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Lesson 19 – Jingle Bell Blues

Smike — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 16:18:41 +0000

Lesson #19: Jingle Bell Blues

It’s not even Halloween yet, so you must be wondering, ‘Where have you been with the lessons?’ and, ‘Why the hell a Christmas song?’ As some of you know, there was an equipment meltdown here at fingerstyle blues central which put things on the back burner for a while. We’re back, albeit in a limited capacity. As for the country blues style arrangement of a Christmas song just think of it this way, there aren’t many recorded Christmas blues songs worth listening too, this one has three chords and a strong melody making it fun to play, and finally, you have two months to learn it so you can impress your friends and loved ones while imbibing heavily on the ‘nog.

This arrangement has two variations for the chorus. The first has a straightforward alternating bass with melody on top. If you find the alternating bass is throwing you, brush up on some finger patterns or try approaching it with more of a Bill Broonzy style by playing a solid rhythm instead of alternating. (ex: on the E chord instead of playing strings 6-4-6-4-6-4-6-4, stay on the 6). The second has a walking bass added to make life difficult. I recommend getting the first chorus down before battling the knucklebuster second variation. As always, take it slow.

A note on the Chords used.

The chord E7(1) may be new to you, it’s a very handy position which you’ll hear often in the playing of Rev Gary Davis. Use your index finger (4th string) to mute the 5th string and you’ll never hit a wrong note. A(1) and B(2) are barre chords with the root played by the thumb. B7(3) is A(2) slid up two frets, the note on the 5th string was added to help smooth out the walking bass line. Look at page one of the transcription if you have no idea what I’m talking about.

This recording may be a little sloppy, but I feel it adds to the overall country blues feel of the piece. At any rate, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Download the transcription here[pdf 984kb]

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Elizabeth Cotten

Smike — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:04:52 +0000

Elizabeth Cotten
1895-1987

Elizabeth Cotten was born Elizabeth Nevills in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Born into a musical family, she began playing her brothers banjo at the age of eight, and soon moved on to the guitar. She taught herself how to play the instrument, but with no conventional knowledge of tunings or techniques she developed her own unique style known as ‘Cotton Style.’ She played the guitar left-handed, using her fingers to play alternating bass patterns and her thumb to pick out the melody. It’s basically Travis picking upside-down. She composed the timeless ‘Freight Train’ at age twelve when she saw a train pass her house, but it wasn’t recorded until 50 years later when she was working as a housekeeper for Pete Seeger who rediscovered her. She performed her first show at the age of 68.

“While working for a brief stint in a department store, Cotten helped a child wandering through the aisles find her mother. The child was Peggy Seeger, and the mother was Ruth Crawford Seeger of the Charles Seeger Family. Soon after this, Elizabeth again began working as a maid, caring for the Seeger’s children Mike, Pete, and Peggy. While working with the Seegers (a voraciously musical family) she remembered her own guitar playing from 40 years prior and picked up the instrument again to start from scratch.”(1)

During the later half of the 1950s, Mike Seeger began making bedroom reel to reel recordings of Cotten’s songs in her house. The culmination of these recordings would later go on the album Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar, which was released on Folkways Records. Since its release, her songs, especially her signature track, “Freight Train,” written when she was 11, have been covered by Peter, Paul, and Mary, Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, Matt Valentine, Laura Veirs, and Taj Mahal. Shortly afterwards, she began playing selected joint shows with Mike Seeger, the first of which was in 1960 at Swarthmore College. One of her songs, “Ain’t Got No Honey Baby Now,” was a Blind Boy Fuller song recorded under the title of “Lost Lover Blues” in 1940.”(2)

Click here to read our article Freight Train Derailed

Recommended Listening:

As with a lot of the musicians discussed here, its hard to identify any one album as ‘definitive,’ they all have something to offer, even if it’s alternate versions of songs you already know. Elizabeth Cotten’s case is no different, but to cut straight to the heart of her playing we feel these two albums cover everything you need. Completists need not worry, there is a plethora of material to collect.

Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes

Recorded in her bedroom in 1957 by the Seeger’s, this album truly captures the spirit and feel of Elizabeth’s music and technique. A must have.

Shake Sugaree

This 26 track compilation of recordings from ’65-’66 contains 10 previously unreleased tracks and captures Elizabeth in her glory.

For Further Study:

The Guitar of Elizabeth Cotten

Sources:
(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cotten
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cotten#Later_career_and_recordings

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Lesson 15 – The Caravan Exercise

Smike — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 16:06:18 +0000

The Caravan Exercise

The song Caravan was written by Juan Tizol and recorded by Duke Ellington in 1937. Since then has been performed by thousands of artists in styles ranging from jazz to bluegrass, surf to rap, and everything in between. A lot of people are surprised to learn that there are actually lyrics to this song, as it’s often performed as an instrumental.
The melody is simple yet sounds very exotic, evocative and arresting.

In this simplified arrangement we use only the intro over an alternating bass pattern. It may look and sound simple, and it is – but its actually quite challenging to keep a solid rhythm while letting the melody sing out. For some reason, this piece is very confusing to your fingers. Start slowly, and if it helps try playing the bass and the melody separately until you get a feel for the arrangement, then put them together.

Caravan Excercise

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Blind Blake

Smike — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:16:59 +0000

Blind Blake
Between 1890 and 1895 – Between 1933-1940

Arthur Blake, a.k.a. Blind Blake, was a prolific and talented guitarist who is often referred to as ‘King of the Ragtime Guitar.’ His complex and intricate fingerstyle techniques and diverse repertoire have influenced and inspired generations of players, including
Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Willie McTell. His style is very distinctive and difficult to imitate, owing to his original ‘rolling thumb’ technique that basically doubles his accompaniment rhythms. He probably owes more to the piano than to any of his guitar contemporaries. Very little is known of his life, and there is only one known photograph in existence.

His birthplace is listed as Jacksonville, Florida by Paramount records, but even this can’t be substantiated, others argue he was born on the Georgia Sea Islands. Nothing is known of his death, and even his name has been disputed, some claim his real name was Arthur Phelps.

Blake reportedly moved to Georgia in his late teens and made a living as a street performer, also traveling between Florida and Ohio playing parties, picnics, fish fries and suppers. He began his recording career in 1926, cutting two sides for Paramount Records, West Coast Blues and early Morning Blues, both sold well. He became so popular that Paramount would sometimes release numerous records under his name every month and he eventually went on to record some 80 sides, his best known piece today is arguably Diddy Wah Diddy. When sales began to dwindle in 1929 he began touring with a vaudeville show owned by his friend George Williams called Happy-Go-Lucky, he continued doing this until the early 30’s. He recorded his final songs for Paramount in 1932, when the company went bankrupt.

Details of his death are sketchy, even the year and place can’t be confirmed. There are many different first hand accounts of his demise, ranging from alcoholism, to getting hit by a streetcar, to murder. All that is certain of this mysterious and incredible talent is that he died way too young.

Recommended Listening

As with a lot of the musicians we discuss here, its hard to identify any one album as ‘definitive,’ they all have something unique to offer, and as you know Blind Blake didn’t release albums per se, these are all collections of sides. Here are a few recommendations which highlight some of the highlights, and contain great combinations of his recordings.

The Best of Blind Blake

There are really only two routes to go when embarking on a Blind Blake collection, the ‘best of’ way or the ‘completist’ way. There are various collections available; we feel that this is one of the better best of compilations because it contains some of his best known material, as well as a good selection of lesser known songs. This is the perfect album for discovering this one-of-a-kind talent.

All the Published Sides (Box Set)

For your money, you can’t do any better than this collection from JSP Records. Five CDs containing everything he ever recorded, and nearly the same price as the best of compilations. JSP albums have a tendency to disappear quickly, so if this is what you’re looking for order it as soon as you can. The other option is to collect these as single CD’s through the Complete Recorded Works series, but unless you’re looking for a few specific songs not included on the JSP collection, this is way gets a little too expensive.

For Further Study

Blind Blake by Stefan Grossman/Early Masters of American Blues Guitar (Book & CD)

The Guitar Of Blind Blake by Woody Mann (DVD)

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Blind Willie McTell

Smike — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:47:36 +0000

Willie McTell
1901-1959

Willie McTell was a Piedmont musician, remarkable not only for his powerful, clean and crisp 12-string fingerstyle technique and the ability to jump between ragtime, blues, slide, gospel, country and popular music; but also for his vocals, which sing through clear as a bell. This ability to change styles allowed him to record prolifically, under a variety of pseudonyms.

McTell was born blind in one eye in Thompson, Georgia in 1901. He lost his sight completely by late childhood, quickly learning to read Braille. (Not only did he become an accomplished musical theorist, he was one of the few musicians who could read and write music fluently using Braille.) He had a great aptitude for music early on, and learned to play the guitar very quickly.
His father left when he was still quite young, and his mother died in 1920 leaving him alone. He left his hometown at the age of 19 to become a traveling performer. Very little is known about these years, but somewhere along the way he adopted and mastered the seldom used 12 string guitar, and because of its volume chose to make this his main instrument. He recorded his first sides for Atlanta based Victor Records in 1927.

By the early 30’s McTell was auditioning for every talent scout that came to town using a different alias. He recorded as “Blind Sammie” for Columbia, “Georgia Bill” for OKeh, “Red Hot Willie Glaze” for Bluebird, and “Blind Willie” for Vocalion. He nearly caught his big break when John and Alan Lomax interviewed and recorded him for their Library of Congress collections, but the session was shelved because the Lomax’s didn’t care for his style. (This was posthumously released as Complete Library of Congress Recordings (1940) After his marriage to an army nurse named Ruth Kate Williams in 1934, McTell didn’t slow down and continued traveling and playing, seldom staying home for very long. According to Kate, “He said ‘Baby, I was born a rambler. I’m gonna ramble until I die, but I’m preparing you to live after I’m gone’

Later in life McTell began augmenting his more rough and tumble blues tunes with gospel and spirituals, as if sensing the end was near he wanted to make peace. The resulted in some incredibly soulful and touching gospel music, which contrasted oddly to songs like ‘Southern Can’ which would sometimes show up beside them on his recordings. By 1957 he had given up the blues completely and become a preacher, singing only spirituals.

Although McTell recorded literally hundreds of songs over his career and has inspired and influenced countless musicians, he met with very little commercial success during his lifetime. He died too young, suffering a fatal stroke in Milledgeville, Georgia in 1959. Unfortunately he missed out on the great revivals of the 60’s, his performances would have been legendary.

Recommended Listening:

As with a lot of the musicians we discuss here, its hard to identify any one album as ‘definitive,’ they all have something to offer, even if it’s alternate versions of songs you already know. Here are a few recommendations which highlight different aspects of his style, and some of our favorite performances.

Doing that Atlanta Strut 1927-1935

If you’re new to the music of Willie McTell, this is the perfect album to test the waters with. Some of his best recorded sides from his early years, this album includes several gems that somehow didn’t make it to the Classic Years box set. The fire, passion, and technical prowess displayed on this album are unrivaled. From the guitar heroics of the title track Atlanta Strut, to the spine-tingling duet with his wife Ruth Day a.k.a. Ruth Kate Mctell God don’t like it, this is one album that will never stray far from the stereo.

The Classic Years 1927-1940

Perhaps a little overkill for the casual listener, this box set contains a huge collection of his early years recordings, including the Lomax’s Library of Congress Recordings. Great variety and fantastic performances, this captures McTell in his early prime. This is a must have for fans.

Atlanta Twelve String

This is a brilliant set of recordings from the late 40’s, perhaps lacking the fire of youth it more than makes up for it with the fire of experience, refined and powerfully flawless guitar playing, beautiful vocals and the incredible recording quality. A great combination of blues and gospel, and possible some of the greatest performances ever captured of these songs.

Pig ‘N Whistle Red

This is a 50’s era recording of Willie McTell and his occasional partner Curley Weaver, named for the BBQ joint where they used to play for tips. This recording was unheard of until it resurfaced in 1993. The playing and recording quality on this album are excellent, one of the best sounding recordings from his career. The interplay and precision between the playing and vocals of McTell and Weaver is a thing of beauty. A rare glimpse into the later years of his career, this album contains some interesting takes on some old standards and some of his originals.

For Further Study:

The Guitar of Blind Willie McTell 12-string blues & ragtime guitar (DVD) by Ernie Hawkins

Hand Me My Travelin’ Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell