Ain't Bad for a Pink (21 page)

Lil Son Jackson – a Texas country bluesman – became famous just after the war. His sound was acceptable to white audiences and he also updated and adapted country blues forms and themes to his own use. I came to identify with him because that’s what I did. “Lay Down My Old Guitar” – one of his earliest recordings – is the number in my repertoire. I was impressed by his finger picking which reminds me of John Hurt, though he’s usually compared with Lightnin’ Hopkins.

I’ve used pop songs such as Little Feat’s “Willin’” and turned them into country blues, or then again into rock or a jug band style for the Skunk Band to play. I’ve taken jazz classics such as “Stormy Weather” and given it a country blues slide effect. This happens in music all the time, of course: Lonnie Donegan took country blues music and turned it into pop – he recorded “Rock Island Line” in 1955. The Rooftop Singers’ cheerful pop song, “Walk Right In” (1962) was done originally by Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers. I have a 1963 Collectors’ Issue: a “Strictly Limited Edition” of the music of Gus Cannon recorded in 1926 which includes their version of “Walk Right In”. Incidentally, the folk trio’s Sixties hit boosted royalties for Gus Cannon who had recently pawned his banjo to pay bills!

Because the country blues music was collectively owned, there would be several versions of the songs from the earliest recordings in the twenties till the present day. Take Blind Willie Johnson’s music, for example. “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” was covered by Led Zeppelin; Eric Clapton did “Motherless Children”; Bob Dylan was influenced by “Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed” in his song, “In My Time Of Dying”. You only have to look at the web site Spotify to get some idea of the countless versions of blues songs in existence.

Listening to the early blues, noticing alterations and all the technical nuances has helped me develop my own versions. Absorbing the style of the musicians I admire means I can also play in the fashion of, say, Louis Armstrong or Blind Blake. This can be quite useful when you’re showing people techniques: you can demonstrate the differences to make a point. I can play a version of “St James Infirmary Blues” that shows its folk roots or I can evoke Louis Armstrong’s jazz-oriented interpretation in my blues style.

I’m fascinated by the biographies of songs and guitars.

“Black Ace Blues” was originally released in the late Thirties by Babe Karo Lemon Turner – impressive name – and it became so popular that he took the name Black Ace. He played a National steel guitar on his lap, using slide – one of very few bluesmen to use this technique. The others were Kokomo Arnold and Turner’s mentor Oscar “Buddy” Woods. Like many performers he lived in obscurity for a while until Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records sought him out and recorded him in 1960. Critics seem to agree that Turner has been underrated, partly because his output was lean and also because it was difficult to categorise his style, which Scott Cooper described as “Hawaii meets the Delta”.
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I came across “Black Ace Blues” on the album,
Texas in the 30s, 1935-38. The Complete Recording of Carl Davis Dallas Jamboree Jug Band, Black Ace, Kitty Gray and her Wampus Cats.
I liked the tune; I liked the story and I could see its dramatic potential. I don’t regard this song as Babe Karo Lemon Turner’s best number: his version is a bit thin and two-dimensional and lacking in resonance, even though he has two guitars on the disc. My treatment of the song is more full-bodied. His “You Gonna Need my Help Some Day” is a more traditional blues number and more successful in my view.

“Black Ace Blues” is a song about male confidence and potency: “I’m the boss card in your hand” and it’s one of the most popular numbers I do on twelve string with slide. You can’t do a successful version of a song about confidence unless you can make your voice as potent as your guitar. The guitar doesn’t compensate for vocal inadequacies: it shows them up.

By working to my strengths, accepting that John Lee’s way was not my way and having confidence in my own interpretation, I also found I could do quite a lot with John Lee Hooker’s song “Groundhog”. His rendition is slow and sexy with a bluesy guitar and a slowly ticking rhythmic fuse. He does “Dimples” in the same way: slowly and taking a lot of effort with the timing which doesn’t suit my style at all. For me, “Groundhog” is a song you want to hit with, so I take the original influence and give it a white rock manner. John Lee’s slower version would be done with a little combo filling in all the gaps and Hooker playing simple guitar. The thing that works for him is a lazy slow feel – a pace that’s not natural for me. In my version I use slide for verve and texture. “Groundhog” is a song about territorial aggression so I want to give it a feral edge. My guitar rumbles away, at times like a growl, increasing in pace to emphasize the aggression whilst I vocalize scorn and menace. You have to use what you’ve got and my voice – between a tenor and a baritone – is double the volume of anybody I’ve played with. With long hard nails and strong fingers I can maximize guitar sound and fill all the spaces with threat. John Lee creates tension from slowness; I create tension by using slide and by upping the tempo.

Like BB King, whom I saw when he supported Fleetwood Mac at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1969, John Lee Hooker has amazing presence. He’s a scene-stealer: low brown half-spoken vocal style; slow effortless playing – his big hands doing sexual things up and down the neck of his guitar. I went to a Bruce Springsteen concert about twenty years ago in Manchester and John Lee Hooker appeared with him. “Boom Boom” was the number and John Lee did one verse. He’s sitting down and as soon as he sings, “Boom boom boom boom,” he demolishes everything Springsteen has done in the song. He’s coming from stillness; his power comes from stillness and Springsteen’s efforts in that song are wiped out.

Effortlessly

Effortlessly but not lazily. Yet Springsteen was pushing volume out, using energy and yes – it was powerful but not compared with John Lee. John Lee Hooker did it from his own natural draw. There’s such power in his vocal restraint; he’s the essence of cool and for him performance is an expression of his own sexuality.

Unlike songs such as “Black Ace” and “Groundhog”, Mississippi John Hurt’s songs don’t lend themselves to any interference! You can’t do a Pete Johnson version of a John Hurt song because everything he does is complete. You either play it like that or leave it alone. He has a distinctive three finger technique like no other musician and a fluid and syncopated style. His guitar playing seems effortless but it’s actually complex and his gentle voice fits the intimate setting in which he would have played. I have immense respect for this musician, whom I never met though I do have a treasured record of his Newport Folk Festival (July 1963) performance which came from Bert Bellamy’s collection. I copied his style of finger picking and liked his songs, which have been described as “old time music” – coming from a folk source that produced both blues and country music. There is no ‘modern’ blues influence in his styles and it has been suggested that he is the musical link between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Hurt’s music has been admired by white musicians as well as black musicians. There’s a story that a pupil played a John Hurt record for the classical guitarist Andres Segovia. Segovia wondered who the second guitarist was.

There was no second guitarist.

“I’m Satisfied” is a song about sexual joy originally recorded in the late Twenties. Then John Hurt disappeared until rediscovered in the Sixties. The lyrics in this song are interesting for their sexual innuendo. You can’t always hear them and because of the way they’re pronounced, the
double entendre
is not always apparent. Phrases such as “total load” and “total-on shaker from my navel down” certainly stimulate the imagination. The relaxed and tuneful style contrasts with the earthy sexual confidence.

John Hurt’s short song “Pay Day” has a restrained, minor feel with complicated rhythms and is again from an earlier tradition. It’s about stealing in order to survive and about the transience of relationships. It’s hard to understand the lack of economic power experienced by people still, in effect, owned by the plantations. The subject doesn’t have a dog to help him catch rabbits so he steals food and now he in turn is hunted by hounds. The lyrics speak of survival at a level unfamiliar in Western society:

Pay Day

Well, I did all I can do and I can’t get along with you
I’m goin’ to take you to your Mama, Pay Day
Pay Day, Pay Day
I’m goin’ to take you to your Mama, Pay Day.

Well, a rabbit come along and I ain’t go no rabbit dog
And I hate to see that rabbit get away
Get away, get away
Oh, I hate to see that rabbit get away.

Well, just about a week ago, I stole a ham of meat
I’m gon’ keep my skillet greasy if I can
If I can, if I can
I’m gon’ keep my skillet greasy if I can.

Well, the hounds are on my track, a knapsack on my back
I’m gon’ make it to my shanty, ‘fore day
‘fore day, ‘fore day
Oh, I’m gon’ make it to my shanty, ‘fore day.

“Louis Collins” (1928) is a lament about the violent death of a pimp and as with all Hurt’s songs there’s only one way to do this understated song: his way. The trademark finger picking makes it sound as if there are two guitars. Again, the bleak subject matter and mournful tune shock. The finality of “laid him six foot under the clay” isn’t alleviated by the reference to angels. It’s compassionate but not sentimental – a song which upholds the individual’s right to be mourned, whatever the background.

When the man hit the downbeat on his National steel-bodied guitar and you saw his eyes disappear into the back of his head, you knew you were going to hear some blues.

Cub Koda.

John Hurt sings about life’s harshness in a melodic, contained way. All the energy is in his skilful hands. You can’t say this of Son House – he engages his whole body. “The blues possessed him like a lowdown shaking chill” – to quote Bob Groom.
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Some of his performances were allegedly terrifying in intensity. At the height of his powers he was billed as the “Father Of Folk Blues” and legend has it that he wouldn’t give Robert Johnson lessons because he didn’t think him a worthy pupil! He also said Johnson was “no good until something happened” – a reference to the pact with the devil he allegedly made. People have referred to this with regard to Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong as well. So why is this myth so widespread amongst creative people? I think it must mean that a good musician goes into a sort of wilderness and gets in touch with another musical dimension through the power of technical practice, and through the power of mind and spirit so that there is no distinction between the music and the musician performing it. Technical expertise does matter, but only if it’s so ingrained that you don’t have to think about it and only if it’s contained by passion. Or it contains the passion.

Son House’s performances were certainly passionate. His most famous number is a song of traditional provenance, “Death Letter”. Lyrically bleak and feverish with intensity, it has a sense of clamouring urgency and I have tried to capture this energy in my own version of the song, using slide. Son House performed it on a metal-bodied National resonator guitar using a copper slide. He often altered the tempo and lyrics for different performances, sometimes playing it twice in one set and some versions could last fifteen minutes.

The fact that Son House let me play his guitar and that the song meant a lot to me because of my mother’s death, made it an important choice for my repertoire. The emotion and power are his; the emotion and power are mine as well. In my version some of the vocal phrasing and some of the words are changed. I wanted to create my own interpretation. Or it might have been that I wasn’t good enough to do it like the original. But I certainly wanted to play it just as Robert Johnson, who reworked it as “Walking Blues” and many others did. When I listen to Son House on a 1960s recording again, I hear things – new things – that I might add on to my version or to another song altogether.

I feel close to some musicians because of a sense of technical compatibility. Scrapper Blackwell, a performer from the inter-war years who played piano as well as guitar, is an undervalued but consummate blues player in my view.
Wikipedia
describes him as “an exceptional acoustic single-note picker in the Piedmont and Chicago blues style” and as veering towards jazz. I respond to him partly because he plays from a pianist’s point of view as well as a guitarist’s point of view, and I found this accessible because I had been taught piano. There’s this element in Leadbelly too: the walking bass lines, heavy strings and low tunings give a sound resembling a piano.

There’s another reason for my interest in Scrapper Blackwell. He had an extremely colourful and precarious background: he came from a very large and musical family and was involved in bootlegging in the Twenties. A combination of Cherokee and Negro, he was never going to have an easy time and I was impressed by his determination to be a musician and by him being an instinctive blues player: “when I did went to playin’ the real blues, I was gone too, just gone…the minute I saw the string, I hit it. And when I hit it, it was the right string. But I couldn’t tell you today how I ever started playing.”
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He made his first guitar from cigar boxes, wood and wire, taught himself to play, became an itinerant musician and eventually teamed up with pianist Leroy Carr in the late Twenties. Their 1928 Vocalion hit “How Long How Long Blues” was the biggest blues hit of the year but it’s his version of “Down And Out Blues”: a song written by Jim Cox in the 1920s and popularized by Bessie Smith that most appealed to me. In spite of the depression in the lyrics there is a nice jaunty, jazzy Chaplinesque quality that I have absorbed for my version of this song. You can’t keep a good man down! Scrapper Blackwell does what a conventional acoustic player doesn’t usually do: he repeats the chord structure on barre chords.