Check out Deford Bailey.. He was one of the first stars of early country music.. He was called the first 'Black' star of country music but in reality he was the first star. Well he and Dave Macon both. Deford was so popular that back in Bill Monroe's early days he would tour with Deford because Deford would draw large crowds if he was advertised. Deford was best known for his harmonica playing (AMAZING!!!) but he also did alot of great bluesy banjo stuff too :) He played what he called 'Black Hillbilly Music'. It was mountain music that was greatly influenced by the blues. Check him out.
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
Loved your website. Keep going! Neat recording studio, btw.
I think Monroe, at times, had to take Deford Bailey around and pretend that Deford was in custody as his "prisoner." This was so that Monroe could "secure" him a room (after the shows) in some of the whites-only hotels when Jim Crow was the order of the day. It worked and Bailey would be locked up in a hotel room, but he would get a room and a decent bed that way. Deford may have paid for the room himself, but it was some routine just to get Mr. Bailey a bed. Monroe was good that way.... Other African American artists touring with white bands, e.g., Billie Holiday, had to go through a similar hell - having to use freight elevators and back-door entrances, not being allowed to sit at the hotel bars in which she played, and other acts of inhumanity.... That's immersing oneself in the blues. Nobody deserves that ... kind of blues. Nobody.
If it's true about Bailey and Monroe, and the scenario sounds more than plausible and a viable strategy during Jim Crow times, it would have beem darn clever on somebody's part to come up with a plan to get Bailey a bed in a hotel that otherwise wouldn't have allowed African Americans entry even into the lobby. I've only heard this story through Nashville's "shamrock telegraph", attributed to Monroe, but I cannot verify it or give more particulars. Some story. Myth? Yeah, okay! I believe it, that people tell it and believe it happened, and like a lot of myths, you don't have to believe it. Personally, I don't believe that anybody has to immerse themselves fully into the BLUES in order to experience and relate a little piece of it. Many folks have a piece of it, but no one has it all. So what's the use in complaining? Some folks love to rally around the term "authentic" and that's not my problem. 
"Sometimes I think this whole world
Is one big prison yard.
Some of us are prisoners
The rest of us are guards." (Bob Dylan) Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
Edited by - Tom Hanway on 06/02/2008 17:48:37
Hillbilly Gypsies - Posted - 06/02/2008: 19:29:39
Deford was always drawn as a child on the Grand Ole Opry posters and advertisements. I saw an old poster and he was drawn up as a small white boy riding a bicycle playing his harmonica. There's a great book called 'A Good Natured Riot' I'm not sure who wrote it but it's the story of the early years of the Opry and there's a bunch of info on Deford, Monroe and all of the stars of the from the early days.
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
Edited by - Hillbilly Gypsies on 06/02/2008 19:33:16
Tom Hanway - Posted - 06/03/2008: 01:09:40
quote:
Originally posted by Hillbilly Gypsies
Deford was always drawn as a child on the Grand Ole Opry posters and advertisements. I saw an old poster and he was drawn up as a small white boy riding a bicycle playing his harmonica. There's a great book called 'A Good Natured Riot' I'm not sure who wrote it but it's the story of the early years of the Opry and there's a bunch of info on Deford, Monroe and all of the stars of the [Opry] from the early days.
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
Nice one. A must read.
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
writerrad - Posted - 06/03/2008: 06:31:27
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Hanway
[quote]Originally posted by Hillbilly Gypsies
[quote]Originally posted by banjovy
Just dont think because one plays a blues scale ... that one can "play" the blues. That annoys me so much. To me, to be a real blues player....Live it, immerse in it .... Its a way of life.
Very well said.. Blues IS a way of life.... but to truly be the blues one has to live the lifestyle...//
As someone who studies music precisely, I would say that what I call The Blues is a specific music that rose around 1900 among African Americans and started to enter the commercial song and music publishing arena around 1912 and was the dominant folk and popular music among African Americans in the South in the years before WWII and thrived outside the South among African Americans along with Jazz and later Swing music, there being many points when one simply cannot separate Jazz or swing from Blues. Someone who plays the blues plays the blues as far as I am concerned. As such most white wannabe blues revivalists do not play the blues or understand its real context.
It is not a question of skin color but of culture. The blues as a cultural form rises within the African American culture and situation and context. I am not saying toher people cannot play blues, but The Blues, as a music is rather specific.
It has continued as an African American music like most music proceeding to electric instruments into the 21st Century.
There is no such thing as a "blues" lifestyle. There are a lot of demeaning and essential paternalistic and slightly racist stereotypes about Blues musicians, but certainly what is identified by misinformed white people like the people on this list as a Blues lifestyle cannot be identifyied with any number of great Blues musicians who tend to run the gamut of life styles found among the population, or at least among musicians.
Of course, to me people play Blues outside THE BLUES. However, the story of the five-string banjo and Black people is that the five-string banjo went out when the Blues came in because other instruments that were available were seen as the best instrument for the music and for other musics that came along at that time. The guitar, the chief adversary, had the advantage that it could be used for the old time dance music as well as the Blues, as well as the fact that the guitar had a bit of cachet because it had been seen as a more sophisticated urban instruemnt.
Tony Thomas, a black banjo pla
writerrad - Posted - 06/03/2008: 06:35:16
quote:
Originally posted by Hillbilly Gypsies
Oh I forgot to mention... Check out Deford Bailey.. He was one of the first stars of early country music.. He was called the first 'Black' star of country music but in reality he was the first star. Well he and Dave Macon both. Deford was so popular that back in Bill Monroe's early days he would tour with Deford because Deford would draw large crowds if he was advertised. Deford was best known for his harmonica playing (AMAZING!!!) but he also did alot of great bluesy banjo stuff too :) He played what he called 'Black Hillbilly Music'. It was mountain music that was greatly influenced by the blues. Check him out.
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
I've heard Baily's banjo playing which is very good Black old time banjo, though nothing particularly Bluesy about it compared with African American music by others. Again, a lot of you confuse African American music with Blues. The Blues scale socalled is not native to the Blues, but one of several West African scales popular among African Americans whose use and report long predated any use of the Blues.
Bailey was definiant all of his life that he was removed from the Oprey because of the racism of the Grand Ole Opry's changeover into being more of a "country music" show around 1940. While on the show, he resented his role as a Black mascot in a white-only program in the segregated South.
Tony Thomas, a black banjo pla
writerrad - Posted - 06/03/2008: 06:37:38
quote:
Originally posted by Hillbilly Gypsies
Deford was always drawn as a child on the Grand Ole Opry posters and advertisements. I saw an old poster and he was drawn up as a small white boy riding a bicycle playing his harmonica. There's a great book called 'A Good Natured Riot' I'm not sure who wrote it but it's the story of the early years of the Opry and there's a bunch of info on Deford, Monroe and all of the stars of the from the early days.
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
Portraying a grown African American as a child is one of the rather central motifs of Racism.
Tony Thomas, a black banjo pla
Hillbilly Gypsies - Posted - 06/03/2008: 16:27:42
[/quote]
Portraying a grown African American as a child is one of the rather central motifs of Racism.
Tony Thomas, a black banjo pla
[/quote]
Deford was a very small man due to a childhood illness. I'm sure that that had something to do with him being portrayed as a child too.. The really sad thing is that he was the first true star of country music radio (or one of them anyway) and he played a major roll in the naming of the Grand ol Opry and he didn't get inducted into the Opry Hall Of Fame until 2006?!?! That is rediculous!
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
Hillbilly Gypsies - Posted - 06/03/2008: 16:36:58
quote:
Originally posted by writerrad
quote:
Originally posted by Hillbilly Gypsies
Oh I forgot to mention... Check out Deford Bailey.. He was one of the first stars of early country music.. He was called the first 'Black' star of country music but in reality he was the first star. Well he and Dave Macon both. Deford was so popular that back in Bill Monroe's early days he would tour with Deford because Deford would draw large crowds if he was advertised. Deford was best known for his harmonica playing (AMAZING!!!) but he also did alot of great bluesy banjo stuff too :) He played what he called 'Black Hillbilly Music'. It was mountain music that was greatly influenced by the blues. Check him out.
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
I've heard Baily's banjo playing which is very good Black old time banjo, though nothing particularly Bluesy about it compared with African American music by others. Again, a lot of you confuse African American music with Blues.
Tony Thomas, a black banjo pla
I agree that his banjo playing style wasn't as bluesy as other artists but combine his banjo playing and his singing and in my opinion he definately has that old mountain blues feel.. I love it!!
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
writerrad - Posted - 06/04/2008: 04:24:01
quote:
Originally posted by Hillbilly Gypsies
Portraying a grown African American as a child is one of the rather central motifs of Racism.
Tony Thomas, a black banjo pla
[/quote]
Certainly Bailey's own view of the whole experience was one of racist treatment. I have seen pictures and film of Bailey in the time he was at the Opry and he did not look like a child.
Why is it so hard to face that in its time and place the Opry was racist and became more racist. Or was it just an abstraction outside its time and place?
Moreover, what does Bailey have to do with this topic?
Like most Black five string banjo players he didnt play the blues.
But I guess any Negro is on topic as long as one does disregard his own views of the experience.
TT
Deford was a very small man due to a childhood illness. I'm sure that that had something to do with him being portrayed as a child too.. The really sad thing is that he was the first true star of country music radio (or one of them anyway) and he played a major roll in the naming of the Grand ol Opry and he didn't get inducted into the Opry Hall Of Fame until 2006?!?! That is rediculous!
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/[/quote]
Tony Thomas, a black banjo pla
Jim Yates - Posted - 06/04/2008: 08:04:20
Tom Hanway said:
quote:
I understand that Reverend Gary has been quoted by Roy Book Binder and Stefan Grossman as not being into slide guitar ("... no cheap stuff"). I saw Book Binder last week in my hometown of Larchmont, NY, and he mentioned hat he accompanied Reverend Gary, toured with him, and that Reverend Gary used to like to hang out backstage with the other blues musicians, smoke cigars, but would often fall asleep. Slide guitar didn't hold his interest. Very funny anecdotes Mr. Roy Book Binder has....
The first slide tune I ever learned in about 1968 was a Rev. Gary tune called Whistlin' Blues (i think) I learned it from a LP by Stefan Grosman and Aurora Block (Rory was a teenager at the time this record was made). Stefan said that the Rev used a cigar tube to play the tune and played it lap steel style.
Jim
www.myspace.com/jimyates www.myspace.com/kirbyandyates www.myspace.com/kirbyyatesmazurek
writerrad - Posted - 06/04/2008: 10:54:09
quote:
Originally posted by Jim Yates
Tom Hanway said:[quote]I understand that Reverend Gary has been quoted by Roy Book Binder and Stefan Grossman as not being into slide guitar ("... no cheap stuff"). I saw Book Binder last week in my hometown of Larchmont, NY, and he mentioned hat he accompanied Reverend Gary, toured with him, and that Reverend Gary used to like to hang out backstage with the other blues musicians, smoke cigars, but would often fall asleep. Slide guitar didn't hold his interest. Very funny anecdotes Mr. Roy Book Binder has....
Gary Davis's generation of Black Blues Guitarists from the Piedmont and mounts of the Carolinas and Virginia mostly learned to play the guitar playing open tunings and learning slide. It should be added that in the late 19th century and early 20th century, many "straight" guitar manuals taught guitar to be played in open D or G as easier for beginners. The standard tune folks would usually learn as their first "real tune" would be "John Henry" in open D. usually with slide only on the high D string. However, the concept was that this wasn't "real" or serious guitar and pickers would graduate to playing in standrad guitar tuning with more of a ragtime approach.
A good example of this is Virginia blues singer and guitarist Archie Edwards. He told Barry Lee Pearson, a scholar of the Piedmont Blues, that he had learned guitar ffirst from his Dad who was a banjo player who tuned the guitar in D or G and just played it like a banjo. However, he said as soon as he could, he found someone in his community who taught him to play standard.
In those areas, the guitar and Blues came in later than they had in the Deep South. The old time string band must had a much longer hold on Black people there, and faster guitar styles that could do double duty with the Blues and buck and square dance playing were more in demand.
Davis was odd because although he was one of the most-well looked after Blues players, in the middle of his recording sessions in NY, he decided to convert to Christianity which mean ending playing the blues for a living, especially for the main theatre for Blues players, playing for dancers at juke joints and other places the holy would have designated as "sin bins."
Among religious singers he was unique in that he had a very large repertoire of traditional Black religious songs, that were called Church Rocks in some areas. He never seemed to sing any of the Gospel Songs which were a 20th Century commercially written phenomenum, you can listen to the degree to which the old church rocks were not far from the dance music that the most original Black religious music in this country was
Tony Thomas black banjo player
writerrad - Posted - 06/04/2008: 10:54:41
quote:
Originally posted by Jim Yates
Tom Hanway said:[quote]I understand that Reverend Gary has been quoted by Roy Book Binder and Stefan Grossman as not being into slide guitar ("... no cheap stuff"). I saw Book Binder last week in my hometown of Larchmont, NY, and he mentioned hat he accompanied Reverend Gary, toured with him, and that Reverend Gary used to like to hang out backstage with the other blues musicians, smoke cigars, but would often fall asleep. Slide guitar didn't hold his interest. Very funny anecdotes Mr. Roy Book Binder has....
Gary Davis's generation of Black Blues Guitarists from the Piedmont and mounts of the Carolinas and Virginia mostly learned to play the guitar playing open tunings and learning slide. It should be added that in the late 19th century and early 20th century, many "straight" guitar manuals taught guitar to be played in open D or G as easier for beginners. The standard tune folks would usually learn as their first "real tune" would be "John Henry" in open D. usually with slide only on the high D string. However, the concept was that this wasn't "real" or serious guitar and pickers would graduate to playing in standrad guitar tuning with more of a ragtime approach.
A good example of this is Virginia blues singer and guitarist Archie Edwards. He told Barry Lee Pearson, a scholar of the Piedmont Blues, that he had learned guitar ffirst from his Dad who was a banjo player who tuned the guitar in D or G and just played it like a banjo. However, he said as soon as he could, he found someone in his community who taught him to play standard.
In those areas, the guitar and Blues came in later than they had in the Deep South. The old time string band must had a much longer hold on Black people there, and faster guitar styles that could do double duty with the Blues and buck and square dance playing were more in demand.
Davis was odd because although he was one of the most-well looked after Blues players, in the middle of his recording sessions in NY, he decided to convert to Christianity which mean ending playing the blues for a living, especially for the main theatre for Blues players, playing for dancers at juke joints and other places the holy would have designated as "sin bins."
Among religious singers he was unique in that he had a very large repertoire of traditional Black religious songs, that were called Church Rocks in some areas. He never seemed to sing any of the Gospel Songs which were a 20th Century commercially written phenomenum, you can listen to the degree to which the old church rocks were not far from the dance music that the most original Black religious music in this country was
Tony Thomas black banjo player
writerrad - Posted - 06/04/2008: 10:55:13
quote:
Originally posted by Jim Yates
Tom Hanway said:[quote]I understand that Reverend Gary has been quoted by Roy Book Binder and Stefan Grossman as not being into slide guitar ("... no cheap stuff"). I saw Book Binder last week in my hometown of Larchmont, NY, and he mentioned hat he accompanied Reverend Gary, toured with him, and that Reverend Gary used to like to hang out backstage with the other blues musicians, smoke cigars, but would often fall asleep. Slide guitar didn't hold his interest. Very funny anecdotes Mr. Roy Book Binder has....
Gary Davis's generation of Black Blues Guitarists from the Piedmont and mounts of the Carolinas and Virginia mostly learned to play the guitar playing open tunings and learning slide. It should be added that in the late 19th century and early 20th century, many "straight" guitar manuals taught guitar to be played in open D or G as easier for beginners. The standard tune folks would usually learn as their first "real tune" would be "John Henry" in open D. usually with slide only on the high D string. However, the concept was that this wasn't "real" or serious guitar and pickers would graduate to playing in standrad guitar tuning with more of a ragtime approach.
A good example of this is Virginia blues singer and guitarist Archie Edwards. He told Barry Lee Pearson, a scholar of the Piedmont Blues, that he had learned guitar ffirst from his Dad who was a banjo player who tuned the guitar in D or G and just played it like a banjo. However, he said as soon as he could, he found someone in his community who taught him to play standard.
In those areas, the guitar and Blues came in later than they had in the Deep South. The old time string band must had a much longer hold on Black people there, and faster guitar styles that could do double duty with the Blues and buck and square dance playing were more in demand.
Davis was odd because although he was one of the most-well looked after Blues players, in the middle of his recording sessions in NY, he decided to convert to Christianity which mean ending playing the blues for a living, especially for the main theatre for Blues players, playing for dancers at juke joints and other places the holy would have designated as "sin bins."
Among religious singers he was unique in that he had a very large repertoire of traditional Black religious songs, that were called Church Rocks in some areas. He never seemed to sing any of the Gospel Songs which were a 20th Century commercially written phenomenum, you can listen to the degree to which the old church rocks were not far from the dance music that the most original Black religious music in this country was
Tony Thomas black banjo player
writerrad - Posted - 06/04/2008: 10:55:44
quote:
Originally posted by Jim Yates
Tom Hanway said:[quote]I understand that Reverend Gary has been quoted by Roy Book Binder and Stefan Grossman as not being into slide guitar ("... no cheap stuff"). I saw Book Binder last week in my hometown of Larchmont, NY, and he mentioned hat he accompanied Reverend Gary, toured with him, and that Reverend Gary used to like to hang out backstage with the other blues musicians, smoke cigars, but would often fall asleep. Slide guitar didn't hold his interest. Very funny anecdotes Mr. Roy Book Binder has....
Gary Davis's generation of Black Blues Guitarists from the Piedmont and mounts of the Carolinas and Virginia mostly learned to play the guitar playing open tunings and learning slide. It should be added that in the late 19th century and early 20th century, many "straight" guitar manuals taught guitar to be played in open D or G as easier for beginners. The standard tune folks would usually learn as their first "real tune" would be "John Henry" in open D. usually with slide only on the high D string. However, the concept was that this wasn't "real" or serious guitar and pickers would graduate to playing in standrad guitar tuning with more of a ragtime approach.
A good example of this is Virginia blues singer and guitarist Archie Edwards. He told Barry Lee Pearson, a scholar of the Piedmont Blues, that he had learned guitar ffirst from his Dad who was a banjo player who tuned the guitar in D or G and just played it like a banjo. However, he said as soon as he could, he found someone in his community who taught him to play standard.
In those areas, the guitar and Blues came in later than they had in the Deep South. The old time string band must had a much longer hold on Black people there, and faster guitar styles that could do double duty with the Blues and buck and square dance playing were more in demand.
Davis was odd because although he was one of the most-well looked after Blues players, in the middle of his recording sessions in NY, he decided to convert to Christianity which mean ending playing the blues for a living, especially for the main theatre for Blues players, playing for dancers at juke joints and other places the holy would have designated as "sin bins."
Among religious singers he was unique in that he had a very large repertoire of traditional Black religious songs, that were called Church Rocks in some areas. He never seemed to sing any of the Gospel Songs which were a 20th Century commercially written phenomenum, you can listen to the degree to which the old church rocks were not far from the dance music that the most original Black religious music in this country was
Tony Thomas black banjo player
Hillbilly Gypsies - Posted - 06/04/2008: 11:01:42
[/quote]
Why is it so hard to face that in its time and place the Opry was racist and became more racist. Or was it just an abstraction outside its time and place?
Moreover, what does Bailey have to do with this topic?
Like most Black five string banjo players he didnt play the blues.
Tony Thomas, a black banjo pla
[/quote]
Tony, I totally agree that the Opry was in fact racist and became more so over time. The fact that Bailey didn't get into the Hall of fame until a few years ago prooves that without a doubt.. I apologize if I was wrong in mentioning Bailey in this topic. I feel that the blues was a part of his music. Maybe more so in some of his amazing harmonica playing than his banjo playing but the blues influence is definately there.. In my opinion anyway :)
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
writerrad - Posted - 06/04/2008: 11:08:38
I agree that his banjo playing style wasn't as bluesy as other artists but combine his banjo playing and his singing and in my opinion he definately has that old mountain blues feel.. I love it!!
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
[/quote]
old mountain blues feel..
What is old mountain Blues. The mountains were about the last place among Blacks and whites that the Blues Penetrated, often 20 years after it had begun and gained popularity int he Deep South.
Bailey while born in Smith County, spent most of his youth and the rest of his life in Nashville. Before he was an adolescent the Blues had reached the heights of national music publishing and vaudville presentation.
Why is it so hard to connect a black player with Black musical traditions rather the ignorance of "old Mountain Blues." Blues Harmonica playing had been going on for at least two decades before Bailey began performing for white people. Like many African American performers who ended up performing for white people rather than Black people, Bailey eneded up retaining an older repertoire rather than the Blues, playing a repertoire that most African Americans had left behind that whites still listened and danced to.
Tony Thomas black banjo player
Hillbilly Gypsies - Posted - 06/04/2008: 11:56:30
[/quote]
old mountain blues feel..
What is old mountain Blues. The mountains were about the last place among Blacks and whites that the Blues Penetrated, often 20 years after it had begun and gained popularity int he Deep South.
Why is it so hard to connect a black player with Black musical traditions rather the ignorance of "old Mountain Blues." Blues Harmonica playing had been going on for at least two decades before Bailey began performing for white people.
Tony Thomas black banjo player
[/quote]
Hey Tony,
Blues harmonica may have been around for atleast two decades before Bailey began performing for white people but his harmonica playing has, without a doubt, been some of the most influential in both country music and blues harmonica playing... I'm sure that most of us can agree on that. I also stick to my opinion that Bailey was a blues artist. I use the term 'mountain blues' because of the mix of old time and country with the blues. This is just a personal opinion and term that I would use to describe Baileys sound. It's not something that anyone else has used to describe his music.
I have a nice collection of Baileys music and MANY of the songs are, in my opinion, the blues.
Here is a list of songs Performed by DeFord Bailey (On a PBS Documentary)
"Alberta, Don't Grieve about a Dime"
"Alcoholic Blues"
"Amazing Grace"
"Black Man Blues" (on guitar)
"Bunch of Blues"
"Bye Bye Blackbird"
"Casey Jones"
"Comin' 'Round the Mountain" (on harp and banjo)
"Cow Cow Blues"
"Cry Holy unto the Lord"
"Davidson County Blues"
"Dixie Flyer Blues"
"Early in the Morning"
"Evening Prayer Blues"
"Every Time I Feel the Spirit"
"Fox Chase"
"Get Out and Get under the Moon"
"Gonna Eat at the Welcome Table Some of These Days"
"Good News"
"Gotta See Mama Every Night"
"Greyhound Blues" (on guitar)
"Guitar Blues" (on guitar)
"Has the Cat Got the Whoopin' Cough and the Dog Got the Measles"
"Hesitation Blues"
"Howling Blues" (on guitar)
"Ice Water Blues"
"I'll Fly Away"
"In the Evening"
"In the Sweet Bye and Bye"
"It Ain't Gonna Rain No More"
"John Henry"
"Kansas City Blues" ("I'm Going to Kansas City") (on harp and guitar)
"Little Sally Gooden"
"Lost John" (on harp and banjo)
"Muscle Shoals Blues"
"My Blue Heaven" (DeFord wanted to play on the air, but Judge Hay wouldn't let him)
"Nashville Blues"
"Nice Like That"
"Old Hen Cackle"
"Old Joe Clark"
"Old Time Religion"
"Over in the Glory Land"
"Pan American Blues"
"A Prayer" (on guitar)
"Rattlesnake Blues" (played on guitar and harp)
"Sally Long"
"Sally Sittin' in a Saucer"
"Shake That Thing"
"Shoe Shine Boy Blues"
"Sitting on Top of the World"
"Soup Cow, Come Get Your Nubbins, Eat That One Up and Come Get Another One"
"Sweet Marie"
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"
"Up Country Blues"
"Way Down upon the Swanee River"
"When the Saints Go Marching In"
"Whoa, Mule, Whoa"
"Wood Street Blues"
"The Worry Blues" (on guitar)
"Yes, Sir, That's My Baby"
Within this list there are 20 songs with 'blues' in the title. I apoliogize for my opinion but it seems to me that Deford DID play the blues. Again.. This is only my opinion. I never meant to offend or misinform. Please feel free to correct me if'n you feel that this opinion is wrong.
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
Edited by - Hillbilly Gypsies on 06/05/2008 11:12:52
Tom Hanway - Posted - 06/06/2008: 16:20:50
quote:
Originally posted by Jim Yates
Tom Hanway said:quote:
I understand that Reverend Gary has been quoted by Roy Book Binder and Stefan Grossman as not being into slide guitar ("... no cheap stuff"). I saw Book Binder last week in my hometown of Larchmont, NY, and he mentioned hat he accompanied Reverend Gary, toured with him, and that Reverend Gary used to like to hang out backstage with the other blues musicians, smoke cigars, but would often fall asleep. Slide guitar didn't hold his interest. Very funny anecdotes Mr. Roy Book Binder has....
The first slide tune I ever learned in about 1968 was a Rev. Gary tune called Whistlin' Blues (i think) I learned it from a LP by Stefan Grosman and Aurora Block (Rory was a teenager at the time this record was made). Stefan said that the Rev used a cigar tube to play the tune and played it lap steel style.
Jim
www.myspace.com/jimyates
www.myspace.com/kirbyandyates
www.myspace.com/kirbyyatesmazurek
Wasn't it Mississippi Fred McDowell who said (and made a record):
"I do not play no rock 'n' roll!" - ring a bell?
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
Tom Hanway - Posted - 06/06/2008: 16:28:33
quote:
Originally posted by writerrad
quote:
Originally posted by Jim Yates
Tom Hanway said:[quote]I understand that Reverend Gary has been quoted by Roy Book Binder and Stefan Grossman as not being into slide guitar ("... no cheap stuff"). I saw Book Binder last week in my hometown of Larchmont, NY, and he mentioned hat he accompanied Reverend Gary, toured with him, and that Reverend Gary used to like to hang out backstage with the other blues musicians, smoke cigars, but would often fall asleep. Slide guitar didn't hold his interest. Very funny anecdotes Mr. Roy Book Binder has....
Gary Davis's generation of Black Blues Guitarists from the Piedmont and mounts of the Carolinas and Virginia mostly learned to play the guitar playing open tunings and learning slide. It should be added that in the late 19th century and early 20th century, many "straight" guitar manuals taught guitar to be played in open D or G as easier for beginners. The standard tune folks would usually learn as their first "real tune" would be "John Henry" in open D. usually with slide only on the high D string. However, the concept was that this wasn't "real" or serious guitar and pickers would graduate to playing in standrad guitar tuning with more of a ragtime approach.
A good example of this is Virginia blues singer and guitarist Archie Edwards. He told Barry Lee Pearson, a scholar of the Piedmont Blues, that he had learned guitar ffirst from his Dad who was a banjo player who tuned the guitar in D or G and just played it like a banjo. However, he said as soon as he could, he found someone in his community who taught him to play standard.
In those areas, the guitar and Blues came in later than they had in the Deep South. The old time string band must had a much longer hold on Black people there, and faster guitar styles that could do double duty with the Blues and buck and square dance playing were more in demand.
Davis was odd because although he was one of the most-well looked after Blues players, in the middle of his recording sessions in NY, he decided to convert to Christianity which mean ending playing the blues for a living, especially for the main theatre for Blues players, playing for dancers at juke joints and other places the holy would have designated as "sin bins."
Among religious singers he was unique in that he had a very large repertoire of traditional Black religious songs, that were called Church Rocks in some areas. He never seemed to sing any of the Gospel Songs which were a 20th Century commercially written phenomenum, you can listen to the degree to which the old church rocks were not far from the dance music that the most original Black religious music in this country was
Tony Thomas black banjo player
Thank you Tony! Gary Davis was certainly unique and had an interesting career, going from the secular back to the sacred. This is very interesting. I must explore it more. Maybe you can send me a reading list. I would very much appreciate that.
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
writerrad - Posted - 06/07/2008: 07:51:26
quote:
Originally posted by Hillbilly Gypsies
old mountain blues feel..
What is old mountain Blues. The mountains were about the last place among Blacks and whites that the Blues Penetrated, often 20 years after it had begun and gained popularity int he Deep South.
Why is it so hard to connect a black player with Black musical traditions rather the ignorance of "old Mountain Blues." Blues Harmonica playing had been going on for at least two decades before Bailey began performing for white people.
Tony Thomas black banjo player
[/quote]
Hey Tony,
Blues harmonica may have been around for atleast two decades before Bailey began performing for white people but his harmonica playing has, without a doubt, been some of the most influential in both country music and blues harmonica playing... I'm sure that most of us can agree on that. ///
What proof is there for that? Certainly in the Blues the most influential harmonica players were the two Sonny Boy Williamsons, Little Walter, James Cotton and other Chicago players along with Sonny Terry. In no discussion of Blues playing harmonica players going back to the turn of the century have i ever seen Bailey's name mentioned. He was on the grand ole opry where he was not presented as a serious musician but as a mascot, but that is hardly the center of where Harmonica playing developed particularly in the Blues.
I also stick to my opinion that Bailey was a blues artist. I use the term 'mountain blues' because of the mix of old time and country with the blues. This is just a personal opinion and term that I would use to describe Baileys sound. It's not something that anyone else has used to describe his music.///
One can make up personal terms, but if they are used in discussion they have to have some reference to reality on the earth, not your own lack of knowledge and misconceptions. First of all, there is no connection between old time music and mountains, many if not most old time musicians were from the peidmont or costal areas and the plains of the South, not the mountains. Blues have nothing to do with the mountains, and as I have said got to the mountains last. Was his playing representative of mountains or what Blacks were playing in music at the time.
Secondly, you assume that his old time repertoire has some connection with mountains which is a code word for white people, but the old time repertoire reflects music that African Americans often introduced or were viewed as excluisive to themselves, but that they came to discard in the 20th century with some vestigial exception for newer music based on the blues and pop forms of ragtime and jazz, a music that seeped into old time music as well. Going through the repertoire you list would be instructive.
It is good to try to know something about music and history beyond what you see on television or read on record jackets.
I have a nice collection of Baileys music and MANY of the songs are, in my opinion, the blues.
Here is a list of songs Performed by DeFord Bailey (On a PBS Documentary)
"Alberta, Don't Grieve about a Dime"
"Alcoholic Blues"
"Amazing Grace"//common hymn sung in black churches
"Black Man Blues" (on guitar)
"Bunch of Blues"
"Bye Bye Blackbird"//pop tune much sung by blues musicians because it is easy to make a blues or ragtime arrangement using non harmonized chords but identified with pop jazz
"Casey Jones"// common song actual a pop written song by a white composer but modelled after Black blues ballads
"Comin' 'Round the Mountain" (on harp and banjo)
"Cow Cow Blues" identified with an African American Blues singer
"Cry Holy unto the Lord" Black religious song
"Davidson County Blues"
"Dixie Flyer Blues"//"Early in the Morning"
"Evening Prayer Blues"
"Every Time I Feel the Spirit"
"Fox Chase"
"Get Out and Get under the Moon"
"Gonna Eat at the Welcome Table Some of These Days"
"Good News"
"Gotta See Mama Every Night"
"Greyhound Blues" (on guitar)
"Guitar Blues" (on guitar)
"Has the Cat Got the Whoopin' Cough and the Dog Got the Measles"//
Was commercially recorded by Black jazz group and popular with Black hokoem players
"Hesitation Blues"//Copyrighted by WC Handy around 1914
"Howling Blues" (on guitar)
"Ice Water Blues"
"I'll Fly Away"
"In the Evening"
"In the Sweet Bye and Bye"
"It Ain't Gonna Rain No More"
"John Henry"
"Kansas City Blues" ("I'm Going to Kansas City") (on harp and guitar)
"Little Sally Gooden"//Believed to be of African or African american origin by fiddle scholars
"Lost John" (on harp and banjo)
"Muscle Shoals Blues"
"My Blue Heaven" (DeFord wanted to play on the air, but Judge Hay wouldn't let him)
"Nashville Blues"
"Nice Like That"//clean version of X rated song done by Georgia Tom Dorsey and Tampa Read. Dorsey became "the father of gospel."
"Old Hen Cackle" /African American origined song
"Old Joe Clark"
"Old Time Religion"
"Over in the Glory Land"
"Pan American Blues"
"A Prayer" (on guitar)
"Rattlesnake Blues" (played on guitar and harp)
"Sally Long"
"Sally Sittin' in a Saucer"
"Shake That Thing"
"Shoe Shine Boy Blues"
"Sitting on Top of the World"
"Soup Cow, Come Get Your Nubbins, Eat That One Up and Come Get Another One"
"Sweet Marie"
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"
"Up Country Blues"
"Way Down upon the Swanee River"
"When the Saints Go Marching In"
"Whoa, Mule, Whoa"
"Wood Street Blues"
"The Worry Blues" (on guitar)
"Yes, Sir, That's My Baby"
There is nothing unusual for this repertoire for a Black southern entertainer in the 1930s except there is a fairly high number of songs that were obviously learned from Black Blues singers on records. Robert Johnson was known to take pride in his version of "My Blue Heaven<" and never had anyone stop him from singing the song. Most of thse songs could have been and were performed by Black blues singers across the south, far from any mountain. There is a twist of his music tht reflects, as I have said, people who mainly performed for white people, but this is true for people who lplayed in Mississippi, Texas, or Florida hundreds of miles from a hill, let alone a mountain.
Actually, besides the OPRY until the early 1960s, WSM tended not to want itself to be seen as a country station//
Within this list there are 20 songs with 'blues' in the title. I apoliogize for my opinion but it seems to me that Deford DID play the blues. Again.. This is only my opinion. I never meant to offend or misinform. Please feel free to correct me if'n you feel that this opinion is wrong.//
I dont think you understand what I said. "old mountain blues." The one thing he did was perform blues as you would expect any Black musician in an error dominated by the Blues to do. None of his blues were "old mountain" blues. Many like the hesitation blues had been standards even among white vaudville entertaners for a decades before he performed them. Others were songs that emerged into the Blues repertoire by their success as records in the 1920s and 1930s.
Other songs on this list include songs that were pop, jazz, and ragtime tunes, and common religious songs sung in Black churches.
There is nothing "old" for his time in this music and nothing "mountain."
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/[/quote]
Tony Thomas black banjo player
writerrad - Posted - 06/07/2008: 07:58:20
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Hanway
quote:
Originally posted by Jim Yates
Tom Hanway said:quote:
I understand that Reverend Gary has been quoted by Roy Book Binder and Stefan Grossman as not being into slide guitar ("... no cheap stuff"). I saw Book Binder last week in my hometown of Larchmont, NY, and he mentioned hat he accompanied Reverend Gary, toured with him, and that Reverend Gary used to like to hang out backstage with the other blues musicians, smoke cigars, but would often fall asleep. Slide guitar didn't hold his interest. Very funny anecdotes Mr. Roy Book Binder has....
The first slide tune I ever learned in about 1968 was a Rev. Gary tune called Whistlin' Blues (i think) I learned it from a LP by Stefan Grosman and Aurora Block (Rory was a teenager at the time this record was made). Stefan said that the Rev used a cigar tube to play the tune and played it lap steel style.
Jim
www.myspace.com/jimyates
www.myspace.com/kirbyandyates
www.myspace.com/kirbyyatesmazurek
Wasn't it Mississippi Fred McDowell who said (and made a record):
"I do not play no rock 'n' roll!" - ring a bell?
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
///
Whatever people call Rock and Roll, I have seen players who learned the Reverand's Tunes from him play them accurately as he did and young people start dancing like it was rocka nd roll,. It was Black singers who came froma more pentacostal background like lLittle Richard who made it more directly into rock and roll in the early days as opposed to the majority of singers former Baptists and Methodists who were gospel trained who ended up in Soul.
Originally Black religion was centered around dancing, the famous ring shouts that still persist in the Sea Islands. Struggles were made to christianize us by getting the dancing out of the music, but that music persisted with people breaking off to retain these African religious traits. The pentacostal movement was originally started by white folks in California, but it quickly became a vehicle for millions of Black people and white Southern people influenced by Black religious practice to keep the rhythm going.
Tony Thomas black banjo player
Tom Hanway - Posted - 06/08/2008: 18:48:04
quote:
Wasn't it Mississippi Fred McDowell who said (and made a record):
"I do not play no rock 'n' roll!" - ring a bell?
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
quote:
Whatever people call Rock and Roll, I have seen players who learned the Reverand's Tunes from him play them accurately as he did and young people start dancing like it was rocka nd roll,. It was Black singers who came froma more pentacostal background like lLittle Richard who made it more directly into rock and roll in the early days as opposed to the majority of singers former Baptists and Methodists who were gospel trained who ended up in Soul.
Originally Black religion was centered around dancing, the famous ring shouts that still persist in the Sea Islands. Struggles were made to christianize us by getting the dancing out of the music, but that music persisted with people breaking off to retain these African religious traits. The pentacostal movement was originally started by white folks in California, but it quickly became a vehicle for millions of Black people and white Southern people influenced by Black religious practice to keep the rhythm going.
Tony Thomas black banjo player
That is extremely fascinating:
Pentacostal background > rock'n'roll
Baptist and Methodist gospel-trained background > soul
What about in Jamaica, is there a parallel and/or different roots and branches?
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
Hillbilly Gypsies - Posted - 06/09/2008: 16:45:25
quote:
One can make up personal terms, but if they are used in discussion they have to have some reference to reality on the earth, not your own lack of knowledge and misconceptions. First of all, there is no connection between old time music and mountains, many if not most old time musicians were from the peidmont or costal areas and the plains of the South, not the mountains. Blues have nothing to do with the mountains, and as I have said got to the mountains last. Was his playing representative of mountains or what Blacks were playing in music at the time.
Secondly, you assume that his old time repertoire has some connection with mountains which is a code word for white people, but the old time repertoire reflects music that African Americans often introduced or were viewed as excluisive to themselves, but that they came to discard in the 20th century with some vestigial exception for newer music based on the blues and pop forms of ragtime and jazz, a music that seeped into old time music as well. Going through the repertoire you list would be instructive.
It is good to try to know something about music and history beyond what you see on television or read on record jackets.
There is nothing "old" for his time in this music and nothing "mountain."
Tony Thomas black banjo player
Tony,
I guess I connect Baileys music with the mountains because I once heard that he personally called the music that he played 'black hillbilly music'. Being a hillbilly myself, I associate hillbillies with the mountains.. There are so many regional styles of old time music that it could not be connected to any one single place or people. Everybody has influences from the past and present that directly affect their style.
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
Edited by - Hillbilly Gypsies on 06/09/2008 21:00:54
Tom Hanway - Posted - 06/10/2008: 23:09:33
Yo, bro, that's a fair point and well stated. The threads and fabric of history - even musical history - do not boil down to a single strand, nor do they come from nothing. They cannot be boiled down to a priori positions; after all, there is real history to be studied. It's all connected and the subtleties of those connections are worth fathoming out. Evidence is key.
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
Edited by - Tom Hanway on 06/10/2008 23:11:59
writerrad - Posted - 06/11/2008: 05:26:30
[/quote]
Tony,
I guess I connect Baileys music with the mountains because I once heard that he personally called the music that he played 'black hillbilly music'. Being a hillbilly myself, I associate hillbillies with the mountains.. There are so many regional styles of old time music that it could not be connected to any one single place or people. Everybody has influences from the past and present that directly affect their style.
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''//
My interest and concern is trying to objectively understand these things as they exist in reality, not as people misconceive them. Hillbilly is a term that was invented by the commercial music industry that involved an untrue stereotype about the music, where it comes from, and the peoples who created it. If someone calls themself a duck, that does not make them a duck.
Bailey was not from the mountains. His repertoire has nothing in it that is particularly mountain. His playing has nothing "mountain" about it.
I
You simply cannot see him as being connected to African Americans, African American culture, and African American music, all of which he was a not unusual product of it. Instead, you take his association with a white Radio program that he believed and most observers believed treated him as a racist mascot as being most significant.
I am sorry that the real world interferes with your unfounded assumptions and your attachment to them, but that is often the case.
Childish notions are frequently broken apart by the realities required to face things as adults.
In the above is much of life.
It would be nice to discuss playing the blues on the banjo again. Our friends from the North, the YATES tribe--there is not just one of them--have posted some really good things to this list that are quite interesting and useful.
Tony Thomas a fan of the Yates Clan
Tony Thomas
Tony Thomas black banjo player
BanjoBobb - Posted - 06/11/2008: 06:53:53
If you want a good example of "bluesy" type bluegrass, check out Kanes River's Jerusalem Choir.
Bob
Time and Tide Wait for no man, but my banjo is callin''
Hillbilly Gypsies - Posted - 06/11/2008: 12:08:34
quote:
Originally posted by writerrad
My interest and concern is trying to objectively understand these things as they exist in reality, not as people misconceive them. Hillbilly is a term that was invented by the commercial music industry that involved an untrue stereotype about the music, where it comes from, and the peoples who created it. If someone calls themself a duck, that does not make them a duck.
Bailey was not from the mountains. His repertoire has nothing in it that is particularly mountain. His playing has nothing "mountain" about it.
I
You simply cannot see him as being connected to African Americans, African American culture, and African American music, all of which he was a not unusual product of it. Instead, you take his association with a white Radio program that he believed and most observers believed treated him as a racist mascot as being most significant.
I am sorry that the real world interferes with your unfounded assumptions and your attachment to them, but that is often the case.
Childish notions are frequently broken apart by the realities required to face things as adults.
In the above is much of life.
It would be nice to discuss playing the blues on the banjo again. Our friends from the North, the YATES tribe--there is not just one of them--have posted some really good things to this list that are quite interesting and useful.
Tony Thomas a fan of the Yates Clan
Tony Thomas
Tony Thomas black banjo player
I'm sorry Tony but again 'Black Hillbilly Music' was the term that I once read that Deford himself used to describe the music that he played. Also.. I can easily connect Deford Bailey and his music with African American culture . It's not hard.. He was an African American.. BUT another reality is that he was also one of the first stars of country music and for that reason I DO connect him with the WSM radio station and the Grand ol Opry.. Because this is how myself, and many others, discovered Deford Bailey and his music. No one is disagreeing with you on your points of racism within the WSM and the Opry.. It is obvious that these things are true but it seems to me that Bailey wouldn't have been discovered if it weren't for the exposure that he got through the WSM broadcasts. We probablly wouldn't be discussing him today.
Oh about the hillbilly thing .. In the music industry..The term 'Hillbilly' might have it's meanings and it's history but the music industry most definately did not create this one. Sorry to get even further off subject but I proudly call myself a hillbilly and I am one :)
So.. Here is what wikapedia says about the 'Hillbilly' subject: The term Hill-Billies is first encountered in documents from 17th century Ireland. Roman Catholic King James II landed at Kinsale in Ireland in 1689 and began to raise a Catholic army in an attempt to regain the British throne. Protestant King William III, Prince of Orange, led an English counterforce into Ireland and defeated James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. A significant portion of William III's army was composed of Protestants of Scottish descent (Planters) who had settled in Ulster in northern Ireland. The southern Irish Catholic supporters of James II referred to these northern Protestant supporters of King William as Hill-Billies and Billy Boys — Billy being an abbreviation of William.
It is believed that the term hillbilly in the United States was conferred during the early 18th century by the occupying British soldiers as a carry over from the Irish term, in referring to Scots-Irish immigrants of mainly Presbyterian origin, dwelling in the frontier areas of the Appalachian Mountains. These Protestant Irish colonists brought their cultural traditions with them when they immigrated. Many of their stories, songs, and ballads dealt with the history of their Ulster and Lowland Scot homelands, especially relating the tale of the Protestant King William III, Prince of Orange.
Yet another explanation for the term comes from the European immigrants to the United States who settled in the Appalachian Mountains. Many of these immigrants were of Germanic origin and were named Wilhelm with the short form Willy, a common Germanic name during that time. Those Wilhelms, who went by Bill or Billy, living in the Appalachian Mountains became known as hillbillies, that is Bills who lived in the hills. The term is also used for the similar mountaineers of the Ozarks, who also lived in extreme isolation in the 18-20th century.
Alternatively, it is also speculated that the term emerged as a derogatory nickname given by the coastal plain-dwelling Anglo-Saxon Southerners to the hill-dwelling settlers of Eastern Tennessee, Western Virginia (including modern West Virginia), and Eastern Kentucky, many of whom were ambivalent to the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
Historically, there were conflicts between the mountain-dwelling "hillbillies" and the planters who lived on the coastal plains. During the American Civil War, many residents of western Virginia were pro-Union in that they generally did not own slaves and resented the political dominance of planters who did. The image of the Unionist mountaineer in West Virginia is misleading, however, as the mountainous counties of central, southern, and eastern West Virginia all voted for the Ordinance of Secession on May 23, 1861.[1] A total war was waged against the mountaineers in much of West Virginia, whose residents were deemed "savages" by Union military authorities. Braxton and Webster counties were particularly targeted by Gen. George Crook.[2] "Braxton and Webster are the haunts of the worst Rebel Bushwhackers in the country," wrote Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes.[3] After the war, the Wheeling government carved two new counties out of Secessionist counties and named them after Lincoln and Grant.
The use of the word was probably most apt (and relatively inoffensive) during the period between the western expansion of the early-to-mid nineteenth century and the post-war period of the 1940s. The advent of the interstate highway system and television brought many previously isolated communities into mainstream United States culture in the 1950s and 1960s. The Internet continues this integration, but many communities with relatively traditional lifestyles remain throughout the region.
Urban Slang Use
The term hillbilly is commonly used in non-Appalachian areas as a reference in describing socially backward people that fit certain "hillbilly" characteristics. Although the described person may not reside in a region that has hills of any kind, it is substituted in place of more disparaging terms like white trash. Regionally, it is also used as interchangeable slang for terms like Redneck.
Country music was originally called hillbilly music, even by its fans. The term, coined in 1925 by country pianist Al Hopkins,[7] persisted until the 1950s.
Now, the older name is deemed offensive (and inappropriate). However, the term hillbilly music is now sometimes used to describe old-time music. An early tune that contained the word hillbilly was "Hillbilly Boogie" by the Delmore Brothers in 1946. Earlier, in the 1920s, there were records by a band called the Beverly Hillbillies. In 1927, the Gennett studios in Richmond, Indiana, made a recording of black fiddler Jim Booker with other instrumentalists; their recordings were labeled "made for Hillbilly" in the Gennett files, and were marketed to a white audience. Also during the 1920s, an old-time music band known as the Hill Billies featuring Al Hopkins and Fiddlin' Charlie Bowman, achieved acclaim as recording artists for Columbia Records. By the late forties, radio stations broadcast music described as "hillbilly," originally to describe fiddlers and string bands, but was then used to describe the traditional music of the people of the Appalachian Mountains. The people who actually sang these songs and lived in the Appalachian Mountains never used these terms to describe their own music.
Popular songs whose style bore characteristics of both hillbilly and African American music were referred to, in the late 1940s and early 1950s as hillbilly boogie, and in the mid-1950s as rockabilly. Elvis Presley was a prominent player of the latter genre. When the Country Music Association was founded in 1958, the term hillbilly music gradually fell out of use. However, the term rockabilly is still in common use.[1]
Later, the music industry merged hillbilly music, Western Swing, and Cowboy music, to form the current category C&W, Country and Western.
The famous bluegrass fiddler Vassar Clements described his style of music as "hillbilly jazz."
In Poland the term hillbilly references the people who live in the mountainous south of Poland in the part once occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
---------------------
Once again.. i am sorry to Tony and anyone else here If I have offended. I just have my own views and opinions when it comes to music. (as do you all) I do appreciate your knowledge and your wonderful historical input. I guess for some reason you feel that I was wrong in mentioning Deford Bailey in this post and for that I again apologize but I DO hope that I got a few of the fine folks on the BHO to check out his music. ...and his story.
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
Edited by - Hillbilly Gypsies on 06/12/2008 21:05:56
Hillbilly Gypsies - Posted - 06/12/2008: 19:55:56
I have always enjoyed playing the Mississippi John Hurt song 'Pay Day' in the clawhammer style.. I actually recorded it a while back in the studio with a good friend and amazingly wonderful fingerstyle blues guitar player/hillbilly folk singer/storyteller/historian named Th' Bullfrog Willard McGhee. I expect that these recordings should be released sometime in the very near future. Anyway, I feel that many of John Hurt's songs and also many other peidmont style tunes transpose over very well to the banjo. Pick on!
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
Edited by - Hillbilly Gypsies on 06/12/2008 20:14:48
Tom Hanway - Posted - 06/12/2008: 20:38:26
God I miss Vassar, you know, I made a blues record with him, me on guitar, him on fiddle. Actually a lot or Rev. Gary, Pink Anderson, Lightning Hopkins, Big Bill Broonzy/Brownie McGhee, Robert Johnson, and others. Vassar really got inside a tune and was, well, psychic. I used to pick him up at the airport and keep the bad people at bay. He used to eat my bowl of cornflakes.... I had a hard time finding him grits in lower Manhattan. I cooked for him. I slept on the couch. Vassar was God. Is God, God I miss Him.
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
Edited by - Tom Hanway on 06/12/2008 20:44:49
Hillbilly Gypsies - Posted - 06/12/2008: 20:50:47
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Hanway
God I miss Vassar, you know, I made a blues record with him, me on guitar, him on fiddle. Actually a lot or Rev. Gary, Pink Anderson, Lightning Hopkins, Big Bill Broonzy/Brownie McGhee, Robert Johnson, and others. Vassar really got inside a tune and was, well, psychic. I used to pick him up at the airport and keep the bad people at bay. He used to eat my bowl of cornflakes.... I had a hard time finding him grits in lower Manhattan. I cooked for him. I slept on the couch. Vassar was God. Is God, God I miss Him.
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
http://www.tomhanway.com
WOW Tom! What an experience it must have been making music with Vassar and getting to know him!! I got the opportunity to work with him twice. Although sadly I didn't get to jam with him :( I was working a multiple day festival with a sound company at the time and was on the stage crew (responsible for setting up all of the stage plots for the different musical acts) He was such an easy guy to work with and was always very friendly and happy to be there. I didn't know him well but it seemed that he really made time for folks and enjoyed people. He was a true country gentleman and a true legend.. I miss him too.
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
Edited by - Hillbilly Gypsies on 06/12/2008 21:26:36
Banjocoltrane - Posted - 06/16/2008: 20:18:42
Earlier this week, i was figuring out a Robert Johnson song on the guitar and vocally.......lo and behold in the song is the same exact shape for the D7 lick that Bill Keith/Noah Cross made famous in the banjo world...
-----------------------------------------------------------
What i find MOST interesting is:
It looks like there would have been a GRADUAL change from banjo to guitar and there would have existed at least a few recordings of blues 5 string banjoists...BUT that simply didnt happen, it appears to have been a sudden one...WHAM!
Anywhoo, am GREATLY enjoying this thread as this is something i have been interested in for awhile now.
"TAB is like Gerbers.....music can''t be spoon-fed to ya forever."
http://www.jodyhughesmusic.com
Edited by - Banjocoltrane on 06/16/2008 20:29:50
Wes Lassiter - Posted - 06/20/2008: 04:41:28
Play the blues just play the blues. Feel the Blues you have to feel the blues
Banjo Wes
All things excellent are difficult as they are rare.
Spinoza
Tom Hanway - Posted - 06/21/2008: 03:03:38
quote:
Originally posted by Hillbilly Gypsies
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Hanway
God I miss Vassar, you know, I made a blues record with him, me on guitar, him on fiddle. Actually a lot or Rev. Gary, Pink Anderson, Lightning Hopkins, Big Bill Broonzy/Brownie McGhee, Robert Johnson, and others. Vassar really got inside a tune and was, well, psychic. I used to pick him up at the airport and keep the bad people at bay. He used to eat my bowl of cornflakes.... I had a hard time finding him grits in lower Manhattan. I cooked for him. I slept on the couch. Vassar was God. Is God, God I miss Him.
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
http://www.tomhanway.com
WOW Tom! What an experience it must have been making music with Vassar and getting to know him!! I got the opportunity to work with him twice. Although sadly I didn't get to jam with him :( I was working a multiple day festival with a sound company at the time and was on the stage crew (responsible for setting up all of the stage plots for the different musical acts) He was such an easy guy to work with and was always very friendly and happy to be there. I didn't know him well but it seemed that he really made time for folks and enjoyed people. He was a true country gentleman and a true legend.. I miss him too.
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
Vassar was a hoot and he loved his grits!
My recording with Vassar,
The Badbelly Project: Hesitation Blues is available through my website (and you can hear samples), and I am in the process of getting my entire catalogue of music re-released for downloading (and in shops), but right now my music can be purchased through me, as CDs, just go to my website.
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
Edited by - Tom Hanway on 07/29/2008 16:37:53
Tom Hanway - Posted - 07/16/2008: 00:53:55
quote:
Originally posted by Hillbilly Gypsies
I have always enjoyed playing the Mississippi John Hurt song 'Pay Day' in the clawhammer style.. I actually recorded it a while back in the studio with a good friend and amazingly wonderful fingerstyle blues guitar player/hillbilly folk singer/storyteller/historian named Th' Bullfrog Willard McGhee. I expect that these recordings should be released sometime in the very near future. Anyway, I feel that many of John Hurt's songs and also many other peidmont style tunes transpose over very well to the banjo. Pick on!
Trae Buckner ~ ''The Hillbilly Gypsies''
http://www.thehillbillygypsies.com/
'Pay Day' - cool. It's no big stretch to pick Hurt's 'Spikedriver's Blues' on the five-driver. 'John Henry' is a great number too; one that African American guitarist Josh White (a folk singer) and Earl Scruggs (a country bluegrass picker) were well versed in.
I just thought of something: Listen to Earl picking guitar on the old gospel numbers and one hears a "Piedmont"-style blues guitarist.... Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
Edited by - Tom Hanway on 07/29/2008 17:21:33
Tom Hanway - Posted - 07/29/2008: 17:23:26
There's some great YouTube of Josh White, here's 'Uncle Sam Says', a request by FDR. Josh White was one of the most erudite and talented men of his generation. I'm still looking for him doing 'John Henry' for what looks like a bunch of Southern farmers. It's pretty rare footage actually, being shot during the time of Jim Crow.
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe4MegkGiBc
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
writerrad - Posted - 07/30/2008: 04:55:36
'John Henry' is a great number too; one that African American guitarist Josh White (a folk singer) and Earl Scruggs (a country bluegrass picker) were well versed in. "
Collectors of old time banjo from the old guys when they were around like Bob Winans and Cece Conway would tell you that John Henry is the tune most frequently played by Appalachian old time banjoists of any race. The song was probably first popular on the guitar, however.
It is usually the first full song that Black Blues guitarists, especially in the Appalachians and the Piedmont learned to play fully. It was almost always done in the Sebastopol tuning similar to the Banjo's open D or Reuben tuning, and usually done with Slide. White does the song in open D--a rare tuning for him--although without slide.
Most old time banjoists do the tune in G probably because fiddlers tend to like it in G or A. A couple of the old time Black banjoists who were primarily guitarists play the tune in Open D. There are lots of reports from the days when guitars first became a folk instrument in the Piedmont of banjo players teaching their sons or daughters to play this and a few other tunes in open D on the guitar.
That is the only area where people associated the open D tuning with the banjo. The open D and open G tunings on guitar had been popular in standard methods of teaching the guitar since the 18th century. The folk names for the two tunings older Black players I know come from two songs "The Spanish Fandango" and "The Seige of Sebastopol" that were written and arranged by guitar soloist Henry Worall in the 1850s.
At the turn of the 20th century, beginning books for guitar often featured open D and Open G tunings as the easy way for beginningers to learn and featured on of Worall's pieces as the last piece in the book to show the player had arrived. They became standards for Black and mountain Blues guitarists.
Elijah Wald's biography of White is very useful. Any pictures of White performing before white farmers or whatever have nothing to do with any traditional process, but White's involvement with the political circles lead by the Communist Party and the People's songs movement, not any genuine interchange between Black and white folks in the South at any time.
The real context for White's performance are his religious and Blues recordings as Joshua White in the mid 1930s where he performs excellent gospel and Piedmont guitar playing a lot closer to Blind Blake and Gary Davis than the work White did when he decided to become a folksinger and worked the white and "progressive" folk circles in the 1940s and 1950s. He came to disfavor with some in these circles because during the Witch hunt White testified before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, outrageously denying any connection with the CP, even though, for example, White was the featured performer at the opening of the 1944 CP convention.
He was a great performer and a consumate artist. He was most famous for pretending to break a string during a song, then putting in another string while continuing to play the song and sing it, non challantly taking a puff out of the cigarette that he usually kept pinned to the end of one of his strings. I say pretending because it would be bizarre that such an accomplished guitarist would break a string during everyu single major performance for over 30 years usually doing the same song.
I first began to inspire to play blues by seeing him on the Hootenany show. I do a blues I learned from his playing "You Don't Know My mind" on my myspace page.
ps anyone going to Augusta this year
I am going up there Sunday for the old time week
TT
Tony Thomas black banjo player
writerrad - Posted - 07/30/2008: 05:05:55
I have long wished that they would put out an Earl Scruggs guitar album with all of the different guitar pieces he has recorded. He is a really fine guitar player, and probably the best interpreter of Carter Family tunes there has ever been.
A lot of his early guitar playing is on sacred tunes reflecting the idea that the banjo was too devilish an instrument to be played on God's music, an idea that faded as Bluegrass developed, although if you go back there you will here a similar approach by Bill Monroe who puts down his mandolin and picks up a guitar in some of the early gospel tunes.
His guitar style seems guite similar to Merle Travis's style, although it is more rooted in traditional blues and old time guitar stye and doesn't use all the chord harmony and advanced chords that Travis said his style was based on.
Most of us love his version of "You are my flower," a song Maybelle wrote based on the inspiration of Mexican music. I love Jimmy Brown, but if I think of Earl on guitar, the Mercury version of "Going to Heaven Some Time'" comes up on my mind's recorder.
We have gotten rather far from the topic of playing the blues on the banjo.
TT
Tony Thomas black banjo player
John.Matters - Posted - 07/30/2008: 06:48:32
To point in a very specific direction (I don't think has already been mentioned):
On his Homespun DVD, Bela Fleck goes over blues on the banjo and blues improvisation as we works through 'Sammy's Blues'
IMO, it's defiantly worth checking out if you are interested in playing blues on the banjo.
writerrad - Posted - 07/31/2008: 07:59:42
quote:
Originally posted by John.Matters
To point in a very specific direction (I don't think has already been mentioned):
On his Homespun DVD, Bela Fleck goes over blues on the banjo and blues improvisation as we works through 'Sammy's Blues'
IMO, it's defiantly worth checking out if you are interested in playing blues on the banjo.
which one he has several on Homespun?
Tony Thomas black banjo player
John.Matters - Posted - 07/31/2008: 08:26:09
It's the "Bela Fleck Teaches Banjo Picking Styles" DVD (not the 6-cd Book set)
-john
Tom Hanway - Posted - 08/01/2008: 04:37:15
Tony is correct, we have veered off topic. I saw a connection between Piedmont and Scruggs-style guitar and traditional banjo tunes, between tunings and song traditions. I thought of another one, and this is more on topic, with a video link.
I have a dear friend, "Norris", an African American musician who I know from NYC and Holland, an elder statesmen of traditional folk music who plays guitar, mountain dulcimer and 5-string banjo. Norris would always close my Big Apple Bluegrass & Folk Festival, on Sunday night, okay, Monday morning, with his rendition of 'Goodnight, Irene'.
He also sang and played some deeply spiritual songs at my first wife's viewing, after Kathleen died of cancer in 2002. Norris makes unique connections between musical styles and subcultures and he is a very decent and generous man, one of my favourite people in life.
I will look him up when I'm in NYC next week. Maybe he can give me some insights for this thread. I will ask him. Here's a photo of Norris, myself and Jen Larson, a blossoming bluegrass singer and songwriter who has appeared with yours truly, David Bromberg as well as Garrison Keillor on A Prairie Home Companion. Jen has a hot band called Straight Drive, who haved play Carnegie Hall as well as Ralph Stanley's festival. We have a solid picking community in NYC.
Norris now plays with the Ebony Hillbillies, who have played many top festivals, Carnegie Hall and are making a name for themselves on the bluegrass and folk circuit, at festivals in the States and in Europe. Norris is sound as a pound and has a lot of folk music knowledge at his fingertips. No better man.
See the Ebony Hillbillies in action - recognise the tune? Go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpnQsOJpzb4
Norris taught me the "Double C" tuning for guitar, explaining that it is just like the old-time banjo tuning. On guitar, from sixth to first, it's C, G, C, G, C, E. It's a great blues tuning. And, I did mention it earlier I think on this thread, but on banjo it's g, C, G, C, E - "Double C" or "C-modal" tuning. The whole thing can be capoed or tuned up a whole step (D) or 1 1/2 steps (Eb).
This, to my ears, is a very handy blues tuning for banjo. Just pick up a slide and think: Son House. He's in there, in that tuning, if you listen hard enough.... Norris will have some thoughts about this topic.
};^D>
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
Edited by - Tom Hanway on 04/20/2009 04:51:39
writerrad - Posted - 08/01/2008: 05:24:45
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Hanway
Tony is correct, we have veered off topic. I saw a connection between Piedmont and Scruggs-style guitar and traditional banjo tunes, between tunings and song traditions. I thought of another one, and this is more on topic, with a video link.
I have a dear friend, "Norris", an African American musician who I know from NYC and Holland, an elder statesmen of traditional folk music who plays guitar, mountain dulcimer and 5-string banjo. Norris would always close my Big Apple Bluegrass & Folk Festival, on Sunday night, okay, Monday morning, with his rendition of 'Goodnight, Irene'.
Norris Bennet is a good friend of mine. I have played gigs and recorded with the Ebony Hillbillies and often stay out there in Jamaica with him, Rique, and Gloria. Norris plays slide on the banjo with a knife, not just for original blues but for tunes like "In the Pines" a tune I sang with the Ebonies at the Black Banjo gathering. If it is not already up, I will put up a photo I have of us doing that particular song on my homepage later today.
These days he plays the guitar very little, but he gave me a copy of the CD he had out from Germany in the 1970s or perhaps early 1980s and there is some great guitar work.
Still, the subject of African Americans playing the banjo, Black music, spirituals and playing the banjo on the blues are not the same. Norris plays very little blues on the banjo, though I wish he would play more.
Tony Thomas
once an Ebony Hillbillies wannabe
Then his banjo playing is truly great. There have been times that I have been playing with him and Rique, even once recording, where I get so wrapped up in listening to and studying his banjo playing that I forget to play my guitar part. He is very good at just playing rhythm in his clawhammer
He also sang and played some deeply spiritual songs at my first wife's viewing, after Kathleen died of cancer in 2002. Norris makes unique connections between musical styles and subcultures and he is a very decent and generous man, one of my favourite people in life.
I will look him up when I'm in NYC next week. Maybe he can give me some insights for this thread. I will ask him. Here's a photo of Norris, myself and Jen Larson, a blossoming bluegrass singer and songwriter who has appeared with yours truly, David Bromberg as well as Garrison Keillor on A Prairie Home Companion. Jen has a hot band called Straight Drive, who haved play Carnegie Hall as well as Ralph Stanley's festival. We have a solid picking community in NYC.
Norris now plays with the Ebony Hillbillies, who have played many top festivals, Carnegie Hall and are making a name for themselves on the bluegrass and folk circuit, at festivals in the States and in Europe. Norris is sound as a pound and has a lot of folk music knowledge at his fingertips. No better man.
See the Ebony Hillbillies in action - recognise the tune? Go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpnQsOJpzb4
Norris taught me the "Double C" tuning for guitar, explaining that it is just like the old-time banjo tuning. On guitar, from sixth to first, it's C, G, C, G, C, E. It's a great blues tuning. And, I did mention it earlier I think on this thread, but on banjo it's g, C, G, C, E - "Double C" or "C-modal" tuning. The whole thing can be capoed or tuned up a whole step (D) or 1 1/2 steps (Eb).
This, to my ears, is a very handy blues tuning for banjo. Just pick up a slide and think: Son House. He's in there, in that tuning, if you listen hard enough.... Norris will have some thoughts about this topic.
};^D>
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
Tony Thomas black banjo player
writerrad - Posted - 08/01/2008: 05:26:38
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Hanway
Tony is correct, we have veered off topic. I saw a connection between Piedmont and Scruggs-style guitar and traditional banjo tunes, between tunings and song traditions. I thought of another one, and this is more on topic, with a video link.
I have a dear friend, "Norris", an African American musician who I know from NYC and Holland, an elder statesmen of traditional folk music who plays guitar, mountain dulcimer and 5-string banjo. Norris would always close my Big Apple Bluegrass & Folk Festival, on Sunday night, okay, Monday morning, with his rendition of 'Goodnight, Irene'.
Norris Bennet is a good friend of mine. I have played gigs and recorded with the Ebony Hillbillies and often stay out there in Jamaica with him, Rique, and Gloria. Norris plays slide on the banjo with a knife, not just for original blues but for tunes like "In the Pines" a tune I sang with the Ebonies at the Black Banjo gathering. If it is not already up, I will put up a photo I have of us doing that particular song on my homepage later today.
These days he plays the guitar very little, but he gave me a copy of the CD he had out from Germany in the 1970s or perhaps early 1980s and there is some great guitar work.
Still, the subject of African Americans playing the banjo, Black music, spirituals and playing the banjo on the blues are not the same. Norris plays very little blues on the banjo, though I wish he would play more.
Tony Thomas
once an Ebony Hillbillies wannabe
Then his banjo playing is truly great. There have been times that I have been playing with him and Rique, even once recording, where I get so wrapped up in listening to and studying his banjo playing that I forget to play my guitar part. He is very good at just playing rhythm in his clawhammer
He also sang and played some deeply spiritual songs at my first wife's viewing, after Kathleen died of cancer in 2002. Norris makes unique connections between musical styles and subcultures and he is a very decent and generous man, one of my favourite people in life.
I will look him up when I'm in NYC next week. Maybe he can give me some insights for this thread. I will ask him. Here's a photo of Norris, myself and Jen Larson, a blossoming bluegrass singer and songwriter who has appeared with yours truly, David Bromberg as well as Garrison Keillor on A Prairie Home Companion. Jen has a hot band called Straight Drive, who haved play Carnegie Hall as well as Ralph Stanley's festival. We have a solid picking community in NYC.
Norris now plays with the Ebony Hillbillies, who have played many top festivals, Carnegie Hall and are making a name for themselves on the bluegrass and folk circuit, at festivals in the States and in Europe. Norris is sound as a pound and has a lot of folk music knowledge at his fingertips. No better man.
See the Ebony Hillbillies in action - recognise the tune? Go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpnQsOJpzb4
Norris taught me the "Double C" tuning for guitar, explaining that it is just like the old-time banjo tuning. On guitar, from sixth to first, it's C, G, C, G, C, E. It's a great blues tuning. And, I did mention it earlier I think on this thread, but on banjo it's g, C, G, C, E - "Double C" or "C-modal" tuning. The whole thing can be capoed or tuned up a whole step (D) or 1 1/2 steps (Eb).
This, to my ears, is a very handy blues tuning for banjo. Just pick up a slide and think: Son House. He's in there, in that tuning, if you listen hard enough.... Norris will have some thoughts about this topic.
};^D>
Happy pickin,
Tom
http://www.tomhanway.com
Tony Thomas black banjo player
writerrad - Posted - 08/01/2008: 05:31:55
If it is not already up, I will put up a photo I have of us doing that particular song on my homepage later today.
Yeah, that photo is up there (I dont know how to insert a photo in a reply}. It is called "With the Ebonies" If you look really close on the picture, you can see the knife (a jack knife) in his hands and him in more of slide position on the banjo than a regular picking position. Norris is a consumate serious banjo player he keeps his left hand pretty close to the fingerboard. He plays a 1924 Gibson 5 string resonator banjo that is soo sweet, but so heavy.
Tony
Tony Thomas black banjo player
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