Blues You Should Know

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One of the most interesting characters in genre full of interesting characters was J.B. Long of North Carolina. Long was a shopkeeper who, for reasons we may never fully understand, made recording great bluesmen a hobby/passion/obsession. In the summer of 1935 Long, along with his wife and baby girl, drove Blind Boy Fuller, Rev. Gary Davis, and George Washington (Bull City Red) to New York where they made their first recordings. Davis's records did nothing commercially, but Fuller's sold well, and Long made many more subsequent trips with Fuller and other artists including Floyd Council and Brownie McGee. With Fuller, Long acted as a manager and collaborator, insisting that Fuller continue writing original songs, often polishing them and finishing the lyrics himself. Long never received any pay for his work other than reimbursement for auto expenses.

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Known today mainly for his sensitive and evocative compositions like Hit the Road Jack, Please Send Me Someone to Love, and Rivers Invitation, Percy Mayfield began his career as a big band vocalist of the Bronze Baritone genre, until a serious auto accident nearly killed him, disfigured his face, and ended his career as a matinee idol/singing heartthrob. After his recovery, he continued his career as a songwriter writing hit records for others and making the occasional recording himself.

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Every blues fan knows about the three Kings of the Blues, Albert, BB & Freddie, but we're going to add two more: Saunders King and Earl King. In Part 2 we explore the music and life of Earl King of New Orleans. Earl was a singer, guitarist, songwriter, record producer and mentor to dozens of young New Orleans musicians. He may be best known for his two part record, Come On, also known as Let the Good Times Roll , recorded by Jimi Hendrix and many more. His first hit was another New Orleans standard, Those Lonely, Lonely Nights, and he's said to have written the classic Big Chief, a tribute to his mother, a well-known Mardi Gras figure.

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We kick off season three with a special program about blues from my home-town, Cleveland, Ohio. We start by explaining why Cleveland has never the blues center that Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, or Mississippi were, then move on to feature some great musicians either born in Cleveland or who lived a significant portion of their lives here. Cow Cow Davenport, Montana Taylor, Bullmoose Jackson, Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Wallace Coleman, Travis Haddix, Kristine Jackson, and, of course, Mr. Stress. Check 'em out of this episode of Blues You Should Know, always free and available on your favorite podcast platform.

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The community of Brownsville, Tennessee lies about 60 miles or so just East of Memphis, just a short ways off of Highway 40, the long interstate that runs the entire width of Tennessee from North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains to the Mississippi River. Brownsville, whose population was roughly ten thousand at the last census, has recently come to recognize two of its most accomplished offspring. Located in the former Flagg Grove School, once a one-room schoolhouse for “colored” children, is the Tina Turner Museum. Immediately nextdoor, and also maintained as a public attraction, is the tiny home, a cottage or really a shack, once lived in by Brownsville’s other great artist, the blues singer Sleepy John Estes. Both Estes and Turner, by the way, actually grew up in Ripley aka./Nutbush, an unincorporated community adjacent to Brownsville once populated almost exclusively by black residents.

At the time of Tina Turner’s birth in 1939, Sleep John, born either in 1899 or 1900-no one’s really sure, was already in the middle of a recording and performing career that extended from 1929 right up to his death in 1977.

As a child in Ripley/Nutbush, John, like so many bluesmen before and after him, helped out on his family’s share-crop cotton farm and tried to pick out tunes on a homemade cigar box guitar. After a particularly productive season his mother awarded John for his hard work on the farm by buying him a real guitar.

For the first decade or so of his musical career, John, along with his “Brownsville Gang” which included harmonica player Hammie Nixon, mandolinist Yank Rachell, jug and piano player Jab Jones, and guitarists Son Bonds and Charlie Pickett, performed and traveled throughout the Western Tennesssee area often performing in Memphis.

In 1929 Victor Records talent scout Ralph Peer arranged for John’s first recording session, a three-day affair, which produced one of his most well known songs Diving Duck Blues as well as five others. Legend has it that the gang followed the sessions with a week long binge of drinking, gambling and whoring in West Memphis, the wide-open mostly black community located just across the river from Memphis proper.

The following year, 1930 saw John and his gang recording another fourteen songs. John, it seemed, was a highly prolific songwriter.

Three things distinguish the music of Sleepy John Estes. First, was his guitar playing. It wasn’t very good. Many have described his playing as “thrashing”. But while John certainly wasn’t in a class with virtuosos like Blind Blake or Big Bill Broonzy, his playing did have a strong propulsive quality that served his music well. He usually played in standard tuning in the key of G, or in G position with a capo.

Second, was his “crying” vocal style that made him sound like an old man long before he was one.

The final quality that sets his music apart and was his songwriting; his ability to craft a musical story. While many of John’s songs concern the usual blues subject matter, ie whiskey and women, John was also a chronicler of people and events around him. He wrote about people he knew, people he worked for, people he dealt with and people he admired.

In Liquor Store Blues John sings his admiration for the man he buys hootch from:

Now if you're ever in Forrest City, I'll tell you what to do
Let Mr. Peter Adams get acquainted with you
Well, you won't have to go, well, you won't have to go
You can get what you want, oh, right here in my liquor store

In Brownsville Blues, John sings the praises of local mechanic Vassar Williams:

Now, he can straighten your wires, you know Vassar can grind your valves
Now, he can straig

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