Mississippi John Hurt & Elizabeth Cotten - history?
Outfidel
Dick Thaxter
> Also, when MJH and Cotten were "re-discovered" in the 50s and 60s, I
> understand they played on the same festival bill many times (e.g.,
> Newport, Philadelphia Folk Festival). Did they ever play *together*?
> Are there any recordings of them playing together, or covering each
> other's songs? Did they ever talk about each other in interviews? Many
> thanks!
>
> I saw them both in the sixties. Once they both did short sets during
> a Pete Seeger concert at Lisner auditorium--I'm guessing 1962. My
> memory's a bit hazy on the date, etc. I also remember sitting on the
> grass with maybe twenty other folks watching while Libba Cotten sat
> under a tree on the Mall during one of the early Smithsonian Folklife
> Festivals. I remember her telling a story about borrowing her
> brother's guitar without permission and teaching herself to play it
> (upside down). She didn't talk about listening to other players, just
> teaching herself. Since she played lefty on a right-handed strung
> guitar, I'm not sure how to compare her technique with MJH.
>
> Dick Thaxter
>
>
Jon Pankake
Outfidel wrote:
> . Was there a popular performer or style of playing, that pre-dates
> "Freight Train", which would have influenced a young MJH in
> Mississippi as well as a young Cotten in North Carolina?
Yes. Many nineteenth-century "parlor guitar" instruction books survive
that taught one to play the bass strings with the thumb and the treble
with the fingers. "Spanish Fandango" was one of the pieces taught and
both EC and MJH played versions of it. When Hurt was a boy an itinerant
music teacher used to board at his home and John could well have been
exposed to formal guitar playing. Not to say that either Hurt or Cotten
used books or were formally taught, but their style of playing was in
the culture and influenced players at all levels of the culture. For
example, every tuning that Robert Johnson used appeared in parlor guitar
instruction books long before his time.
Jon Pankake
Tony Done
but it had never occurred to me to ask where these styles originated.
I think I remember John Hurt saying that his style came naturally and just
"sounded right", inferring not from any formal or even informal tuition.
Tony D
"Jon Pankake" <pank...@hushmail.com> wrote in message
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Outfidel
of sense. Are there any reproductions available of these parlor guitar
instruction books?
I read an interview with Rev. Gary Davis where he talked about meeting a
traveling guitarist named Porter Irving in 1905 or so (Davis would have been
9 years old at the time). I guess it was guys like Irving -- who were never
recorded, whose names are mostly forgetten -- that could have spread a style
of music and playing that a young MJH and a young Libba Cotten might have
been exposed to.
"Tony Done" <tony...@bigpond.com> wrote in message
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Jon Pankake
to make his guitar follow his voice, and had no further comment on
learning the guitar other than that he began at the age of nine. His
description of the music teacher is on the interview with Pete Seeger
on MISSIPPI JOHN HURT: MEMORIAL ANTHOLOGY (GENES CD 9906/7). An
interesting book with which to begin study of nineteenth-century parlor
guitar style is Henry Worrall's THE ECLECTIC GUITAR INSTRUCTOR,
published in 1862, which teaches the open D tuning (called "Sebastopol"
tuning) and the open G (called "Fandango" tuning), and which specifies
that "The sixth, fifth, and fourth strings are usually struck with the
thumb. The third, second, and first strings are played generally with
the first and second fingers, alternately changing the finger for each
successive note." Which is a pretty good description of Hurt's playing
a hundred years later.
Outfidel
news:3DD25105...@loc.gov...
Dick - I received an e-mail from Dick Waterman, and he said he doesn't
believe MJH and EC every shared the stage together. He said Libba was a very
shy woman and didn't mingle much with other performers. Mr. Waterman would
know, since he worked with both artists. Still, I'm interested in the link
between MJH and EC at the beginning of their playing careers.
Outfidel
Jon is spot on. The world of Parlor Guitar is often ignored by students of fingerstyle guitar. It was the rage in the USA from mid-1850s to the turn of the century. Lots of music survives from this era - though what I have seen little is of great interest - BUT it was fingerstyle and folk blues 'standards' such as Spanish Fandango and Vestapol (Sebastapol) are from this ear of Parlor Guitar Playing. Not to mention all those beautiful Martin Parlor Guitars!!!! In general this was a type of music played by women in their provebial parlors. Much of it sounds pseudo-classical. It is the missing link and unfortunately there seem to be no recorded examples from the 1910s-1920s. A very interesting area of musical development for the guitar.
Dick Thaxter
the early sixties. And I also KNOW that I saw MJH do a short set at one
of Pete's concerts in the same time period. Forty years later, the
events might have converged in my mind, but my recollection is it was
the same night at Lisner. I was about thirteen; I'll ask my sister who
was sixteen at the time what she remembers. After the Lisner concert we
went backstage and listened to Pete being interviewed by the GWU
campus radio station. My father got to ask some questions also and we
all met Seeger.
I also clearly remember Libba doing one of the early Smithsonian
festivals and telling stories about her playing, the song Freight Train,
the song Shake Sugaree, etc.
Dick Thaxter
Jinxblues
>> Dick - I received an e-mail from Dick Waterman, and he said he doesn't
>> believe MJH and EC every shared the stage together. He said Libba was
>a very
>> shy woman and didn't mingle much with other performers. Mr. Waterman would
>> know, since he worked with both artists. Still, I'm interested in the
>link
>> between MJH and EC at the beginning of their playing careers.
>>
>>
>Well I KNOW that I saw Libba do a short set at one of Seeger's concerts
>in
>the early sixties. And I also KNOW that I saw MJH do a short set at one
>of Pete's concerts in the same time period.
Don't misunderstand what I said. I said I had no recollection of them 'ever
sharing stage together.'
T O G E T H E R
There is no question that they played at the same festivals and concerts but I
was asked if they had ever played together as a DUO, and I replied that I had
never seen that and doubted if they had.
Dick Waterman