A large number of the films on the Folkstreams are available for viewing as streams directly from their site.
I urge you to leave this site immediately and head over to Folkstreams and watch as much as you possibly can, buy DVDs and books and support this unparallelled resource.

I’ve highlighted just a few nuggets buried in the goldmine at Folkstreams.net that might be of interest to some of the blues music enthusiasts who frequent our site. If you look around you’ll also find documentaries on Arthur “Peg Leg Sam” Jackson, George “Kid Shiek” Colar, Gospel singers, gandy dancers, Fife and drum players including Otha Turner, Sonny Terry, Emanuel ‘Manny’ Sayles, Zydeco, New Orleans Jazz, and even Pete Seeger’s film about the Singing Fishermen of Ghana.

The Land Where the Blues Began

The Land Where the Blues Began is one of five films made from footage that Alan Lomax shot between 1978 and 1985 for the PBS American Patchwork series (1991). A self-described “song-hunter,” Alan Lomax traveled the Mississippi Delta in the 1930s and 40s, at first with his father John Lomax, later in the company sometimes of black folklorists like John W. Work III, armed with primitive recording equipment and a keen love of the Delta’s music heritage. Crisscrossing the towns and hamlets, jook joints and dance halls, prisons and churches, Lomax recorded such greats as Leadbelly, Fred McDowell, and Muddy Waters, all of whom made their debut recordings with him.

In the late 1970s Lomax returned with filmmaker John Bishop and black folklorist Worth Long to make the film The Land Where the Blues Began.

Preview:

Give My Poor Heart Ease: Mississippi Delta Bluesmen

An account of the blues experience through the recollections and performances of B.B. King, Son Thomas, inmates from Parchman prison, a barber from Clarkesdale, a salesman from Beale Street, and others.

Give My Poor Heart Ease is one of a series of films made in Mississippi in the mid 1970s by William Ferris and the Center for Southern Folklore and produced in association with Howard Sayre Weaver. This field work is the basis for Ferris’s 2009 book Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues.

Trailer:

Blues Houseparty: Music, Dance and Stories by Masters of the Piedmont Blues

Some of America’s greatest traditional blues masters get together at home to swap songs from the old days and stories of waht those days were like, when blues flourished ‘back down home’ at country breakdowns, corn-shuckings and houseparties. These musicians and their friends create the lively spirit of houseparty blues, while conveying the values, the history, the good and bad times, and the sense of community that gave form to their music and dance (Blurb by Dick Spottswood)

Featuring: John Cephas, Phil Wiggins, Archie Edwards, John Jackson, James Jackson, Cora Jackson, Flora Molton, Larry Wise, John Dee Holeman, and Quentin ‘Fris’ Holloway.

Trailer:

Toot Blues

In the late 1980s, Timothy Duffy, a penniless North Carolina musicology student, set out to document and preserve traditional southern roots and blues music. On his travels from Winston-Salem’s drinkhouse music scene, an off-the-grid hotbed of gritty traditional blues, to deep-south family run churches, he found purpose and inspiration from a cast of amazingly talented, pure and unique set of characters (the artists!!).

Toot Blues remarkably captures the true essence and talent of the artists from Guitar Gabriel, a ‘homeless magic potion selling’ blues genius; to Willa Mae Buckner, a snake charming elderly woman taunting delightfully raunchy blues; to Beverly ‘Guitar’ Watkins, a grandmother who continues to tear up the stage and play a killer electric guitar behind her head; to Bishop Dready Manning and family churning out homebrewed rockabilly-gospel; to Boo Hanks, an 80 year-old bluesman recording an album for the very first time; to blind guitarist, Cootie Stark, mesmerizing crowds world-wide while never failing to find his way home by himself.
Trailer:

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March 15, 1912 — January 30, 1982

“People have learned how to strum a guitar, but they don’t have the soul. They don’t feel it from the heart. It hurts me. I’m killin’ myself to tell them how it is.”
-Lightnin’ Hopkins, 1968 Interview

Sam ‘Lightnin’ Hopkins was a very influential Texas Blues musician whose songs have inspired everyone from the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn to The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and many points in between. Hopkins began his career in the 1920’s and for the next sixty years barely altered inimitable his style.

Sam’s father died while he was still a young child. He was taught how to play guitar by his older brother Joel, his first instrument a cigar box guitar with chicken wire strings. When he was eight years old he met and befriended Blind Lemon Jefferson, who encouraged him and gave him some playing tips. He shadowed Jefferson, following him to church socials where he would play along with his cigar box guitar. He was soon playing with his older cousin, the formidable Texas Alexander. When Hopkins hit his teens he became a traveling bluesman, hopping trains, gambling and busking on street corners throughout the state. This rough and tumble lifestyle landed him in jail in the mid 30’s.

Upon his release he began playing with his cousin Alexander once again, but money was tight all around and they were both forced to take a series of day jobs. The pair finally had their first big break in 1946 when they were offered a recording contract with Aladdin Records. On the day of the session, only Sam showed up at the studio where he accompanied the pianist Wilson ‘Thunder’ Smith on the song ‘Katie Mae.’ The duo were billed as ‘Thunder and Lightnin,’ a moniker which stuck with Hopkins for the rest of his career. He eventually cut nearly 50 sides for Aladdin Records, while at the same time moonlighting with other record companies on the side.

Lightnin’ Hopkins toured and recorded prolifically until the mid 50’s when the new Chicago electric blues began to make his acoustic style appear old fashioned. In 1959, a young blues enthusiast named Sam Charters managed to track him down, and together they recorded ‘The Roots of Lightning Hopkins’ in his apartment, using a guitar he had to borrow. Hopkins had lost none of his intensity, and when the album was released it launched him to legendary status alongside such blues heroes as Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. He began to record again and became incredible prolific, cutting roughly 35 albums in the 60’s for any label that would pay him cash up front. Many of his songs were improvised on the spot, they were what he called ‘air songs,’ composed about whatever was on his mind when he entered the studio.

He finally began to slow down after a car crash in 1970, and died of cancer in 1982 at the age of 79.

Recommended Listening:

All links open in a new window

The Complete Aladdin Recordings

This double album contains 43 incredible late 40′s sides including his recording of Katie Mae.

Gold Star Sessions Volumes 1 & 2

Scorching Texas blues from Hopkins days in Houston in the 50′s.

The Roots of Lightnin’ Hopkins

The 1959 recordings that put Lightnin’ back on the map, includes Penitentiary Blues, Bad Luck and Remembrances of Blind Lemon. This album crackles with energy and emotion, one of my favorites.

Mojo Hand

This Rhino compilation is a great overview of Lightning Hopkins career, the recordings date between 1947 to 1969. The emphasis here is on his earlier work and treads very lightly on the music recorded after his ‘rediscovery.’

Texas Blues

Stunning songs and guitar work from this awesome album composed of sides recorded throughout the sixties.

For Further Study:

Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Blues by Alan B. Govenar

By the time of his death in 1982, Sam ‘Lightnin’ Hopkins was likely the most recorded blues artist in history. This brilliant new biography–the first book ever written about him–illuminates the many contradictions of the man and his myth.

The Guitar Of Lightnin’ Hopkins DVD

by Ernie Hawkins

Offered here are all the basics, many of the secrets and tricks of Lightnin’s deeply accomplished, deceptively simple acoustic Texas boogie guitar style. This lesson features rare video footage of Lightnin from the 1950′s and 1960′s. Lightnin plays the tune and then Ernie analyzes it lick by lick. This video presents a wonderful opportunity to go the source of Texas blues and learn from the master who inspired generations of guitar heroes. Titles include: Pull A Party, Goin Down Slow, Shining Moon, Baby Please Don t Go and Take Me Back.

Lightnin’ Hopkins: Rare Performances 1960-1979 DVD

In 1960, German filmmaker Dietrich Wavzyn captured Lightnin’ on his Houston home turf, and the clips here of him perfoming on the street and in a Houston bar are rare glimpses into his milieu (and the earliest known footage of Hopkins). Seven years later, a relaxed Lightnin’ delivered engaging folk-blues performances for Seattle folklorists, five of which appear here. In 1970 he painted a masterful and entertaining musical self-portrait in eight songs from the Los Angeles PBS shows Boboquivari. Finally, Lightnin’s “lion-in-winter” appearance on Austin City Limits in 1979 shows a still powerful country bluesman disproving the old dog/new tricks adage with a Stratocaster and a wah-wah pedal!

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This song exists in contrasts with a lot of Slim’s material, which was frequently lighter and jocular.

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This is Blind Willie McTell’s stunning rendition of the old Gospel song of the same name. The passion of his vocals is matched by what must be a host of angels helping his hands create miracles on his 12 string. The end result is miraculous, almost as if McTell was letting God know that when he arrived at the pearly gates that he was to be let in on his own terms. It was recorded late in his career, shortly before he gave up the blues and became a preacher, singing only spirituals. In fact his wife recalled that around 1957, “He said he felt like he was coming to the end of his journey, he was coming back to God.” He died two years later at the age of 58, gone to join his friends who’ve gone on to that land, to live in that great mansion.

This recording comes from the album Pig ‘n Whistle Red, recorded in 1950 for Regal Records. It was named for a whites only barbecue place where McTell played requests for tips. This was also his last recording with occasional partner Curley Weaver.

Sending Up my Timber Lyrics

I have a dream that I dream
of my heavenly home
and I know that I’m going there someday
It may be morning, night or noon
I don’t know just how soon
That’s why I’m sending up my timber everyday

There a great consolation
for heartaches and pains
If you just send up some timber
Everyday, Lord everyday
And the hope, that he has given
We know the word of God is true
Pretty white mansion, waiting for you
Oh yes I’m sending up my timber
up to heaven, everyday
oh there’s a mansion
He has prepared there
Lord in Heaven for me
I will join with my friends
Who have gone on to that land
That’s why I’m sending up my timber everyday
Jesus died, oh yes he suffered
for you, Lord and for me
So that a soul so unworthy
Might live, lord might live.
If you just send up some timber
every now, oh and then
You can live in that great mansion
in the wind
Oh yes I’m sending up my timber
up to heaven, everyday
oh there’s a mansion
He has prepared up there
Lord in Heaven for me
I will join with my friends
Who have gone on to that land
That’s why I’m sending up my timber everyday
Transcribed by fingerstyleblues.com

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Thanks to Youtube’s Prewar music for posting this and other pre war gems.

His legacy has been sustained by four songs. “Fishin’ Blues” was covered by Taj Mahal and The Lovin’ Spoonful. “Bull Doze Blues” was recorded by Canned Heat with new lyrics, retitled “Goin’ Up The Country”. Here Thomas’s melody on quills was reproduced note for note by flautist Jim Horn. “Don’t Ease Me In” was covered by the Grateful Dead on their album Go to Heaven; and “Honey Won’t You Allow Me One More Chance” was covered by Bob Dylan (as “Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance”) on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Thomas’s vintage recording of “Don’t Ease Me In” is included on the compilation album The Music Never Stopped: Roots of the Grateful Dead. In 1993 the band Deacon Blue released a song entitled “Last Night I Dreamed Of Henry Thomas” on their Whatever You Say, Say Nothing LP. Wikipedia

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No full albums are available of Floyd Council’s work, but the compilation Carolina Blues, 1937-1947 features six of his performances: “I’m Grievin’ and I’m Worryin’”, “I Don’t Want No Hungry Woman”, “Lookin’ For My Baby”, “I’m Broke and I Ain’t Got a Dime”, “Runaway Man Blues” and “Working Man Blues”.

Born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina to Harrie and Lizzie Council, Floyd began his musical career on the streets of Chapel Hill in the 1920s, performing with two brothers, Leo and Thomas Strowd as “The Chapel Hillbillies”. He recorded twice for ARC at sessions with Blind Boy Fuller in the mid-thirties, all examples of the Piedmont style. He was sometimes promoted as ‘Dipper Boy Council’, and ‘The Devil’s Daddy-in-Law’; but these were likely the invention of record companies, not genuine nicknames.

Council suffered a stroke in the late 1960s which partially paralyzed his throat muscles and slowed his motor skills, but did not significantly damage his cognitive abilities. Folklorist Peter B. Lowry attempted to record him one afternoon in 1970, but he never regained his singing or playing abilities. Accounts say that he remained “quite sharp in mind”.

Council died in 1976 of a heart attack, after moving to Sanford, North Carolina.

Here’s Floyd Council performing Runaway Man Blues:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Boom Boom

This is the classic John Lee Hooker tune, played by the man himself. This isn’t the style of fingerstyle playing we normally feature on this site, but JLH defies categorization, as all good music should. Boom Boom is not only one of Hooker’s most widely known songs, it’s also one of the funnest songs in the world to play. Watch out for a lesson and transcription soon!

Feel free to drop us a line or a comment if you’re dying to play it now, or worse, if we forget.

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Blind Willie Johnson combined the passion of gospel music with the intensity of the blues unlike any other artist. His deep, gravelly vocals soared mightily over his haunted, burning slide guitar, creating a hard-hitting spiritual experience which remains unparalleled. He recorded only 30 sides, mostly adapted from hymns, including Jesus Make up my Dying Bed, Let you Light Shine on Me, Nobody’s Fault but Mine, as well as his masterpiece Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground. It’s impossible to describe this raw, haunted, tortured, ethereal instrumental accompanied by fevered moans, it remains one of the most moving pieces of music ever recorded.

“Blind Willie Johnson was born in 1897 near Brenham, Texas (before the discovery of his death certificate, Temple, Texas had been suggested as his birthplace). When he was five, he told his father he wanted to be a preacher, and then made himself a cigar box guitar. His mother died when he was young and his father remarried soon after her death.
It is thought that Johnson was married twice, first to a woman with the same first name, Willie B Harris, and later to a young singer named Angeline, who was the sister of blues guitarist L.C. Robinson. No marriage certificates have yet been discovered. As Angeline Johnson often sang and performed with him, the first person to attempt to research his biography, Samuel Charters, made the mistake of assuming it was Angeline who had sung on several of Johnson’s records. However, later research showed that it was Johnson’s first wife.

Johnson was not born blind, and, although it is not known how he lost his sight, Angeline Johnson provided the following account to Samuel Charters. She said when Willie was seven his father beat his stepmother after catching her going out with another man. The stepmother then picked up a handful of lye and threw it, not at Willie’s father, but into the face of young Willie.

Johnson remained poor until the end of his life, preaching and singing in the streets of Beaumont, Texas to anyone who would listen. A city directory shows that in 1944, a Rev W J Johnson, undoubtedly Blind Willie, operated the House of Prayer at 1440 Forrest Street, Beaumont, Texas. This is the same address listed on Blind Willie’s death certificate. In 1945, his home burned to the ground. With nowhere else to go, Johnson lived in the burned ruins of his home, sleeping on a wet bed. He lived like this until he contracted pneumonia two weeks later, and died. (The death certificate reports the cause of death as malarial fever, with syphilis as a contributing factor.) In a later interview his wife said she tried to take him to a hospital but they refused to admit him because he was black, while other sources report that, according to Johnson’s wife, his refusal was due to his blindness. Although there is some dispute as to where his grave is, members of the Beaumont community have committed to finding the site and preserving it.” (1)

Video:

No actually footage exists of a BWJ performance. This clip comes from the Wim Wenders’ film “The Soul of a Man” created for the PBS TV series Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues – A Musical Journey produced by Martin Scorcese. The music is performed by Blind Willie Johnson, portrayed by Chris Thomas King ( a formidable blues musician in his own right, he also played Tommy Johnson in the film O’ Brother Where Art Thou?

Recommended Listening:

The Complete Blind Willie Johnson

Honestly, this is all you need. Don’t waste your time with a best of, this contains every track he recorded, and you need to hear them all.

For Further Study:

Revelation, Blind Willie Johnson the Biography by D., N. Blakey

Sources:
(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Willie_Johnson
(2)The Rough Guide to Blues

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