Classic Piedmont Blues From Smithsonian Folkways

Various
Classic Piedmont Blues From Smithsonian Folkways
Smithsonian Folkways

A new acoustic blues compilation from Smithsonian Folkways delves in the archives for the selections on this. Piedmont blues has an easy flow played in a finger-picking style where the guitarist, according to the late John Cephas, uses "thumb and fingers with an alternating thumb and finger style. I keep a constant bass line going with my thumb, and on the treble strings I pick out the melody or the words of the song I'm singing." Cephas is quoted in the cogent booklet with liner notes on the Piedmont blues, and the specific songs included (along with artist biographies), by Barry Lee Pearson.

From the opening John Jackson performance of "Truckin' Little Woman," the delightful Warner Williams performance, "Hey Bartender There's a Big Bug in My Beer" with Kentucky flatpicker Eddie Pennington, several performances of Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, Baby Tate's wonderful "If I Could Holler Like a Mountain Jack," along with the incomparable Rev. Gary Davis' instrumental "Mountain Jack," John Cephas and Phil Wiggins' rendition of Blind Boy Fuller's "Mamie," Elizabeth Cotton's "Going Down The Road Feeling Bad," Pink Anderson's "Meet Me in the Bottom," to the closing tribute by Archie Edwards to his friend  Mississippi John Hurt, "The Road Is Rough and Rocky," this is marvelously played music by some of the style's  finest artists.

There are also included a few performances by old-time music artists such as Hobart Smith, Doc Watson and Roscoe Holcomb, and as Pearson notes there was plenty of musical interaction between such a artists with Black artists. One of my finest memories of John Jackson was him playing old-time string band music with former musical students of him and it is unfortunate that none of the performances he and Doc Watson performed together at The Smithsonian Folklife Festival have been issued as they would have made this wonderful collection even better.

I do note that the Archie Edwards performance had been previously issued on the similarly theme Smithsonian-Folkways collection "Classic Appalachian Blues" and it is unfortunate another performance by him was not chosen. Still this is a first-rate collection of this blues style.

I purchased this recording. Here is the late John Jackson performing.

Kelly Carmichael's "Queen Fareena" Recalls Skiffle Bands

With an interest in both acoustic blues and old time string band music, one-time hard rock guitarist, Kelly Carmichael brings this unusual background to his skittle band styled performances on his new release Queen Fareena (Doghouse Records).

Carmichael was born in Tennessee, raised near Atlanta and lived near Frederick, Maryland since 1980 when he first heard some old country blues. A multi-instrumentalist, he plays guitar, banjo, xylophone and bones on this set with a small rhythm section and accompanists on accordion, fiddle or brass on various tracks, creating a fascinating recording.

The small group arrangements provide fresh, if sometimes messy sounding, settings for songs from Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis, Robert Johnson, Blind Blake and others. Hurt’s Richmond Women Blues, opens and Brad Simms’ accordion gives it some Louisiana spice, while Gary Davis’ She’s Funny That Way, features some traditional jazz sounding brass. Robert Johnson’s Last Fair Gone Down, is done almost as a strutting ragtime string band piece with nice fiddle by Alexander Mitchell. Rev. Davis’ Cincinnati Flow Rag also sports trumpet and trombone providing a somewhat cluttered accompaniment.

Salty Dog, credited to John Hurt, is an old standby of the traditional jazz field and bluegrass, but Papa Charlie Jackson’s medicine band-hokum recording is evoked by the jazzy here, with Scott Rich’s muted trumpet effective, with more of the same flavor on Come On Boys Let’s Do That Messin’ Around, and Sylvester Weaver’s Guitar Rag, has a bit of old time country flavor with Carmichael’s dobro playing and Mitchell’s fiddle.

Carmichael is an adept musician, and a capable singer but many of the performances would have benefited from a bit less cluttered backing (the drummer might have played lighter and simpler accompaniments for example). Even if not compelling, Queen Fareena, will appeal to many including fans of skiffle band music and the revivalist jug bands of the folk revival. This cd is available at cdbaby.com.

This review was written in 2009 (and a few minor changes made) but I do not believe it was ever published. My review copy was provided by a publicist.

Mary Flower Loves Company

The marvelous blues and roots fingerstyle guitarist-vocalist, Mary Flower, has a new release Misery Loves Company (Yellow Dog Records). The title refers to the fact that eleven of the twelve performances here are duets with other musicians (and a vocalist) adding support to her guitar and vocals. It is a wonderful addition to her discography.

Whether performing a blues or a rag, Mary Flower plays wonderfully with an easy flowing approach to her music. When performing a deep Chicago blues, such as Muddy Waters’ Hard Day Blues or Son House’s Death Letter Blues, she recasts the song into a Piedmont styled blues, while adding her honey-toned vocals. Her vocal strikes this listener as more successful on the former number (with Curtis Salgado adding some nice harp), although the slide guitar and guitar interplay between her and Alan Hager is marvelous. Recession Rag, is a delightful instrumental duet with mandolinist Brian Oberlin, while Jitters is a lovely duet with tuba player Mark Vehrencamp that with Mary channelling Blind Blake in her deft playing here.

Colin Linden adds electric dobro her atmospheric Way Down in the Bottom, (where darkness meets despair), while LaRonda Steele adds a harmony vocal to Mary’s exquisite rendition of Reverend Gary Davis’ Goin’ To Sit Down On The Banks Of River, with an accompaniment that displays how ably she has mastered the music of this legendary giant. Her son Jesse Withers plays bass while she displays her cleanly articulated slide playing on Tampa Red’s Boogie Woogie Dance, while pianist David Frishberg adds some bop-infused piano on the delightful I’m Dreaming Of Your Demise, about her beady-eyed, devious man who spouts nasty lies. Mary’s music possesses some of the same qualities that Elizabeth Cotten’s music had so its no surprise that she so ably interprets Shake Sugaree, where Johnny B Connolly embellishes her vocal and fingerstyle wizardry with his button accordion.

A solo rendition of Scrapper Blackwell’s Scrapper’s Blues is the last selection on her latest recording. Mary Flower continues to delight blues and roots fans with a recording that continues to demonstrate that she remains one of the finest fingerstyle guitarists. Also her vocals flow as natural as her finger picking.

My review copy was provided by Yellow Dog Records.

Rev. Gary Davis 1952 Recordings Newly Issued

One of the masters of acoustic finger-style guitar in the Piedmont tradition, the legendary Reverend Gary Davis exerted considerable influence on a whole variety of musicians who had the opportunity to see him and perform. There has plenty of Gary Davis albums that are available including a Yazoo reissue of his early recordings (including some secular sides), albums on Smithsonian Folkways, Prestige Bluesville, and more. Shanachie has a marvelous 3-CD box of various live performances from the late fifties and early sixties and various anthologies contain examples of his spectacular holy blues.

Field Recorders Collective is an group of collectors who have recorded mostly old-time string-band music but have issued some cajun and creole recordings. In 2009 they released a CD of the music of Dink Roberts, a banjo player whose music as a link between the African-American traditions and Appalachian styles. Among the five releases for 2010 is one of Reverend Gary Davis, “1952 Wire Recordings from the Collection of John Cohen.” Cohen, who founded the New Lost City Ramblers with Mike Seeger & Tom Paley in 1958, was introduced to Davis at a 1950 Leadbelly concert and with his brother Mike, he made these wire recordings of Davis at Davis’ Harlem home in 1952. These recordings, accordingly, predate the 1953 tape recordings of Davis that have been issued on Smithsonian Folkways.

There will be few surprises among the songs or the performances of Davis on this recording which opens up with “I Am a True Vine” and concludes with “Twelve Gates to the City.” Among the highlights to these ears are “Please Don’t Drive Your Children Away” and his fervent rendition of “I’m Gonna Meet You At The Station,” both with plenty of his cleaned picked playing and hoarse shouted vocals. On a few tracks the spoken encouragement and vocals of McKinley Peeples are held as on the brief instrumental rendition of “Cocaine.” It is Peeples who takes the lead vocal and guitar on “I See the Sign of Judgement” where he salutes Gary Davis in his lyric, while the roots of Blind Boy Fuller and his musical followers are evident in “Tell Me, John,” with some brilliant picking here. Given the source of this material, the sound is acceptable although the treble end is a bit muffled. While there are other places to start with the music of Reverend Davis, this will be welcomed by his many fans and fans of fingerstyle guitar.

This can be obtained from Field Recorders’ Collective at their website, www.fieldrecorder.com. It is packaged in a mini-lp jacket with brief notes on Davis and the source of this disc.

I purchased this disc.

Andy Cohen Has Deep Blues Roots

Andy Cohen has been playing older music styles on guitar, piano, dolceola and assorted instruments for several decades now and has a number of recordings over the year. His latest disc is “Built Right On The Ground,” on Earwig which ranges from stomping boogie woogie, Reverend Gary Davis influenced guitar rags, Memphis Minnie songs and a Woody Guthrie talking blues. On several tracks his is joined by his wife, Larkin Bryant on vocals and mandolin, or Kurt Anderson on vocal and guitar. As William Lee Ellis observes, “He had certainly been every bit the standard-bearer if not an outright genius when it comes to the interpretation of prewar blues and gospel music."


And what a choice of songs starting from the opening title track which was recorded eighty odd years ago from Blind Teddy Darby that captures the flavor of the original recording but with his deft picking and wonderfully delivered vocal comes out as his own. His updating of Sam McGee’s old-timey blues, “Railroad Blues,” features impressive picking along with an amusing lyric about voting for Obama because his mama told him to. I wonder how many who do their flashy Robert Johnson covers could do such a nice rendition of Henry Spaulding’s “Cairo Blues,” which is wonderfully paced and as well as sung. There is a credible, if hardly spectacular, rendition of Meade Lux Lewis’ “Honky Tonk Train Blues,” which illustrates his versatility as a musician. Cohen especially is adept at numbers that features fingerpicking in the vein of the Piedmont tradition, but also he is able to channel the facile, rhythmic playing of a Furry Lewis and Memphis Minnie as displayed on his interpretation of “Soo Cow Soo.” On “Jim Dickinson Stomp,” dedicated to the late musician and producer, he plays some lovely guitar in the Memphis style as well as the dolceola, followed by the sentimental Jimmie Rodgers tune “My Old Pal,” where Kurt Anderson takes the vocal (and the two collaborate on another Rodgers sentimental tune, “Miss the Mississippi and You”). “Temptation Rag,” was a piano piece (also recorded by reed players, Sidney Bechet and Benny Goodman), that gets a lovely and adept, guitar treatment in the manner of Gary Davis, which Cohen also gives Jelly Roll Morton’s “Grandpa’s Spells.” There is also a jaunty take on Big Bill Broonzy’s “Mopper Blues.” He returns to piano for a lively “Shake-a-You-Boogie,” which he learned from Blind Jim Brewer, “Shake a Boogie” (which likely was derived from John Lee ‘Sonny Boy’ Williamson, and “Too Fat Boogie”). Cohen treats us with the amusing Woody Guthrie “Mean Talkin’ Blues,” before he and his wife (who is on mandolin) close out this CD with a marvelous rendering of the late Bobby Charles’ “Tennessee Blues.”


I agree with William Lee Ellis that in a perfect world, Andy Cohen would be as famous as Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder. “Built Right On The Ground,” showcases not simply how good a player he is and the extensiveness of his repertoire, but also the warmth and genuineness of his vocals. This recording is a must for lovers of acoustic and traditional blues.


This review has appeared in Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 327, July 2010) and the review copy was provided by the firm doing publicity for Earwig Records releases.