A fine fellow guitarist finally stopped by the other day to share some tunes and talk. The first thing he wanted to know about was my version of "One Kind Favor" that I played awhile back on Live 95 Breakfast Jam.
See, he'd heard the 60's folk trio 'Peter, Paul, & Mary" perform it, and then more recently B.B. King's Grammy-award winning performance of the same classic tune. . . so where did I come up with my version? And after telling him it's from a recording of the immortal Blind Lemon Jefferson, he asked where Blind Lemon picked up the tune from.
I'm sure he meant well, but comments like this sometimes leave me mortified. If you actually listen to Blind Lemon singing and playing this tune http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX3mxjtpyBc you will readily understand that this man is most likely the originator of the song. This is circa 1928, a very infantile period in recorded music, decades previous to multi-track recording and guitar tabs on the internet; Who (I ask) would have handed this song down to him in this particular form?
It seems to me that even if this was a traditional, Blind Lemon put his own indelible thumbprint on this tune. If the tune doesn't grab you, well, "different strokes for different folks" I say, but you show me someone else with the type of mastery exhibited in playing those guitar licks and phrasings while singing those lines, and I'll show you a man/woman (That's right -- political correctness since 1981, friends. . .) who's done his/her homework.
You know, this happens all the time with the blues. It's a well-known fact that the early bluesmen swapped tunes around like sports trading cards, but that's not my point here. My point is the lack of understanding about the blues and its origins by the so-called spokespeople of the genre, and the total disregard for the true originators of the music.
Never mind Robert Johnson and all the mutations of his tunes through the years-- that's fairly well-known information. Here are a few other cases in point:
Skip James, 'I'm So Glad' -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcaH-U4x-T0
Cream, same title -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTZ4IYPy_cE
I often wonder what Eric Clapton was thinking as he was stripping the gears on this marvelous impresario of guitar mastery.
And again:
Blind Willie Johnson, "Nobody's Fault But My Own" -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_o4omd8T5c
Led Zeppelin, Same title -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esZ15n6_5JY
Well, one thing you can say for The Zep -- They sure knew how to pick 'em.
If your prefer the rockers' versions in these examples, that's your right. But to insist that you're "into the blues" by referencing Eric, the Jimmies, and Janis. . . well your history is worse than your hearing.
I would be the first to admit that a heavy dose of the early bluesmen's music can have you wondering if you just heard the same song the track before last. These guys (sorry Ladies -- except for Elizabeth Cotton there are few female instrumentalists/composers during this era), for all their enormous talent and presence, tended to be "one trick ponies" that had only one turning for a guitar and a melodic range of about 4-5 notes.
Furthermore, their sound is often anything but sonorous. At first you might cringe and want to stand back apiece, wondering what that was all about, but then that emotion starts splashing around again, and the next thing you know your standing on that slippery river bank, all set to fall in.
And that's the way it is with the blues. They never went around begging for someone to listen. They aren't ashamed to borrow, nor afraid to improvise on what they've got. They tend to humble imitators, glorify originators. They are genuine, defying our descriptions, making us suddenly wonder what the hell we're even talking about.
See, he'd heard the 60's folk trio 'Peter, Paul, & Mary" perform it, and then more recently B.B. King's Grammy-award winning performance of the same classic tune. . . so where did I come up with my version? And after telling him it's from a recording of the immortal Blind Lemon Jefferson, he asked where Blind Lemon picked up the tune from.
I'm sure he meant well, but comments like this sometimes leave me mortified. If you actually listen to Blind Lemon singing and playing this tune http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX3mxjtpyBc you will readily understand that this man is most likely the originator of the song. This is circa 1928, a very infantile period in recorded music, decades previous to multi-track recording and guitar tabs on the internet; Who (I ask) would have handed this song down to him in this particular form?
It seems to me that even if this was a traditional, Blind Lemon put his own indelible thumbprint on this tune. If the tune doesn't grab you, well, "different strokes for different folks" I say, but you show me someone else with the type of mastery exhibited in playing those guitar licks and phrasings while singing those lines, and I'll show you a man/woman (That's right -- political correctness since 1981, friends. . .) who's done his/her homework.
You know, this happens all the time with the blues. It's a well-known fact that the early bluesmen swapped tunes around like sports trading cards, but that's not my point here. My point is the lack of understanding about the blues and its origins by the so-called spokespeople of the genre, and the total disregard for the true originators of the music.
Never mind Robert Johnson and all the mutations of his tunes through the years-- that's fairly well-known information. Here are a few other cases in point:
Skip James, 'I'm So Glad' -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcaH-U4x-T0
Cream, same title -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTZ4IYPy_cE
I often wonder what Eric Clapton was thinking as he was stripping the gears on this marvelous impresario of guitar mastery.
And again:
Blind Willie Johnson, "Nobody's Fault But My Own" -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_o4omd8T5c
Led Zeppelin, Same title -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esZ15n6_5JY
Well, one thing you can say for The Zep -- They sure knew how to pick 'em.
If your prefer the rockers' versions in these examples, that's your right. But to insist that you're "into the blues" by referencing Eric, the Jimmies, and Janis. . . well your history is worse than your hearing.
I would be the first to admit that a heavy dose of the early bluesmen's music can have you wondering if you just heard the same song the track before last. These guys (sorry Ladies -- except for Elizabeth Cotton there are few female instrumentalists/composers during this era), for all their enormous talent and presence, tended to be "one trick ponies" that had only one turning for a guitar and a melodic range of about 4-5 notes.
Furthermore, their sound is often anything but sonorous. At first you might cringe and want to stand back apiece, wondering what that was all about, but then that emotion starts splashing around again, and the next thing you know your standing on that slippery river bank, all set to fall in.
And that's the way it is with the blues. They never went around begging for someone to listen. They aren't ashamed to borrow, nor afraid to improvise on what they've got. They tend to humble imitators, glorify originators. They are genuine, defying our descriptions, making us suddenly wonder what the hell we're even talking about.
