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.



