Son House and Bukka White
Kid Kool
Bukka White. If you like blues at all, do yourself a favour. Son plays
2 blues, one a standard 3-chord and the other a 1-chord blues, and
sings two spirituals acapella. Preacher Blues is a gas, all about
Baptist preachers drinking shine and nuns barellhousing. Everything
Bukka does is quintessentially blues, natch, and you can see him
tapping on Aberdeen Mississppi Blues, but nothing is a standard 3-chord
blues. The closest it gets is when he plays piano, when he does a [very
deliberate] 11-bar blues, changing 1/2 a bar early twice. He also does
a 2-chord 13-bar blues, where he plays the tonic all the way through
until he grabs a V and holds it for an extra bar. This is killer stuff
- it's a pity the blues form has become so codified - those early
changes and extra bars really keep things hopping. And Bukka is BIG,
man. His National looks like a uke. Apparently he didn't like the
spelling of his name as Bukka; properly, it's Booker; if it was me I'd
call him "sir".
Bill Ribas
years, and a lot of the local guys played with him. there is also a cd on
document, i believe, called the rochester sessions. you can hear a real
nasty rattle in his voice, but man, still bellows.
"Kid Kool" <kidk...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1154394488....@s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
tom walls
says...
> cool beans man. Son House lived around here (rochester, ny) in his later
> years, and a lot of the local guys played with him. there is also a cd on
> document, i believe, called the rochester sessions. you can hear a real
> nasty rattle in his voice, but man, still bellows.
>
Do remember his disciple, John something-or-other? I believe he was from
Rochester. Played slide real good. He was a pretty big regional act
until he packed his bags and head down to New Orleans.
--
Tom Walls
the guy at the Temple of Zeus
tom walls
kidk...@gmail.com says...
> I got a DVD [from CDUniverse] of archival footage of Son House and
> Bukka White. If you like blues at all, do yourself a favour. Son plays
> 2 blues, one a standard 3-chord and the other a 1-chord blues, and
> sings two spirituals acapella. Preacher Blues is a gas, all about
> Baptist preachers drinking shine and nuns barellhousing. Everything
> Bukka does is quintessentially blues, natch, and you can see him
> tapping on Aberdeen Mississppi Blues, but nothing is a standard 3-chord
> blues. The closest it gets is when he plays piano, when he does a [very
> deliberate] 11-bar blues, changing 1/2 a bar early twice. He also does
> a 2-chord 13-bar blues, where he plays the tonic all the way through
> until he grabs a V and holds it for an extra bar. This is killer stuff
> - it's a pity the blues form has become so codified - those early
> changes and extra bars really keep things hopping.
I have a jones for odd or irregular meter. Sometimes the meter just
follows the narrative and sometimes it has a double secret pattern that
only reveals itself under the most intense scrutiny.
> And Bukka is BIG,
> man. His National looks like a uke. Apparently he didn't like the
> spelling of his name as Bukka; properly, it's Booker; if it was me I'd
> call him "sir".
Rat own.
Bill Ribas
"tom walls" <tw...@cornell.edu> wrote in message
news:MPG.1f390f2ac...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu...
Kid Kool
tom walls wrote:
>
>
> I have a jones for odd or irregular meter. Sometimes the meter just
> follows the narrative and sometimes it has a double secret pattern that
> only reveals itself under the most intense scrutiny.
The stuff I was listening to was all regular meter, it just wasn't
12-bar regular. It was regularly 11 bars, or 13 bars, some of it [very
little] was a standard I IV V, a lot of it was just 1 with perhaps a V
thrown in for an extra bar to make up the 13. But it wasn't irregular,
every chorus followed the same rhythmic pattern. The form was just
another variable, along witht the key and the tempo, but I know what
you mean about double secret patterns: that all follows the coded
message stuff they were so much into. The code's been largely lost, but
it had strong resonance at the time for the listeners as well as the
players.
Christopher Woitach
made their living (when not working the fields) in the chicken shacks,
playing for dancers. The single most important thing was the fat pulse
- the number of bars was only relevant to the words. That's my take,
anyway.
Son House was a huge influence on me when I used to play solo guitar
and sing blues - early 80's or so in Ithaca NY. He influenced not so
much in style, but in vibe and commitment. I sang so shitty, however,
and I was, after all, a 20 year old semi hippie kid in upstate NY, that
when jazz finally seeped into my mind as the music I wanted to play, it
must have been a relief to all concerned!
I still love the old spooky blues more than any other style of blues,
for the saame reason I love old mountain coal miners like Dock Boggs -
they all played exactly what they lived. Very intense...
Christopher Woittach
Christopher Woitach
made their living (when not working the fields) in the chicken shacks,
playing for dancers. The single most important thing was the fat pulse
- the number of bars was only relevant to the words. That's my take,
anyway.
Son House was a huge influence on me when I used to play solo guitar
and sing blues - early 80's or so in Ithaca NY. He influenced not so
much in style, but in vibe and commitment. I sang so shitty, however,
and I was, after all, a 20 year old semi hippie kid in upstate NY, that
when jazz finally seeped into my mind as the music I wanted to play, it
must have been a relief to all concerned!
I still love the old spooky blues more than any other style of blues,
for the saame reason I love old mountain coal miners like Dock Boggs -
they all played exactly what they lived. Very intense...
Christopher Woittach
Kid Kool wrote:
tom walls
kidk...@gmail.com says...
You know who was really good at using dropping beats of a measure for
dramatic effect? Besides all of the delta blues guys, that is? Captain
Beefheart and Ornette Coleman.
For those keeping track, I was speaking tongue-in-cheek about the
"double secret patterns" but was serious about the "most intense
scrutiny". What's the emoticon for tongue-in-cheek?
Kid Kool
tom walls wrote:
>
>
> For those keeping track, I was speaking tongue-in-cheek about the
> "double secret patterns" but was serious about the "most intense
> scrutiny". What's the emoticon for tongue-in-cheek?
I took you seriously because there was so much coded information going
around, stuff you wanted to say about boss man but didn't want to get
lynched for. Dislocating the beat could have major entendres for people
hip to it and listening closely.
According to Wikipedia, The Font Of All Truth, the emoticon is ;-^).
Rolling eyes is 9_9. Sarcasm is u_u. Wasting too much time on Wikipedia
is zz_@_@^.
Kid Kool
> I really think it's even simpler than that. All the Delta blues guys
> made their living (when not working the fields) in the chicken shacks,
> playing for dancers. The single most important thing was the fat pulse
> - the number of bars was only relevant to the words. That's my take,
> anyway.
>
Yeah, I'd go along with that big time. Someone like Lightnin Hopkins
had a story to tell, and what concerned him was that the line scanned
and was legible. The form was malleable to suit the needs of the story.
For me, that's early early blues, like you say. Later guys like Son
House used that and also made up various forms that were not malleable,
where the lyric was made to fit the form. And from listening to them I
get the sense that all those options were open, sometimes within the
same song, but generally used as a different technique in different
songs. And as someone else posted, they were playing dance music in
juke joints, and that time had to be solid. For me, if jazz [whatever
that might be] gets too far away from its blues and church roots then I
kinda lose interest. Mingus, Miles, Wes, Pops, Bird, Trane, Hodges,
Duke, you name it, they all had it.
KevinW
> john mooney
>
I've had the pleasure on several occasions to see him play.
Bad mofo.
(sometimes a short review is just as effective)
KevinW