The Lehman College Blues

I have been enjoying talking music with a very talented guy who works with me.  He is also a professional musician and teaches at Lehman College in NYC.  His enthusiasm and knowledge of music is boundless, but I stumped him on Tommy Johnson.  He had not heard of him and since I place him right up there with Charley Patton in esteem, I gave him the CD of his complete recorded works and he really dug it.

He surprised me by telling me that he is playing a lot of my suggestions for his classes at Lehaman!  I gave him my Patton boxed set as well as Cab Calloway 1930-35 and some truly obscure stuff off the Paramount Masters boxed set.  He’s loving it and playing certain selections for his classes.  This amazes me.  I am an accountant/programmer by trade and a sculptor on the side but music?  I’m practially tone deaf and yet this very knowledgeable guy is taking my suggestions and running with them so I have to feel good about that, and I do.  The students in this man’s class maybe don’t know it, but they are lucky because they have themselves just a tremendous individual as a teacher.  You’re not with him for more than 5 minutes and you understand that: The enthusiasm, the positive, can-do attitude, the works.  That’s why I’m glad to spend time digging in the attic for pieces I think he’d dig and also why I’m flattered that he is interested.

And we both agree on an important point: while Robert Johnson is an important figure, we both think Patton (and Tommie Johnson) is better overall.  No question.  But Johnson is the guy everyone talks about while only the diehards seem to know about Patton.  It’s the old Robert Johnson media bias, haha.

The class he is teaching is a class for soon-to-be professional musicians.  He prepares them for the real world of pro-music.  Things like how to work in a recording studio.  How to work with other musicians and take direction and all the things that rock-star wannabe kids don’t really think about but what will be, for most, 99% of their lives now, if they want to make a living writing, playing and recording music.

Some of what he likes my suggestions for is that I dig up the these unbelievable rare recordings that are just sound-engineering marvels for their time.  He uses the sounds to tell the students how much diversity is out there and how important it is to reach for innovative stuff,  as well as not ignoring the huge body of work that has already been laid down.

“Respect the past”, is how I’d put it.  Kids tend to listen to one, narrow band of sound that they think is “the coolest”, while mocking other formats and genres.  That’s poison to a real pro-musician.  You must respect and gain knowledge of all forms of music, or you won’t be working long.

So he takes the song (I wonder to myself) I suggested from 1928 of Tommie Johnson playing the kazoo over acoustic guitar chords and asks his class to estimate WHEN they think that was recorded.  The earliest guess ventured was the 1950’s!  It sounds for all the world like a fuzz-b0x distorted, electric guitar, but it’s really a kazoo–a kids’ toy.  And that’s the point he wants to make.  “Get your sound”, throw out preconceptions and prejudices about what is making that sound.  NONE of his kids could identify the kazoo.  Lesson learned.

Here is the latest thing I dropped on him.  Friso leaving Birmingham.  When he told me how he used the “I wonder” song, I said he had to run this one out there and I’ve no doubt that he will, time permitting.  You can download it and check it out.  These sounds are amazing.  This stuff is just out of this world.  Is it commercially produceable now?  Probably not.  Can you learn something from a once-recorded, anonymous artist from 1930?  I think so.

Click here to download the mp3 of Frisco Leaving Birmingham from a separate, safe site.

Some Creedence for Page

Just ordered the complete Creedence Clearwater Revival boxed set on amazon containing every note they ever put on vinyl as well as some outtakes which are always fun. Fogerty is unique and the playing is great for the sculpting work–long jams that get you in a groove and keep you there. So it’s basically a business expense. It’s amazing how quickly you blow through 11 gigs of music on an MP3 player while sitting/crouching/kneeling/standing around with the tools and wood. So much so that I’ll even take a flyer on some Edith Piaf. Anything.

And musically, I don’t much care anymore about the music that I used to get all worked up about in my youth. In fact, the one overwhelming thought whenever I listen to, or think about the music that I listened too (mostly classic rock, the usual), is embarrassment. Because we took this stuff so seriously and it is SUCH A JOKE! These guys had really very little talent and we just worshipped them all out of proportion with what it was. I see it all from my dad’s perspective now. Dad, you were right. They were a bunch of overpaid bums.

That’s not to say that I still won’t appreciate some artistry from time to time, but for the most part, it’s not worth talking about. Take Jimmy Page for instance. I was listening to the new Zeppelin channel on XM coming into work today and they were playing the live Dazed and Confused and they get to that part where Page plays the electric guitar with a violin bow (cue Spinal Tap). I almost drove off the road laughing and I was laughing at how reverently we kids talked about this act. How much esteem we held this in. It was like Page was Jesus for banging a bow on a guitar and making just the most rudimentary amplified noisy sounds! hahaha! He’s a real Joshua Haifitz, isn’t he? hahaha. What a rocket scientist there. Actually, it was brilliant, just not musically, but rather it was brilliant in the same way that P.T. Barnum was brilliant in that he hoodwinked a generation of some pretty smart people into thinking this was “cool”. I bought in. Now I laugh.

But Page is special musically in some ways still. I laugh at his sloppy play and just horrible technique; particularly live. You can listen to the drugs take his playing as the years go by. It starts out decent and steadily declines all the way from 1970 to 1980, when he was so cooked that he wouldn’t have won a high school talent show (Knebworth). But Page was a great producer of records and he got some great sounds like the tube miking for Houses of the Holy and In My Time of Dying. Good production, sloppy play. But the sloppy play is forgivable because most don’t listen close enough to really hear it anyway and it certainly didn’t hurt their sales.

There is a phrase in the song, In My Time of Dying where Plant is singing in silence, “Oh My Jesus, Oh My Jesus, Oh My Jesus, Oh My Jesus,” several times. On the “Oh”, start counting. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4 etc. Page comes in with the slide on a 3, and I’ve always thought that where he comes in is TOTALLY unexpected, but perfectly brilliant, if such a thing can be. The timing is exquisite. I would never think to DO that, if it were me. And I find that while listening to Page, you follow along and mentally try and anticipate what note should follow and he’s always going to a note that (a) I wouldn’t think to (b) is very pleasing.

So I look at it this way. If you broke everyone’s guitar solos/riffs into one-note-at-a-time, and graded them for each note selected in “pleasingness” to the general public, Page’s batting average would be Ty Cobb high. He just “gets it” and selects the best note most of the time or certainly a high percentage of the time. There’s a reason everybody liked, and still likes, those Zep tunes. You want to say he’s brilliant? Ok, fine, whatever. But leave the bow out of it.

Reading a tremendous book on Kid Delicious called Running the Table. What a great book! You hate to finish it because you just don’t want it to end. It’s interesting reading for me also because of the statue I’m doing. I find a lot of the stuff Delicious deals with or experiences to be similar–very, very, eerily similar, but of course on a much smaller scale. The maniacal aspect of it and the highs and lows of self esteem and mood swings, tied directly to how it’s going. Getting in the zone when time becomes elastic and you just feel like superman for a while. Then also the times where it all seems so elusive and pointless. A very good book. I hope they don’t scroogie up the movie (they will). Kid Delicious should play himself!

Click here to launch Kid Delicious’ site in a new window

Delicious’ Road Partner is a pretty fair painter.  I like the style and I am tough

Beatles on Tonight Show, Johnny Carson, Joe Garagiola

There was a post recently and someone asked about the Beatles Lennon/McCartney appearance on The Tonight Show while Joe Garagiola was the guest host. I have never seen the bit and would guess that it doesn’t exist or it would have turned up somehow, somewhere. I seem to recall that much of the early Carson 1960’s era shows were not saved. That stuff always amazed me but I guess it was considered too expensive. You can buy every show Jack Benny ever did from 1938 to 1960 on ebay for about 10 dollars. Go figure.

But this had come up and I wrote the original post from memory and the memory was reading a book by Craig Tennis called “Johnny Tonight”, published in 1980. I was at my parent’s house last night and I found the book in a desk and opened it right to the Beatles page. Weird. So since I was photographing old family photo albums to digitize the shots, I took shots of the story from Tennis’ book. His words:

 

 

The Baseball Booth From Hell

Liverpool has an away goal vs Toulouse. Rafa ran a lot of different guys out there. No Torres/Kuyt. Instead, Crouch/Voronin were up front WITH Ryan Babel. Three forwards? Hmm…well Voronin netted one and Gerrard missed on a set piece by inches. Later, Gerrard was kicked up pretty bad and came off later at 60 mins or so. You have to wonder: is he ok? We would like to get 3 points at Anfield courtesy of Chelsea on Sunday and wouldn’t you know it? My boy is being Christened while that game is on. VCR.

Louis Armstrong: Great. Posada? Lucky.

This is an interesting thread from Bugs and Cranks that I happen to agree with: Jorge Posada’s batting average on balls in play (or BABIP) in the last three years has been .312, .294., and .302. This year? .406. This stat says that basically, he’s lucky right now.

Is he exhibiting better plate discipline? No, his walk to strikeout ratio, 0.63, is in line with his career average, 0.66. Is he hitting more flyballs? No, his groundball to flyball ratio, 1.21, is a tick off his career average (1.20). So what IS he doing differently? Nothing. Balls are falling in freakishly more often this year than in the past.

Prediction: Posada’s average comes down with a vengeance. Now we’re deep into the year so it would be hard to offset all the early going, so he’ll have himself a great year for a 36 year old catcher with a career .275 average. And, of course, he hit .675 with 3 HR’s and a clutch of 2B’s to destroy my fantasy team this week, so he’s got that going for him.

***

Click the photo to open a new window to JSP records and order the 4 cd boxed set.

TO ORDER FROM THE JSP CATALOG, SIMPLY SEND PAYMENT TO – JSP RECORDS P O BOX 1584 LONDON N3 3NW ENGLAND PRICES:ALL BOX SETS £20 OR $30 inclusive postage. PAYMENT SHOULD BE BY CHECK OR INTERNATIONAL MONEY ORDER. ANY QUERIES, PLEASE CONTACT john@jsprecords.com

I didn’t do a real good job on the Louis Armstrong Hot Five post because I was hot and tired. Luis Castillo left the game at Wrigley Field in Chicago yesterday with “heat exhaustion”? Pulease, Looey, come on up in my attic and see how you like the heat. In fact, yesterday, with the fuse pulled so I could rewire things, the attic fan was out of action and it was inhuman up there.

I’ve been listening to the Hot Five recordings for many years. They are amazing. They are genius. A group of artists, absolutely peaking. It’s brilliancy on top of brilliancy and if you know the history at all, you know that like most genius stuff, at the time it came out, NO ONE else was doing anything of the sort and after it came out EVERYONE else was trying to catch up–and most couldn’t touch it.  Armstrong was 24 when the Hot Five sessions began.

In The Arts or Sports (also an art), there are a few eye-popping, legendary performances that live on and on. Ruth’s called shot in the 1932 World Series. Williams’ .406 season. The first 4 minute mile. And so on. Most of these things are now word-of-mouth, hearsay, so it’s hard to put yourself right there and understand maybe WHY those things are so special.

But with the Hot Five recordings, you can listen to them all, end to end, over and over. You can hear a guy who is so beyond his peers that it’s a joke. In this case, the hardest thing to imagine is the context of all the other music that came out around the same time. It’s hard to find any of that because it’s long ago just hopelessly dated and virtually unlistenable to modern tastes. You would have to hunt for it. It’s gone. But Louis work is still very much available and very listenable even today. And that is probably the truest test of a real subjective thing, which is, music, and which music is “good” or “great”.

People throw around that term too loosely for it to have any meaning anymore. A lot of words got written since Shakespeare’s time but very few of them are still being read. I would think that very little of the music that the Baby Boomers grew up listening to will be found in 80 years time anywhere other than the Library of Congress archives. Perhaps the Beatles will, but not all of their stuff by any means. The Rolling Stones? The Who? Led Zeppelin? Probably all their stuff will be 100% forgotten and dead by that time. You get my point. But in another 80 years time, in 2087, there will STILL be folks listening to Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and it will still be as amazing as it was in 1926.

Louis Armstrong, Hot Five

I was doing a long home improvement project today (well, the last few days)  in an impossibly hot attic and I stumbled on a radio show on 88.9 FM in New York.  It was 31 straight hours of Louis Armstrong in honor of his true birthday and it was AMAZING!  The guy handling most of the mike work was a walking encyclopedia of Armstrong and Jazz knowledge.  I tuned in while they were keying on the Hot Five and Sevens.  I learned that it’s a misnomer and most of what we think of is the quintet and they really only did a few septet and sextet recordings.  It made the project a lot easier to do and I actually bagged baseball and the Mets game and the dopey Yankees rout of poor old KC.

Speaking of the Yankee game: What’s with the breathless countdown to 500 homers for a healthy 32 year old?  That’s like standing outside McDonalds and waiting for the sign to change.  Historic?  Don’t make me laugh.  And don’t compare this guy to Jimmy Foxx, either.  Foxx was the youngest to 500 before this guy.  If I were choosing up sides in a game for my life and I could choose anyone, Foxx would be a starter.  This guy Rodriguez would have to buy a ticket.  Foxx would kill people today if he was hitting this rabbit ball in these bandboxes.

And if I was managing a game for my life, who would I pick?  Hmm…let’s see.  Off the top of my head:

Grover Cleveland Alexander RHP, Bob Feller RHP, Bob Gibson RHP, Grove LHP, Plank LHP

OF Ruth, Mays, Williams

1B Bill Terry 

2B Hornsby/Frisch

3B Foxx (played 1B, 3B, C, OF and P)

SS Jeter

C Bench 

Subs: Stan Musial, Ty Cobb 

They Can’t ALL Be Tommy Lee

Most rockers are knuckleheads.  You know, the guys who were out smoking when the rest of us were in class.  And some of them hit the rock “lottery” and become wildly rich and usually, they destroy their lives with it (See: Behind the Music). 

But occasionally there are bright bulbs who would have made it in any endeavor that they pursued.  You get the impression that Brian May of the old band Queen, was one of them.  Have a look: Click here to read about May’s doctoral thesis 

Thanks Ed, for the tip.  –fog

Cool Drink of Water Blues

We used to do more of this at The Pinetar Rag and really need to get back to it. This is one of the very best Mississippi Delta Blues songs ever recorded. Now, Tommie was normally drinking the canned heat or Solo, a paint remover but on his trip to his only recording session, he was given real bonded whiskey. The first real whiskey he’d ever had in his life. He got so much that he had trouble getting through the takes without errors and his second (Ishmon Bracey?) had to do some of his guitar work. If I had to make some goofy top-ten alltime list of blues records, this would be above 5 and right up there with High Water Everywhere Part I, Bad Luck Blues and Moon Goin’ Down. This is as good as Tommie Johnson gets and darned near as good as anyone has ever gotten, before or since (no Tim, Zeppelin didn’t cover it) –fog

by Tommy Johnson
recording of 1928
from Complete Recorded Works (1928-1929) (Document DOCD-5001)
Tommy Johnson (1928-1930) (Wolf 104)

I asked for water, and she gave me gasoline
I asked for water, she gave me gasoline
I asked for water and she gave me gasoline
Lord, Lordy, Lord
Crying, Lord, I wonder will I ever get back home
Crying, Lord, I wonder will I ever get back home
Lord, Lordy, Lord
I went to the depot, looked up on the board
I looked all over, “How long has this east bound train been gone?”
Lord, Lordy, Lord
It’s done take your fare, blowed its smoke on you
It’s done taken yours, blowed its smoke on you, Lord, Lordy, Lord
Lord, I asked the conductor, “Could I ride these blinds ?”
(Want to know, can a broke man ride the blinds)
“Son, buy your ticket, buy your ticket, ’cause this train ain’t none of mine”
“Son, buy your ticket, train ain’t none of mine”
“Son, buy your ticket, ’cause this train ain’t none of mine”
Lord, Lordy, Lord
“Train ain’t none of mine”

From the Blues office

Robert Hill – You Gonna Look Like A Monkey When You Get Old (Bluebird B6680)

Liverpool Chelsea today at Stamford Bridge in West London.  If Liverpool is to hoist an unlikely 6th European Cup, they will have to go through Chelsea and very likely Manchester United in the Final.  This would be about the most amazing thing I can imagine in footy.  I wouldn’t care the Reds never win the league again if they could flip both of these sides out.  Bring it! –fog

Oh, and BTW, will Mourinho ever shut his pie-hole (and don’t you love the unflappable Rafa?) ??? (From Soccernet.com today):

Benitez shrugs off Mourinho claims

Rafael Benitez has brushed aside Jose Mourinho’s claims that Liverpool will try to get Chelsea players suspended for the Champions League semi-final second leg.

The Liverpool boss was responding to suggestions from the Chelsea chief that the Anfield men would target players who are one booking away from a ban from the return leg on Merseyside next week.Didier Drogba, Joe Cole, Arjen Robben, Petr Cech and Lassana Diarra are all on two bookings ahead of the Stamford Bridge first match.But Benitez, who maintained that ‘I do not like playing these mind games’, still managed the perfect put-down by saying: ‘It had not crossed my mind, but maybe it has Mourinho’s because that is what Chelsea did two seasons ago to Xabi Alonso.’

Yelling ‘Freebird’ In a Crowded Theatre

For those who are tired of their same old Classic Rock collection and want to branch out musically, I thought we could compile a list of Rock songs that were actually lifted from much older, more obscure (and let’s face it, mostly poor, black blues artists) sources.