Why aint they no blues thread?

[moevillini]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylwi1uLerVY

maybe not exactly blues, but whatever - - I could see an entire page of Iko Iko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wNSHPQj0W8&feature=related

^ LINK FOR VIDEO ^

(but I'll stop at these two, for now at least...)

 

[bluenote]

This one's dedicated to Hopper during his suspension.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuHyRyM97d4&feature=player_embedded

Take away his sin and give him grace

 

[Hopper]

R. L., he ROCKS, eh, Blue!? I caint BELIEVES aint nobuddy else kept this here excellent thread goin while I wuz in jail, eh? Blue, my time here, it aint long. When my *** gits banned, ya gotta clean take over this here thread, hear? May be my last, so lemme make it a good one....Hmm, howze bout good ole Elmore doin Comin Home, eh?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWoc4cAr0Kk

 

[Hopper]

Yawl aint from round these here parts, is ya, boys?

You can betcho *** Brownie and Sonny done heard that question many a time, eh? Fact, they even kinda done a little tune about it, called "stanger blues." Well, I'm goin back home, if I hafta wears out 99 para shoes....Least when I git there, I won't have these ole stranger blues....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvRB0NWdXVk

It ROCKS, eh!?

 

[Hopper]

Same song, but different--the blues quiz

Blues artists have always borrowed liberally from each other. Certain catchy lines will turn up in tune after tune in an entirely different context, for example. On the other side, a blues tune will sometimes be duplicated in every way but lyrics--same chord progression, same picking, same melody, everything but the words (kinda like the Beach Boys rippin off Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" when they done "Surfin USA," ya know?).

Here's three tunes, all by major blues legends, which are basically note for note identical to other, more often played tunes. I don't even know whose version came first, and don't feel like lookin into it. So, then, anyways, here's the deal:

Listen to these three tunes. If ya be knowwin and likin the blues, they should immediately sound familiar, even if it takes a minute to place exactly where ya done heard it before. The first perv to correctly name the three (more popular) songs they are virtually identical too gits the prize, see?

First up, good ole Memphie Minnie (a star in her own right, but also played with the Memphis Jug Band with the legendary Will Shade on harp, and others, of course):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiRoNuw5x4M&feature=related

Next up, Big Bill Broonzy, doin a tune he called "worryin you off my mind:"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygjruoPJ7hY

Finally the original Sonny Boy (John Lee) Williamson, doin a tune about his girl and his hometown, Jackson, Tennessee:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZcl_epFYaA

Once again, the test is to name the three songs that these songs are stylistically, if not lyrically, identical to. Two of them, or maybe all, I don't remember no more, have already been posted in this here thread.

Anyone? Anybuddy? Bueller?

If ya got any guesses send them to me in a P.M., so ya don't take clues from nobuddy else, and so nobuddy steals your ideas, see?

 

[Hopper]

maybe not exactly blues, but whatever - - I could see an entire page of Iko Iko...(but I'll stop at these two, for now at least...)

Actually it is blues, Mo. Ya got some nerve postin sumthin callin Cyndi Lauper's "the original version," eh? Any deadhead would know the Grateful Dead have been doin the tune for 30-40 years, but even that was long after such greats as Larry Williams ("Dizzy Miss Lizzy," "Slow Down," etc.) from Nawlinz also covered it. Least ya put up the Dixe Cups, who falsely claimed they wrote it, after they recorded it in 1965. In the early 90's they actually sued a guy (and won) for claiming he wrote it. It is in fact an old Nawlinz standard originally written and recorded with Chess Records in 1953 by Sugar Boy Crawford. Dr. John tells the tale in the liner notes of his gumbo album, as follows:

The song was written and recorded back in the early 1950s by a New Orleans singer named James Crawford who worked under the name of Sugar Boy & the Cane Cutters. It was recorded in the 1960s by the Dixie Cups for Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller's Red Bird Records, but the format we're following here is Sugar Boy's original. Also in the group were Professor Longhair on piano, Jake Myles, Big Boy Myles, Irv Bannister on guitar, and Eugene 'Bones' Jones on drums. The group was also known as the Chipaka Shaweez. The song was originally called 'Jockamo,' and it has a lot of Creole patois in it. Jockamo means 'jester' in the old myth. It is Mardi Gras music, and the Shaweez was one of many Mardi Gras groups who dressed up in far out Indian costumes and came on as Indian tribes. The tribes used to hang out on Claiborne Avenue and used to get juiced up there getting ready to perform and 'second line' in their own special style during Mardi Gras. That's dead and gone because there's a freeway where those grounds used to be. The tribes were like social clubs who lived all year for Mardi Gras, getting their costumes together. Many of them were musicians, gamblers, hustlers and pimps.

You can detect the caribbean calypso syncopated kinda beat (just like Bo Diddley) in it, and anyone could guess it was probably of creole origin, not, god forbid, that punk-*** Cyndi Lauper. Here's Dr. John showin (kinda) how it relates to Bo Diddley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JESFMO1Hl4M

The dialect has been traced to Haiti, and West Africa, before that. Sugar Boy didn't know what it meant. He was just repeatin some thangs he heard rival tribes yellin at each other at Mardi Gras in Nawlinz.

More about Sugar Boy HERE.

Thangs, they didn't end up so well for Sugar Boy, ya know? An excerpt:

"Sugar Boy and his band were on their way to a job in North Louisiana in 1963, when state troopers pulled him over for the then-crime of being a black man in a flashy brand-new automobile. One of Louisiana’s “finest” took exception to Sugar Boy’s attitude and proceeded to pistol-whip him on the side of the road. Sugar Boy spent three weeks in the hospital and was incapacitated for two years. He attempted a comeback, but after 1969, he confined his singing to church."

That enough Iko, for ya, eh?

Addendum: No doubt Sugar Boy deserved that beat-down he got. He probably said sumthin totally incomprehensible to the pig, like "Chockamo fe na nay," ya know? Who wouldn't pisto-whup his sorry *** for that, I ax ya?

 

[moevillini]

Actually it is blues, Mo. Ya got some nerve postin sumthin callin Cyndi Lauper's "the original version," eh? ....

I figured that meant she was performing the version as originally written.

So are we supposed to post the answers to your song-sound-alike quiz here? I have a couple in mind.

 

[Hopper]

I figured that meant she was performing the version as originally written.

Well, I spoze that's one way to figure it, but I didn't takes it that way. God only knows, just for example, how many old blues tunes pervs like Led Zeppelin passed off as their own original tunes. Nobuddy who listened to them knowed no better. I don't spect anybuddy who would actually listen to Cynda Lauper know much else neither, know what I'm sayin?

So are we supposed to post the answers to your song-sound-alike quiz here? I have a couple in mind.

Hmmm, that's a good question--one I never even thought about--partly because I didn't really expect no replies, I spoze. I'll go back and put it in the first post to just P.M. me---that way nobuddy gitz influenced by what sumbuddy else done said, ya know?

 

[Boondocksaint27]

Hey Hoppin' John...what do you think about Robert Johnson? Been listening to some of his stuff lately and read a book called Rock and Roll Myths Legends and Curses. Pretty interesting. It goes into the crossroads and Johnson's death. Also talks about Zep, the 27 curse, the Buddy Holly curse, the Allmans, etc... bunch of interesting stuff in there.

 

[Hopper]

Hey Hoppin' John...what do you think about Robert Johnson? Been listening to some of his stuff lately and read a book called Rock and Roll Myths Legends and Curses. Pretty interesting. It goes into the crossroads and Johnson's death. Also talks about Zep, the 27 curse, the Buddy Holly curse, the Allmans, etc... bunch of interesting stuff in there.

Hey, Boonie, good work! I done mades several posts about Robert in this here thread, includin some dramatized scenes done by (good) actors, playin Robert, Son House, and Willie Brown. Scroll up if ya aint seen em--they're worth it, I figure.

It's all purty simple, actually. Robert, he DA MAN, eh!?

P.S.: What's a song or two by Robert that ya spezly likes, if any, eh?

 

[Boondocksaint27]

I'm just starting to get a feel for his music, but right now it's Hellhound on my Trail and Preaching Blues

 

[Hopper]

I'm just starting to get a feel for his music, but right now it's Hellhound on my Trail and Preaching Blues

Yeah, those are both great, sho nuff! Course, they all is, if ya ax me. Takes a while for Robert to grow on most people these here days. A lot of them probably half listen to a couple songs and decide it aint nuthin they like. I has heard all his tunes, many times, and they just get more better, not borin or worn-out. I aint the onliest one who feels that way, neither. Ax most anybuddy, like Clapton or Keith Richards, for example.

 

[Boondocksaint27]

Agreed. My tastes lately have tended more towards the old school blues, Muddy, Wolf, Son House, Johnson, etc...the more I listen the more I hear how heavily "borrowed" their influence is in music; from the 60's up to today.

 

[Hopper]

...the more I listen the more I hear how heavily "borrowed" their influence is in music; from the 60's up to today.

Yeah, mebbe I'm just sayin what everybuddy already knows, but the traditional 12 bar blues format was like this:

1. Two bars of vocals, followed by two bars of musical "fill" which might be used for a call and response type of thang, a mirroring of the melody, an interesting riff, or some combination of those thangs.

2. There were 3 sets of lyrics, followed by three sets of fills, so altogether that made up one 12-bar stanza, then it was time for a new stanza.

3. Traditionally, the first two lines, whatever they were, were repeated in bars 5 and 6, then the "punchline" came in bars 9 and 10.

4. "Rock" musicians began to add more variety by doin away with the repetition of the first lines, which made the lyrics less predictable and "moved" the tune along at a faster pace.

I mentioned Larry Williams a post or two back. Several of his tunes have been covered by the Beatles and many other musicians. He was an early "rocker" from the mid-50's. One of his better known songs is "Dizzy Miss Lizzy," which follows. A lot of people think the Beatles wrote this tune, but it's really just one of many early rock/blues tunes which they faithfully covered. This is just a straight-up 12 bars blues pattern without the verse repetition in the middle part of the stanza.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUn2Acm1yZw


For "contrast" (they aint much) here's the Beatles version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j-o1vtBs1Y&feature=related

English groups from the 60's and 70's grew up on american blues and rock, much of which got little play or attention in the USA itself until they "re-imported" it, ya know? Somehow, it was more acceptable if it wuz white boyz playin it, know what I'm sayin?

 

[TroutBum]

Muddy Waters drinks muddy pee. Blues suck major zebra wang.

 

[Hopper]

Even when groups like the Beatles are "innovating" they are still drawing on a lifetime of musical influences. Take a song like "come together" in which the Beatles mention Muddy Waters. They were sued (and had to settle) because of some of the lyrics, and mainly the whole cadence aspect (with a deliberately slowed tempo by the Beatles), were really just the Chuck Berry tune, "Ya cain't catch me," which the Stones covered straight up, among many other Berry tunes. John Lennon also later covered the tune faithfully after leaving the Beatles. A great early blues/rock tune with Johny Johnson on piano. Chuck doesn't go heavy on the guitar licks in this tune, as he usually does, the attraction of the tune is mainly in the lyrics and the phrasing (which was in almost every Berry song). Most people probably haven't heard Chucks original version, so here it is. Introduced by the notorious Allen Freed, who took half of the royalties from Chuck's first big hit (Maybellene) by making Chuck list him as a co-writer, in order to play it on the air.

One of Chuck lines is: "Here come a flattop, he was movin' up with me"

Lennon's line (in Come Together): "Here come ol' flattop, he come groovin' up slowly"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8-NqsY46PY&feature=related

 

[Hopper]

Back in 1963, Jimi Hendrix, then Jimmy James, had yet to hook up with Little Richard for an overseas tour, let alone have his own gig. In fact he was homeless. At least until one day when he ran into Kelly Isley of the Isley brothers at a store. He spent the next year and a half living with them in their home, and played guitar on some of their records.

It was at the Isley house that Jimi watched the Beatles premier in America on the Ed Sullivan show. When it was over, Kelly Isley said: "Well, they (the Beatles) have two guitarists, but we have Jimmy," which pleased Hendrix a lot. One "hit" for the Isley brothers had been "shout," a tune later featured prominently in the movie "Animal House." But, as always, their recording was covered by white artists, like Joey Dee and Lulu, who sold all the records. Same thing happened with all black artists. As soon as Little Richard or Fats Domino released a new R & B cut (such as Tutti Fruiti or Aint that a Shame) Pat Boone (who should be hung for crimes against music) would steal it, take all the color out of it and whitebread it up, then sell all the copies and get all the airplay.

The Isley brother had many admirers overseas, though, including the Beatles. John Lennon said that for a while the Beatles copied the Isley Brothers way of inserting an "OOOOH" into their songs on just about every tune they did. In fact, one of the Beatles biggest early hits was a straight-up cover of another Isley Brothers tune, one which never made it past number 17 on the charts for the Isleys themselves, Hendrix or no Hendrix. Them boys was, well, black, see? Guys like Chuck Berry, and later Hendrix, loved Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, and all the bluesmen, but came to realize that, as great as that music was, it was always gunna git shoved straight back into the hood unless a white boy like Elvis covered it. They had to change it a bit.

Here's the tune, as originally done by the Isleys. If you know the Beatles music, you've heard it. If you're like most Beatles fans I've met, they're convinced the Beatles wrote it and recorded it first. You can see an early Hendrix in some of the stills which accompany this vid (playin left-handed guitar, if ya can't otherwise recognize him).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhN-GhH5oxU

For good measure, here's an animated live performance of the Isleys doin their classic "Shout" in 1959 (also covered by the Beatles, and many others, from Little Richard to Janis Joplin):



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL9xOLpwI0I&feature=related

 

[C l u t c H 385]

+1,000 for a triumphant return. Welcome back Hoppy.

 

[moevillini]

Agreed. My tastes lately have tended more towards the old school blues, Muddy, Wolf, Son House, Johnson, etc...the more I listen the more I hear how heavily "borrowed" their influence is in music; from the 60's up to today.

go back even further, Elvis in the 50's is a good example

(actually sounds much like Dizzy Miss Lizzy, and also quite a bit like one of the two songs in aint's quiz above)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpGm9ouJx6E

 

[moevillini]

another classic, and a great cross-over hit for any number of artists:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mypHZmXdU3o&feature=related

written in the early 50's by a couple of white, Jewish boys Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber
(they were the original "Lennon & McCartney" if you ask me)