[net.music.gdead] Walking Blues/Roots

cower@columbia.UUCP (Rich Cower) (06/25/85)

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Chips Miller, a good taper/Deadhead/friend of mine sent this to me.
Chips is the really tall guy who carries a case that some folks have
described as a "typewriter case". If you see him at any of the shows,
say hi. He makes GREAT tapes!

The following is a little background info on one of the bands recent covers
"Walking Blues", that was introduced at the 06/16/85 Greek show...what a
weekend!  That third show certainly had something special :-)  I digress.
Most of this was excerpted from the cover notes of the Columbia recording,
CL 1654, ROBERT JOHNSON - KING OF THE DELTA BLUES SINGERS.  
 
"Robert Johnson is little, very little more than a name on aging index cards
and a few dusty master records in the files of a phonograph company that no
longer exists.  A country blues singer from the Mississippi Delta that brought
forth Son House, Charlie Patton, Bukka White, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker,
Robert Johnson appeared and disappeared, in much the same fashion as a sheet of
newspaper twisting and twirling down a dark and windy midnight street.  First
he was brought to a makeshaft recording studio in a San Antonio hotel room.  A
year later, he was recording again, this time in back of a Dallas office
building.  Then he was gone, dead before he reached his twenty-first birthday,
poisoned by a jealous girl friend..."

The notes go on to mention that blues historians have little in the way of
detail to document Johnson's career and life.  Seems like he managed to get
himself and his guitar stomped by the local San Antonio constabulary when he
was brought there to record by American Record Corporation's A & R man, Don
Law.

"...Don Law remembers him as slender, handsome, of medium height, with beauti-
ful hands and a remarkable ability to project while he was singing or playing
guitar.  Law also recalls that Johnson was an extremely shy young man.  He
asked him to play guitar for a group of Mexican musicians gathered in a hotel 
room where the recording equipment had been set up.  Embarrassed and suffering
from a bad case of stage fright, Johnson turned his face to the wall, his back
to the Mexican musicians.  Eventually, he calmed down sufficiently to play, but
he never faced his audience..."

"Walking Blues" has been covered by a number of artists.  Ones that immediately
come to mind are Bonnie Raitt, Jorma Kaukonen, and  The Paul Butterfield Blues
Band.  Another of Johnson's works that you might recognise as having been
popularized by a contemporary group of the late 60's was "Crossroads Blues".

andrew@grkermi.UUCP (George L. Tirebiter) (06/27/85)

In article <758@columbia.UUCP> cower@columbia.UUCP (Rich Cower) writes:
>The following is a little background info on one of the bands recent covers
>"Walking Blues"...
> 
>"Robert Johnson is little more than a name on aging index cards..."
>
>"Walking Blues" has been covered by a number of artists.  Ones that immediately
>come to mind are Bonnie Raitt, Jorma Kaukonen, and  The Paul Butterfield Blues
>Band.  Another of Johnson's works that you might recognise as having been
>popularized by a contemporary group of the late 60's was "Crossroads Blues".

Several other recent covers of Robert Johnson songs (comparatively recent,
anyway... after all, he died in 1938):

	"Ramblin' On My Mind" - John Mayall/Eric Clapton (EC's first vocal)
	"Four Until Late" - Cream (lead vocal: EC again)
	"Steady Rollin' Man" - Eric Clapton
	... and need I remind you who sang Cream's "Crossroads"?

	"Stop Breakin' Down" - Rolling Stones

	"Kind Hearted Woman" - George Thorogood


George Tirebiter (your only logical choice)
Camden N-200-R