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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2013 19:22:07 GMT -5
Thanks alanb
I like reading some of the older magazines n seeing what albums they were reccomending n how that recomendation turned out.
Thanks james
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Post by Admin on Apr 29, 2013 15:12:07 GMT -5
Let's start a thread on the recommended books to read - Blues, the musicology, artists, or songs. My personal favorite - must read is Robert Palmer's "Deep Blues - A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta" A Penquin Book. 1982 reprinted in 1988. Printed in USA. Total 310 pages. In my opinion and that of many others, this is the best book out there on the blues both as a music form and as force in shaping American culture. At once simple and concise, yet broad and in depth enough to tell a very complete story, this one work should satisfy everyone from the novice to the experienced blues fan. Meticulously researched, Palmer uses Muddy Waters as a jumping off point to explore the history and evolution of the blues as music as well as the society and culture from which it sprang. He peppers his work with amazing anecdotes, from the story of Robert Johnson, the Band meeting a dying Sonny Boy Williamson, an aging Howlin' Wolf giving a phenominal concert that add color to his story and helps make his frequent forays into musicology more tolerable to the non-musician. Best of all is the sense of time and place the book evokes, from plantations and dark swamps in rural Mississippi, to the noisy, crowed streets of South Chicago at the peak of the Great Migration, to small clubs and long forgotten juke-joints.
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Post by Admin on Apr 29, 2013 15:16:29 GMT -5
"The Life and Legend of Leadbelly" - Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell From Publishers Weekly Well researched and thoughtful, this biography depicts the career of Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter (1888-1949), among the most influential of American folksingers and pioneer of what became known as the Blues. Folk music enthusiasts will be familiar with the highlights of Leadbelly's life--how his music earned him a pardon from prison, how folk-music experts John and Alan Lomax discovered and promoted him, how songs he either wrote or embellished ("Goodnight Irene" and "Midnight Special," for example) have become an integral part of American musical tradition--but it is the level of detail that Wolfe and Lornell bring forward that makes this book a standout. Leadbelly's early years in Louisiana and Texas, his introduction to music and his life in prison are portrayed in a fast-paced style that lends immediacy to the book. The introduction to the Lomaxes, Leadbelly's foray into New York society, his eventual estrangement from John Lomax and his recording and performance career are equally well chronicled in this notable effort. Wolfe is an English professor at Middle Tennessee University; Lornell is a consultant for the Leadbelly Archives at the Smithsonian. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Post by Admin on Apr 29, 2013 15:23:55 GMT -5
What is your recommendations for reading materials on Jazz - the music, performers or arrangements? "Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development" Gunther Schuller "Here, at last, is the definitive work...written in the best intellectual tradition. It is clear, thorough, objective, sophisticated and original. A remarkable book by any standard, it is unparalleled in the literature of jazz."--Frank Conroy, The New York Times Book Review Jazz criticism tends to run in two groups: one, the biographical/anecdotal (often marvelous to read), and two, word pictures of how the music made the writer feel (often awful to read). Gunther Schuller's "Early Jazz" does what any undergraduate musicology major would do: examine the music note by note, and explain what's going on. While this is not an easy book to read for people like me who have no musical training (or talent, for that matter), it is an absolutely essential book nonetheless. Schuller goes through each major musician and movement of the twenties, and shows exactly what is occurring. What worked best for me was to have the recording he was discussing playing while I read, so I could hear what he was talking about. Anybody in love with the early music of Armstrong or Ellington needs to tackle this book sooner or later.
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Post by AlanB on Apr 30, 2013 0:26:39 GMT -5
This was first published 45 years ago and became to be regarded as the "standard" book on the subject. As it's obviously available I guess it is still fulfilling that role.
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Post by AlanB on Apr 30, 2013 0:51:01 GMT -5
"The Life and Legend of Leadbelly" - Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell Here's an objective, well considered review from a Leadbelly "specialist" rather than a standard publisher's "blurb". THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LEADBELLY Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell Published by Harper Collins (USA) ISBN 0 06 016862 5, Price $25, 1992
In many ways it is surprising that Huddie Leadbetter has only now been accorded the dignity of a full scale biography. While he became unfashionable among certain blues aficionados during the 1960's (and his reputation has remained "tarnished" until relatively recently), from 1935 onwards, his influence on the popularity of black folk music from North America has been profound. Leadbelly's fame, of course, began with his discovery by John A. Lomax and his son Alan in 1933, during their quest to document "American" folk song and establish its place in the popular imagination of the USA. The singer guitarist had a personality as large as those of his discoverers and the immense repertoire of a skilled black songster to match. For a time, after Leadbelly's release from the Angola State Penitentiary, Louisiana, (where they had found him), he had worked in harness with the Lomaxes. This combination was as significant for the reputations of the father and son folk song collectors, in achieving their goal of popularizing American folk music, as it was for Leadbelly. The novelty of Leadbelly's life story and his broad based repertoire of black folk music raised the status of this aspect of black culture among white "society" in the United States. Ultimately, it was also a principal contribution to the world wide interest in blues that flourished in the 1960's. I have spelt out these considerations as they are important criteria against which the work of Leadbelly must be judged and, therefore, the quality of his biography. They are part of the "legend" ascribed to the singer in the title of the book. One way in which this "legend" became established was "Negro Folk Songs As Sung By Lead Belly" (sic) written by the Lomaxes and published by MacMillan in 1936. Their book describes the life of the singer up to the time he parted company with them in March, 1935, and also includes a large sampling of the songsters secular repertoire. Necessarily, this forms the foundation for any subsequent biography, the work of Wolfe and Lornell included. Their book however is not simply a re run of the work of the Lomaxes (although Alan Lomax has provided assistance.) Subsequent interviews with the singer have been drawn together and assessed, new lines of enquiry pursued and, where possible, facts verified by documentary evidence. The first eighteen chapters comprise of consolidation and extension of the previous historical treatment. The remaining six, and the epilogue, deal with Leadbelly's life from mid 1935 to his death in December, 1949 and the legacy of his contribution to black culture in North America. By virtue of its coverage of Leadbelly's career, therefore, there is much to commend this work. Where it is less satisfactory, is the lack of discussion of the singer's broad based repertoire and the place of this in the evolution of black folk music in the USA. Essentially, readers are presented with an accurate chronological account of Leadbelly's life, but much less interpretation of the singer's music than is warranted by his status. This is a big omission. It was probably dictated by space considerations and the market requirements of the publisher who, it is likely, wanted a popular treatment. In this respect, the footnotes to each chapter are very unsatisfactory and there is no bibliography. There is a discography, however, which is both the most thorough listing of the performer's recordings, yet scattered with slight inaccuracies. The index serves its purpose, although I've found that some place names (Paris, France, for instance) are omitted. It is unfortunate that there are no maps showing where Leadbelly travelled or was incarcerated in the South. These would have been singular assistance in establishing the singer's life and music in a geographical context. Having trodden some of the same paths as Wolfe and Lornell, in researching the early expedition of the Lomaxes of the Library Of Congress, I can vouch for the difficulties the authors encountered in their work. Inevitably, therefore, there are some minor errors of fact, or misunderstandings, from the period. For example, AFS 119, 120 (which contain Leadbelly's first recordings) are not the original catalogue numbers allocated to these discs (p. 141), but subsequent designations. Leadbelly recorded "Boll Weevil" only once for John A. Lomax, not at Wilton, Connecticut in 1935 (p. 162), but in Shreveport, Louisiana, circa October 5th, 1935. There is an implication, also, that Leadbelly did not play slide guitar on his lap (p. 91), yet there is a photograph of him doing just this (sleeve, Playboy LP 115). Missing is any of Leadbelly's trip to Kansas City in 1926 (interview, AFS 4471 B4). There are other details of this nature that might be criticised, but they do not detract from the flow and general accuracy of the narrative. A more important error is the discussion of the song the authors entitle "Equality For Negroes". They seem unaware that this is taken from "God Made Us All", a recording made by the Trinidad calypsonian Lord Invader for Disc, circa 1947 (Disc 5080). It was composed in Port Of Spain by Lord Pretender (another calypsonian) during World War Two. Mention of Disc (the precursor of Folkways( serves to introduce the topic of the New York folk music scene in the 1940's, in which Leadbelly, Lord Invader, Pete Seeger, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Woody Guthrie, Bunk Johnson and others participated. A central figure in all this activity was Moses Asch, who recorded many of the performers for Disc before starting Folkways in 1948. The dividing of blues, calypso, jazz, folk and other similar forms of music into separate categories was not the order of the day in the 1940's and early 1950's. This might have been emphasised further by Wolfe and Lornell. Thus the importance of Leadbelly to those with similar interests in Europe receives less attention than it deserves. For example Max Jones, the Melody Maker columnist and Denis Preston, the radio presenter, record producer etc, were committed enough to make the journey to see Leadbelly in Paris (Melody Maker, November 21st, 1949 p. 6). Both subsequently, had a profound influence on popularizing black American music in the UK. To be fair it would have been impossible for the authors to have explored all these strands in the direct and indirect influence of Leadbelly's music. This serves to show, however, that there is more work to be done before a full understanding of the singer's symbolic role in the appreciation of black American folk music can be achieved. "The Life And Legend Of Leadbelly" provides the necessary foundation stone for this task and should be required reading for all those interested in American "folk" music, blues and jazz in the widest context of these terms. John Cowley (Blues & Rhythm 78, April 1993 p.39)
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Post by Admin on Apr 30, 2013 13:44:58 GMT -5
Muddy Waters:: The Mojo Man By Sandra B. Tooze A sharecropper on a Mississippi plantation, a bootlegger, gambler, ladies' man, and dynamic blues singer and guitarist -- this biography traces the life of this legendary blues man from the 1940s to his death in 1983. Includes a complete discography.Based on original interviews conducted in Mississippi and Chicago, Muddy Waters: The Mojo Man brings together for the first time the complete record of the most famous blues man of all time. Encyclopedic in detail, this book explores Muddy's personal and musical life, including much newly discovered material about his sources, his band members, his family, and his legacy
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Post by Admin on Apr 30, 2013 13:52:39 GMT -5
Dead Man Blues: Jelly Roll Morton Way Out West By Phil Pastras Phil Pastras Dead Man Blues: Jelly Roll Morton Way Out West By John Litweiler A great artist, pianist, pool shark, pimp, composer, con man, Catholic, voodoo believer, vain, insecure, brave, a transparent liar whom nobody believed when he told obvious truths, a compulsive braggart whose logorrhea drove away most of the people who might have befriended or helped him: At the very least, Jelly Roll Morton was a most extraordinary individual. Over the years, readers of Alan Lomax’s popular 1950 biography Mister Jelly Roll, based largely on Morton’s 1938 Library of Congress interviews, were left perplexed by the blank spaces, ambiguities and contradictions in his story. Bill Russell’s Oh, Mister Jelly: A Jelly Roll Morton Scrapbook, published just two years ago, at last offered a wealth of color and new information, and now Phil Pastras’ Dead Man Blues has many revelations; in fact, Pastras goes further than anyone else to illuminate the secret places in Morton’s life. This book is, on the face of it, a painstaking study of Morton’s two West Coast periods, 1917-22 and 1940-41: first his rise, when he became a committed musician and composed some of his greatest works, then his last nine months of tragic decline and his death. Lomax glossed over both periods, while Morton’s heartbreaking letters from Los Angeles, where he at last settled “for his health,” are among the most terribly moving pages in the Russell collection. Mostly Pastras tells about events of Morton’s in chronological order, but the story here is also his painstaking detective work, as he examines each newfound piece of evidence and weighs its veracity and value and how it fits into the portrait and history that he constructs. What begins as scholarship becomes, as the pieces fit together, an intriguing tale. This story has a heroine. In a two-page autobiography among the Russell papers Morton wrote, “I married Anita Gonzalez in 1909,” but Pastras discounts those autobiographical writings and questions whether Jelly ever married anyone at all. Gonzalez, born Bessie Johnson, was the sister of pioneer jazz musicians Bill and Dink Johnson, and first met Morton when he was about 12 years old and she 19. Like Morton she was a light-skinned Creole, and she passed for white for much, perhaps most of her life. For five years, beginning in 1917, she and he were together. They were a volatile pair, operating a Los Angeles hotel, then a San Francisco nightclub together; she also ran a Las Vegas saloon, and a boarding house and a restaurant in Arizona at various times in that period, while Jelly’s musical gigs took him as far as Vancouver, Canada, and Tijuana, Mexico. Publicly she played the role of an obedient wife, on display by the bandstand while her master played; privately she argued and manipulated him imaginatively. During one of their several separations, when he gambled away all his money in Denver and Wyoming, she enticed him back to Los Angeles with the lie that his godmother was dying. “She managed me like she always did,” he grumbled; actually, he depended upon Anita and her money, until he finally tired of their bickering and fled to Chicago in 1923. Years later, while ostensibly married to Mabel Morton, he said that Anita was the only woman he’d ever loved. I say “ostensibly” because Pastras’ circumstantial evidence disputes the legality of Mabel’s and Jelly’s wedding. Mabel was his New York wife, who joined him at the height of his fame and stuck with him through most of his decline. She too sat obediently by the bandstand while her master played; after he left her in the mid-1930s, she traced him to Washington, D.C., where he had hooked up with a woman named Cordelia; even after Jelly nearly died in a 1938 brawl in Cordelia’s nightclub, Mabel had to beg him to return to New York with her. Pastras’ story makes Mabel seem fantastically naïve, but actually Jelly was hardly the man to choose such a woman, and other sources hint that Mabel too may have been a strong individual. Like most jazz artists of his generation, Morton was devastated by the Depression; unlike most others, he at least began to ride the traditional jazz revival to renewed success. The major revelation of his letters in the Russell collection was the effects of a 1938 stabbing: Jelly endured progressively declining health for nearly three years, while his attacker—actually his murderer—spent just 30 days in jail. Sickness, more than anything else, prevented his comeback. One of Pastras’ major revelations is how Jelly lied to Mabel in order to move back West where Anita could care for him once again. The old maxim is wrong. You not only can con a con man, his imagination may make him the easiest of all people to con. Jelly was always falling for quick-buck schemes, especially his own. He grew up in a milieu of vice and violence and throughout his life he gravitated naturally to the company and attitudes of small-time crooks, gamblers, con artists; he himself pimped (though Pastras has no information about Jelly’s “Pacific Coast line”) and managed some bad prizefighters. Lomax and the Russell collection make clear that Morton never showed any financial sense. Pastras says the only exceptions to this rule were the periods when Anita took charge of his affairs. Here’s an example: Unlike Ellington and all the other jazz composers who’d been ripped off by music publishers and ASCAP, Jelly had the courage and imagination to sue the bastards. His suits might have revolutionized the way songwriters conducted business, but following his instincts, he hired a shyster New York lawyer who took his money and did nothing. By contrast, in his last nine months of life, Anita found a skillful, well-respected lawyer to handle his affairs in Los Angeles. Most importantly, Morton definitely composed two great works, “The Pearls” and “Kansas City Stomps,” while he was out west, and Pastras thinks “Dead Man Blues” (for which Anita wrote lyrics), “The Crave,” and many of the works in his first recordings also date from 1917-23. Pastras goes on to note pieces Morton composed late in life, for big bands that he rehearsed in New York and Los Angeles. Two of them, which surfaced in the Russell collection, were fine, utterly uncharacteristic scores: “Oh, Baby,” which sounded like Morton’s impression of Fletcher Henderson; and “Gan-Jam,” which may have been Morton’s response to Ellington’s “Reminiscing in Tempo”: it’s a flowing line that, harmonically and in terms of mobile orchestral colors, is certainly as advanced as Ellington. These two pieces imply that Morton, had he lived, could have transformed himself into a major big band composer. Pastras dismisses Anita’s tale to Lomax: that Jelly believed that his godmother had sold his soul to the devil so that when she died, he would soon follow. True, he feared spells, and true, the godmother practiced voodoo and died in 1940, a year and a half before Jelly. But Pastras points out that by 1940 Jelly already knew he was terminally ill; a doctor had told him he would soon die unless he gave up playing music, and Jelly bravely chose to continue playing. It’s also typical of Pastras’ care that he insists upon differences between hoodoo, a kind of diabolical magic, and voodoo, a religion. He’s befuddled, though, by the strange sex life of this man with a smutty stage name, especially Jelly’s lack of physical desire for Mabel. Maybe Jelly’s conflicts about sex started from a belief that all women were divided into two classes, good and bad, Madonna or whore; support for this derives from his strict upbringing by his grandmother, his teen-age venereal disease and his protective feelings toward his wives and sisters. Can we ever know the real Jelly Roll Morton? Yes, we can, if we accept that all of this heroic, nearly mythological artist’s secrets and lies are as much a part of him as are the beauty and joy of his composing and playing and his vivid, immensely perceptive history of the beginnings of jazz.
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Post by Admin on May 1, 2013 8:51:47 GMT -5
This is as close as it gets to the source May 3, 2009 By Curtiss Clarke Gayle Dean Wardlow has compiled this excellent collection from many of his articles and essays of first-hand research, orignally written for monthly publications such as 78 Quarterly and Blues Unlimited. In the early 1960's, collectors like himself had just started to introduce this fabulous music (Afro-American country blues) to a wider audience. The book specifies that as Wardlow was growing up in Mississippi, he admired the music of country singer Roy Acuff; as a result, he began to collect "race-music" country blues 78's only for the purpose of trading them for other country and hillbilly 78's. His job as an exterminator at the time, allowed him to canvas the neighbourhoods in Mississippi where he was working for rare blues and country records. Not surprisingly, his interest in country blues records that had been issued in the 20's and 30's, was heightened considerably as he began to trade with other collectors. Wardlow was able to interview many friends, relatives, and aquaintances of some of the early blues greats like Charley Patton, Son House, Willie Brown, Bukka White, Tommy Johnson, and of course, Robert Johnson. While these artists are certainly the better known ones, the author drills deep into the history of the blues and finds out much about some of the lesser known, but no less interesting ones like, King Solomon Hill (Joe Holmes), Garfield Akers, the Huff Brothers, and Blind Joe Reynolds to name a few. Along the way, Wardlow also managed to locate and interview H.C. Speir, the guy who discovered many of the artists, acted as their agent, and got them into a recording studio. Another bonus is an interview with Ishman Bracey who was a partner of Tommy Johnson for a while, and who it seems, knew just about everybody else in the South who was playing blues in the 1920's. Readers will find some interesting notes where Wardlow helps to dispell some of the silly myths perpetuated about the blues (I sold my soul to the Devil on a dirt road in exchange for talent; Charley Patton was murdered). Anyone who has the least interest in country blues will enjoy this book and its accompanying CD containing rare recordings and interviews by the artists and promoters discussed in the book. While the book is now out of print, it's historical importance is likely to ensure that it will be republished in the near future. This is one of the most interesting and scholarly books ever written on the subject of country blues. If you want it from the source, this book and the one published by Alex van der Tuuk "Paramount's Rise and Fall" (Mainspring Press) are about as close as you are going to get to the source of this great music.
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Post by Admin on May 1, 2013 9:06:32 GMT -5
This and not
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Post by Admin on May 1, 2013 10:33:07 GMT -5
Trying to find a good biography on Charley Patton? Any suggestions?
BTW, Alan, is Henry Balfour a relation? He was referenced in some material at Univ. Virginia on Patton.
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Post by AlanB on May 1, 2013 14:05:30 GMT -5
Trying to find a good biography on Charley Patton? Any suggestions? BTW, Alan, is Henry Balfour a relation? He was referenced in some material at Univ. Virginia on Patton. The only biography is that written by Calt & Wardlow in 1988. King Of The Delta Blues: The Life & Music of Charlie Patton (Rock Chapel Press, 340pps) Out of print and now used copies are very expensive. In the light of Calt's death I wonder whether DGW would consider updating and republishing. Paul Garon has just done that for his Memphis Minnie biography of 21 years ago and due out next spring. As for Henry Balfour, no relation of mine, extremely common surname in Scotland, my late father was of Scottish decent. It's probably likely that Henry's ancestors were Scots who relocated to America.
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Post by Admin on May 1, 2013 15:29:09 GMT -5
Trying to find a good biography on Charley Patton? Any suggestions? BTW, Alan, is Henry Balfour a relation? He was referenced in some material at Univ. Virginia on Patton. The only biography is that written by Calt & Wardlow in 1988. King Of The Delta Blues: The Life & Music of Charlie Patton (Rock Chapel Press, 340pps) Out of print and now used copies are very expensive. In the light of Calt's death I wonder whether DGW would consider updating and republishing. Paul Garon has just done that for his Memphis Minnie biography of 21 years ago and due out next spring. I saw that one Alan, but it seems to get a few bad reviews due to Calt's subjective opinions and poor editing??? Any thoughts?
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Post by AlanB on May 2, 2013 4:55:06 GMT -5
The only biography is that written by Calt & Wardlow in 1988. King Of The Delta Blues: The Life & Music of Charlie Patton (Rock Chapel Press, 340pps) Out of print and now used copies are very expensive. In the light of Calt's death I wonder whether DGW would consider updating and republishing. Paul Garon has just done that for his Memphis Minnie biography of 21 years ago and due out next spring. I saw that one Alan, but it seems to get a few bad reviews due to Calt's subjective opinions and poor editing??? Any thoughts?[/quote]
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Post by AlanB on May 2, 2013 4:56:52 GMT -5
The only biography is that written by Calt & Wardlow in 1988. King Of The Delta Blues: The Life & Music of Charlie Patton (Rock Chapel Press, 340pps) Out of print and now used copies are very expensive. In the light of Calt's death I wonder whether DGW would consider updating and republishing. Paul Garon has just done that for his Memphis Minnie biography of 21 years ago and due out next spring. When it comes to Calt and his opinions, it's "the nature of the beast". Calt's 1988 Skip James biography was roundly criticised because he painted James as a not very likeable, embitter old man. Search the internet for Ken Ficara's review of the book, the last paragraph of which says read this book. Read it with a grain of salt, but read it. It'll make you think about the strangeness inherent in an old black man sitting in front of a roomful of rapt white city kids playing music that, in his youth, he played to a house full of dancing people of his own age and background. You almost certainly won't agree with everything Calt says, and some of it will piss you off, but this book is on a completely different level from the usual worshipful and unquestioning blues "journalism."Most blues fans didn't bother to buy or read it. Twenty five years on I truly can't imagine anybody attempting an "alternative" James biography. For all Calt's iconoclastic debunk, it is the story of of Skip James warts and all.
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