Exploration of Harry Smith's Anthology

Mississippi John Hurt insieme a Mabel Hillery e il Rev.Gary Davis con Libba Cotten a suonare insieme in cucina come non li avete mai potuto sentire su disco. E poi una chicca discografica: John Fahey con Bill Barth sotto le mentite spoglie si R.L. Watson & Josiah Jones.

“Poor Boy Blues” is one of those Blues songs/lyrics that are so popular that most Blues players seemed to have a version of it. The poor boy, long ways from home, was more often than not, the rambling Blues musician himself. It was usually a piece played on the guitar out of an open-tuning called Vestapol (open D) and using a slide or bottleneck to play the melody on the high strings.

I’ve selected a few versions that I love, mostly from black Blues players but the Kentucky banjo player Buell Kazee and the “American Primitive” guitar player John Fahey make an apparition as well.

“FATAL WRECK – Engineer Casey Jones, of This City, Killed Near Canton, Miss. – DENSE FOG THE DIRECT CAUSE – Of a Rear End Collision on the Illinois Central. – Fireman and Messenger Injured – Passenger Train Crashed Into a Local Freight Partly on the Siding-Several Cars Demolished.” Jackson, Tennessee Sun newspaper, april 30, 1900.

1- AND HOW ABOUT 'THE DOWN SOUTH BLUES?' CAN YOU REMEMBER WHERE YOU HEARD THAT? "Well, I learned that off of a phonograph record. My brother- in-law -- that was when we lived over here at Sutherland working for a while for Wise Coal and Coke Company -- he was a person that bought an awful lot of these phono- graph records at that time when was selling quite a lot of them in through here. Played them on these old- fashioned machines. I guess that he had probably 2 or
3 hundred of them. He had that there "Down South Blues." If I'm not mistaken, he had "Mistreated Mama Blues" on a record. I think it was sang and recorded by Mary Martin, or Sara Martin, or some woman; and it was accompanied by a piano. Anyway, I never did hear it played on a banjo or guitar or nothing else -- any kind of string music -- 'till just I commenced learning it myself, commenced playing it. In fact, I played for years that I never heard a man playa banjo that could play any kind
of blues on a banjo -- any kind. I got to playing with some boys, Scott Boatwright and anoLher one, I believe
it was Melvin Robenatt. And Scott says, 'I'm going to playa piece of blues, ' and said to me, 'Dock, you can wait till we play this here piece of blues.' I said, 'You think them blues ain't on this banjo neck the same as they're on that guitar? They're just as much on this banjo neck as they are on that guitar or piano or any- where else if you know where to go and get it, and if you learn it and know how to play it. 'Play the blues and see if I don't play them, see if I don't follow you.' And he played a piece of blues and sang them, and I went right along with him very good for the first time, hearing
them while he was playing them. I don't remember what that blues was, because I had some blues myself, 3 or 4 different blues that I played then all the time - - I mean all along. "
HAD YOU PLAYED 'THE DOWN SOUTH BLUES' THEN? I don't remember whether I was playing "The Down South Blues" then or not. "
WHEN DID YOU START WITH THE 'DOWN SOUTH?' "I commenced playing "The Down South Blues - - must have started, oh, must have been 40 years ago, maybe. About 40 years ago, I guess. "
ABOUT 1923? "Yes, I have an idea that's about -- no, I must have started before that, because I know I took
my banjo and I went to Hemphill -- that's for the Elkhorn Coal Corporation -- and stayed over there a little while, had my banjo over there. I played "The Down South Blues" then, and "John Henry, " and " Poor Ellen Smith, " and "John Hardy, " and different pieces like that, and "Pretty Polly." Then people would gather up out there. We'd get out from a boarding house and sit under a big tree, and I'd have great big bunches of men gather up to hear me play. I was working in the mines loading coal, but I had my banjo over there with me and I played a lot of different pieces at that time. "
2- AND 'THE COAL CREEK MARCH' WAS ONE OF THE FIRST TUNES THAT YOU... ? "That was one of the first chording pieces that I learned. "
DO YOU REMEMBER WHO PLAYED THAT? "No, I don't. I didn't learn it off of a phonograph record. I learned it -- I don't know who. I seen them chording, and I knowed the tuning that they had it in, and I just kept on fOOling with it. I seen two men with banjos that really could play "The Coal Creek March." And they had words for the song of "The Coal Creek March." I never learned them. If I had wanted, and insisted, I could have got the words -- they would have given them to me, if they would have cared to at all. Back along about - - just after I made those phonograph records, I guess it may have been in '27, last of '27, i 27 or i 28, that I seen these fellows. They was good on that there "Coal Creek March," the best that ever I heard -- anybody -- 'cause they had the words to it; that's what made it so good. "
DO YOU REMEMBER HOW THE WORDS GO? "No, can't remember nary a thing about that... "
4- DOCK, I REMEMBER AFTER YOU PLAYED...

1- YOU'D PLAYED FOR A LOT OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF PEOPLE, LIKE SOMETIMES YOU'D PLA YED FOR JUST P ARTIES AND THEN SOMETIMES YOU PLA YED FOR HIGH-PRICED MONEY. "Well, played where we'd collect off each person come in, you know -- pay so much. "
WHAT KIND OF... WAS THAT A SHOW YOU PUT ON? "Yeah, it was a show, a musical show, you know. I had other musicians with me then. I had a real good fiddler and two guitar players part of the time, and sometimes I had a girl that played a ukelele -- and she danced, too. They was four in my band one time, they danced. "
WHAT WERE THEIR NAMES? "I played with Beulah Boatwright, Scott Boatwright - - both them was very good musicians. "
FROM AROUND HERE? " Y es,from Scott County over here. Scott lives over there now.I think Beulah lives back over there. I played with Charlie Powers and (an) old man, his father, was a fiddler, old time fiddler. He made phonograph records, they did, for Victor back years ago, before ever I made any, and Charlie he
come stayed with me for about a year and he played the guitar with me. And Scott Boatwright come stayed with me a while, and also Melvin Robnett -- played the fiddle, he's a very good fiddler. We played country theaters, schools, high schools -- schools in the country we'd have plumb full. Lot of times we'd make three, four hundred dollars a week. "
ABOUT WHEN WAS THAT? "That was back in '2-- I believe it was '29. " ' AFTER YOUR RECORDS HAD COME OUT? "Yes." DO YOU THINK THAT HELPED YOUR RECORDS, OR THE RECORDS HELPED THAT? "The records helped get the crowds, I'm pretty sure, because a lot of them that had my records had never heard me play in person. They came out to hear us play. "
2- THIS TUNING, KEY, THAT YOU USE HERE IN THE KEY OF D, WHERE YOU PLAY'THE COUNTRY BLUES,' DO YOU REMEMBER WHERE IT WAS YOU EVER FIRST HEARD THAT, OR DID YOU JUST WORK THAT OUT YOURSELF? " No, Homer Crawford played "The Country Blues, " or "Hustling Gamblers, " in that key, and there's so many more pieces I play: "Oh Death, " "Drunkard's Lone Child, " and " Calvary, " and "Prodigal Son" -- play that all in that.
DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT TOWN THAT HE WAS FROM? "I don't know what town he was from in Tennessee. He's a photograph man made pictures for people like they used to. Carried a'camera around on his shoulders. Come up through this country and went over through The Pound. Used to stay at my uncle'S over on The Pound through there. Stayed all night with me after I was married, and he could playa fiddle and a banjo both. "
HE'D PLAY AS HE CAME ALONG? "Yes, if you had an instrument, why he'd stay all night with you and play some mUSic, you know. Never did pay nothing for his lodging or anything like that. People's glad to have him because he knowed a lot of old songs. Most people liked music and they wasn't so much of it back then. They wasn't but just a few colored fellows you see played
guitar then. NOW, anybody you see nearly can pick a guitar. In nearly all the Holiness churches now they have guitars. Women play them a lot. We've got two people in the church, Free Pentecostal Holiness Church of God where I belong, up on Guest's River, plays music. "
I WONDER IF THIS HOMER CRAWFORD WOULD STILL BE LIVING? "I don't think he's living yet. He was a great big fleshy fellow and I heard he was dead. I've not seen him for years and I think he's dead. If he was living, he'd be getting awful old, 75 probably. I have an idea he'd be 75, maybe 80 years old now. I think he's dead. "
I WONDER HOW I COULD FIND OUT WHAT TOWN HE LIVED IN? "I really haven't got no idea. "
SOUNDS LIKE HE TRAVELED A LOT. "Yeah, he
did. You can find lots of people knowed him. He made pictures. He had an awful good disposition, turn, every- body liked him, you know. He could Sing good. People liked that, too you know. "
3- "Well, I practiced an awful lot, and I even took a watch and timed myself, 2 minutes and 40 seconds, and if my song wasn't hardly...

1- "I was born February the seventh, 18 and 98, down here at West Norton; born in this county, the same county I'm living in. I retired out of Kentucky. I worked in the coal mines, commenced coal mining when I was just a boy. Never got to go to school too much. "
DID YOUR PARENTS WORK IN THE MINES? "My father was a carpenter and a blacksmith, but I had brothers that worked in the mines, much older. I was the youngest child out of a family of ten. There's 5 boys and 5 girls. My oldest brother had a boy just . lacked 5 days of being as old as me. I started working in the mines when I was 12 years old, but I went to school a little bit after that. I got a seventh grade edu- cation. I was working in the coal mines at Pardee, Virginia, for Blackwood Coal and Coke Company in 19 and 27 when two men from New York and one from Ash- land, Kentucky -- a Carter, and I forget the other two men's names from New York -- (came) to pick up mountain talent through Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky and Virginia, and they came to Norton Virginia. I borrowed an old banjo -- I happened to be in town that day -- Pardee's about 6 or 8 miles from Norton. I borrowed a banjo from a fellow, McClure, run a music store, a little cheap banjo. I started to play two pieces for them, they was in a big hurry, they was over at the Norton hotel trying out this mountain talent. They tried out about 50 or 75 musicians. They· was standing around there up in the ballroom and I wondered why they hadn't signed them up for to make phonograph records, because I stood around and pitched them high as a dollar, dollar and a half at a time -- I mean nickels, dimes, and quarters -- to hear them play. They wasn't nothing but playing I was working on a coal machine. I took that old banjo up there and they asked me did I play it, and I told them I played one kind of like it a little bit. They told me to go and give them a piece. I played about a verse of "The Country Blues" -- I called it "Country Blues," it was really "Hustling Gamblers. "
2- WHERE DID YOU LEARN THAT SONG? "I learned that from a man from Tennessee, where I don't know. Named Crawford, Homer Crawford, and he played the old way -- banjo -- in the old way of playing. So I just played a little of that and I noticed they all marked
it "good" on their papers; and they asked me to play an- other one and I started out to play the "Down South Blues" a song that I'd learned. I heard some of it on a phonograph record back years bef.ore.this. It played on a piano, but I commenced playmg I.t o.n the banjO and sang it and put an extra verse or two m It that I made myself. So I just played about two verses and I notic.ed they marked "good" on that, and they came around WIth papers wanting to sign me up to go to make phonograph records, and three weeks from that time I was on my way to New York to make phonograph records. And none of these here good musicians standing around there -- didn't sign nary a banjo player but me on the rounds they come that time. They Signed about three guitar players, and there was two fiddlers. "
3- DO YOU REMEMBER ANY OF THE OTHERS? "They signed up John Dykes, Hub Mahaffey, and Miss Vermillion -- I can't think of her first name -- from Kingsport, Tennessee; and Hub Mahaffey he seconded on the guitar for me on some of the pieces that I played and put on phonograph records. So we went to New York and I made four records, and they offered for me to make two or three more while I was there, but I thought on the contract I was under I'd just make them four -- eight songs. So, I got two contracts for to make phonograph records for The Brunswick, Balke and Callender
-Company of New York. And a lot of people thought I
quit on them just because I didn't have the opportunity
to make more phonograph records, but I had a contract-- two contracts -- one to make 12 songs with me and the guitar player -- anyone I'd want to get -- and then I could get a band of musicians if I...

Liner notes from “The Hammons Family » lp (Rounder/Library of Congress)

Sugar Baby or Red Rocking Chair is a widespread folk song, found in the repertoire of a lot banjo players in the South, and still very popular today with old-time and folk musicians. Its simple modal melody can be played on several open-tunings on the 5-string banjo and harmonized in different ways either using major or minor chords (or a combination of both) on a guitar. Its lyrics are easy to remember and can include as many floating verses as a performer can recall. One of its famous verse “Who’ll rock the cradle when I’m gone” is found in an old Scottish ballad ” The Lass of Roch Royal”.

Gus Cannon, the leader of Cannon’ Jug Stompers, was a great musician and character, a central figure of the Jug Band scene in Memphis, a man who got his musical education at the beginning of the 20th century, around Clarksdale, Mississippi, home of many great Delta Blues musicians and on the road with Medicine shows. One of the rare black performer recorded on 78rpm records who played the 5-string banjo, which he taught himself to play on an instrument he made out of a frying pan and a raccoon skin, he also had a jug mounted on a rack that allowed him to blow bass figures while strumming and picking the banjo.