Off Topic Saints Not606 Music Thread

http://www.not606.com/threads/saints-not606-music-thread.349147/page-25#post-10769906

Keep up, St G

 

If I know St.G, he did it on purpose.

 

I love the old Delta blues performances from the 1920 / 30's but the more I hear Leadbelly, the less he seems to have to do with the blues. There is an excellent book by Elijah Wald which explores country blues and comes to some startling conclusions that cast doubt on the blues having a grand antiquity and suggests instead many of the performers were recording repertoire influenced by female blues singers like MaRainy and Mamie Smith from the early twenties. Wald sees these musicians as actually being pretty contemporary at the time and not necessarily recording only blues. Put in this context, Leadbelly is tapping into something that predates the blues and, for me, pitches him more towards folk music.

This is one of my favourites and sadly under-rated in my opinion. Probably the best of the Piedmont picking style guitarists: -

 

On this day in 1942 the very first local pop idol, Heinz Burt, was born. He was plucked from obscurity from his job slicing bacon in a Southampton grocery by the hit maker of the day, record producer, Joe Meek.
He played bass on the number one smash instrumental hit, Telstar, by the Tornadoes...

Meek then decided that Heinz had the look to be a solo star. Just Like Eddie, a tribute to the late Eddie Cochran, reached #5 in the charts....

(A young Ritchie Blackmore played guitar on this record)


Success was short lived however, with the advent of The Beatles and other Beat bands, Heinz returned to the area and suffered from motor-neurone disease in his later years where he resided on International Way on Weston estate until he passed away in 2000 aged 57.

 

Oh yeah, I agree that Lead Belly was more than just a bluesman, he was singing songs with social commentary akin to Woody Guthrie, that doesn't diminish his achievements IMO.

 

It is fascinating to plough back in to the past and see that before black artists were recording, there was not too great a difference to the music that their white counterparts were producing. This is a genuine crossover but Wald's book ( which you can still get hold of very cheaply on Amazon) makes the point of black audiences beginning to listen increasingly to black artists through the 20s - 40's. You get the impression of the loosening of the black community's affection for the likes of Leadbelly who was really rediscovered and then feted by a white (and politically Left-leaning) audience.

Leadbelly is interesting insofar that his music predates the more genuine blues players of the 20's. I love the idea that there are vestiges of earlier music in the playing of people like Rev Garry Davis, Blind Blake and Mississippi John Hurt which can be clearly demonstrated or even the recollection of historical events such as you find in Blind Willie Johnson who recorded as much religious material as genuine blues. Wald's book is brilliant and really constructs a different picture with blues musicians not actually harking back to earlier styles but endeavouring to remain contemporary so that an artist like this had really started to supplant the likes of McTell by the 1930's in popularity. Oddly, these players were often seen as not being authentic by white critics in the 1960's although they had a huge following in their day amongst their target black audience. Ward really demonstrates that it is the white audience who have dictated what is and what is not considered to be authentic blues playing and raised the status of the likes of Leadbelly who did not enjoy a following amongst the black audience.. I must admit, I much prefer Leroy Carr even if I suspect you might consider him to have been a bit commercial. Quite like his understated piano playing.

 

Must admit , I can't recall a song with Tuesday in the title , I could google , but that would be cheating . The only one I know was posted by Archers yesterday ( RS Ruby Tuesday ) .

 

Bowling for Soup, Cold Shower Tuesday

 

Then just the obvious ones first, Tuesday Afternoon. From the LP, Days of Future Passed:

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Tbh, that's pretty much all I've got...

 

This is probably my least favourite track on the excellent Talking Book album which has some of the best songs that Stevie has produced, such as Big Brother, I Believe and Superstition....

 

I have to post this as well, a wonderful cover of the Lou Reed classic Sweet Jane...

 

Can't let the Cowboy Junkies pass by without playing this.....

 

Thought I had better get in early with this.

Always been a fan of Andy Kirk's band and their pianist Mary Lou Williams who started her career in the 1920's when she was 14 and then went on to give lessons to Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell.

 

This tune is a real earworm and difficult to get out of your head when you hear it:-

 

This trio features three musicians who I think should be much better known although Nicole Mitchell and Tomeka Reid are starting to be discovered by the more mainstream jazz audience despite being around for a few years.

 

Don't know what brought this to mind, maybe it should have gone on Virgil's thread.
Saw them at the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen many years ago, down to London the next day for my birthday and met their sax man in the bar my daughter worked in. It got a bit messy!

 

One the the best live bands I've seen, up there with Gino and a few other notables

 

Bit of a novelty here. It appears that Les Reed has been double timing us. The sneaky multi talented bugger. The Last Waltz. Hopefully, not for a long time to come! :