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Post by Admin on Apr 17, 2014 11:57:06 GMT -5
Blues were a pure American art form that many weren’t even aware of. R&B, blues, race-records. Something you could hear only late at night on some AM radio station from Nashville, Jackson, Shreveport or some other deep-south city. The Prisonaires, a band formed in a Memphis-area prison, created one of Sun Records' early hits. For me it was definitely Sam Phillips and WLAC radio. I remember listening to Gene Nobles and his cohort 6 7/8ths, John R and Hossman spinnin those platters in the evening/late night hours? In the 50s, Radio WLAC Nashville "clear channel" 50,000 watts was like "Wolfman Jack", only in the midwest and all directions as far as their signal would travel. I remember some of their sponsors were; Royal Crown Hair Dressing, White Rose Petroleum Jelly, Silky Straights Hair Straightener and Randy's Record Shop at Gallatin, Tennessee. When I was just a yougin I remember many times, going home and always listening to WLAC in the wee hours of the morning. Then as I got older more of the kids got to listening to it. Muddy, Wolf, Lightnin'...
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Post by Admin on Apr 17, 2014 13:02:35 GMT -5
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Post by Admin on Apr 17, 2014 21:53:41 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing Pat.
As I think back to those early days, growing up in the segregated south, I was never really exposed to the music callex the blues. I was well into my late teens before I was aware of the secular music of the African American people. I knew the harmonica playing of Deford Bailey, and I had heard some Jazz that featured some of the African american vocalists but the race of those musicians were never featured. I guess you might say I came to the blues through Rock and Roll. You see, it was when the early rock and rollers--Little Richard, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and those early doo wop groups like The Platters, Commodores, etc. Surfaced in the 50s that I discovered their roots in the secular music of Muddy, Wolf, Lightnin, Hank Ballard, etc. Now, some credit must be given to the country side of my childhood and early adulthood. My neighbor and mentor-Sam McGee had mentioned the source of his fingerstyle guitar was an African American guitar player down at the train station. And there was Maybelle Carter who on numerous occasions mentioned the black gospel singers who influenced her work.
So I was introduced to the blues via Rock and Roll and to a lesser extent, via Country..
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Post by tom1960 on Apr 18, 2014 16:50:49 GMT -5
I think this might have been the very first blues album I ever purchased?
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Post by jlhooker on Apr 20, 2014 13:00:54 GMT -5
The way I discovered blues was by listening to a black guitar player who lived close by that played blues and by listening to WLAC radio at night.This was in the early 60's.I ordered a Jimmy Reed album from Ernie's Record Mart in Tn. and got the blues player to teach me Jimmy Reed's shuffle.I've been playing it ever since.
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Post by earleg on Apr 20, 2014 23:40:34 GMT -5
A friend played his older brother's Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and B0 Diddly records in his basement while we assembled model cars. That was around the time the Rolling Stones appeared on the radio. Prior I heard acoustic blues on my parents folk music compilation LP but thought it was folk music which I guess it was. At some point blues started showing up in Downbeat magazine so I got to know more names of the artists.
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Post by AlanB on Apr 24, 2014 6:49:06 GMT -5
Over the decades I've bored several radio stations as to how I discovered the blues so I may as well do the same here. In the school summer holidays of 1962 I went to the house of a school chum. On arrival his father was listening to a record, the kind of which I'd never heard. I was transfixed by what I was listening to. It seemed to me be all about the mistreatment of "negroes". I was finding it very difficult to make out what was being said on the LP but my friend's dad gave me a four page LP size sheet of transcription that came with the record. To cut a long story short, this LP was Blues In The Mississippi Night (Pye-Nixa, 1957) and the father was a jazz/blues fan. He gave me the LP (yes, gave) - along with armfuls of Jazz Journal and Jazz Monthly - telling me that I could discover more about "the blues". He also told me to look out for a then out of print book, Blues Fell This Morning. That I found and have never looked back! In 1965 I had published my first venture into blues "criticism" for a magazine named Soul Music. Attached makes me cringe so you can all join me in my embarrassment! From that point on the magazine regarded me as their "prewar blues expert!. Hope it's legible. Attachments:ABsoul65.pdf (372.93 KB)
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Post by Admin on Apr 24, 2014 7:02:20 GMT -5
Over the decades I've bored several radio stations as to how I discovered the blues so I may as well do the same here. ... Hope it's legible. Alan, I think I speak for everyone here, your posts are never "boring"...quite the converse. I find the review you did back then extremely interesting. As you probably have noticed, I started a thread about Charley Taylor who recorded with Ishman (Ishmon)? Bracey. Your article discussed the new "Ishmon" Bracey. Just wonder if your liner notes have any further information that Marc didn't post?
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Post by AlanB on Apr 24, 2014 7:53:03 GMT -5
Alan, I think I speak for everyone here, your posts are never "boring"...quite the converse. I find the review you did back then extremely interesting. As you probably have noticed, I started a thread about Charley Taylor who recorded with Ishman (Ishmon)? Bracey. Your article discussed the new "Ishmon" Bracey. Just wonder if your liner notes have any further information that Marc didn't post? Nope. As Marc stated what there is to know can be found in Blues Unlimited mag/or Chasing The Devil's Music book. Mike Leadbitter, David Evans and Gayle Dean Wardlow were the first to attempt a "biography" of Bracey. This was published in Bob Eagle's magazine Alley Music (issue 1, no. 2 1968, p.5) titled "Nehi." As to my EP "review' let's just put it down to enthusiasm of the young.... Now back to topic of discovering blues music.
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Post by traveler on Apr 24, 2014 8:34:56 GMT -5
Back in high school, that would be about 45 years ago or so, I had some friends you were into music in a pretty big way. They were fans of Mayall, Muddy, James Cotton etc... So I was exposed to and liked that music very much. A few years later myself, one of those friends and our ladies went to a SRV show at Towson St. University. That was all she wrote for me. I've been to a lot of good shows before and since, but I don't think I'll ever forget that show.
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Post by jmuscara on Apr 26, 2014 6:31:07 GMT -5
I came into it via rock, mostly the Stones and perhaps Clapton. But this was probably during the 80s, not the 60s as I wasn't born then. It was probably due to them talking about people like Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, etc., that led me to dig into those guys, as well as the blues tunes they did which I found really moving and grooving. Stevie Ray Vaughan was probably another.
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Post by garryfernand on Jun 30, 2014 1:11:05 GMT -5
My father used to play harmonica and he inspire me to listen to blues music. He filled me with the feeling of keeping the blues alive. I am a big fan of Sonny Boy Willianson.
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Post by monsterjones on Jul 22, 2014 11:33:11 GMT -5
It was the same year as this video 73-74, when I witnessed the raw power of the TEXAS CANNONBALL ----FREDDIE KING....I had to buy a red Gibson 335 and play blues like Freddie....still learning BTW...I know this MC (guy in the Armadillo hat and Texas Flag)...Jim Franklin,artist he drew many of the Armadillo posters:
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Post by garryfernand on Aug 1, 2014 6:04:52 GMT -5
Hi... real nice video ....Loved It. Thanks For sharing.
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Post by Wormella on Aug 12, 2014 12:35:56 GMT -5
My husband, it's pretty hard to ignore in our house. It seemed easier to join in than ignore it
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