RADIO BIG PINK

the complete transcript of the interview is in this link:
https://www.angelfire.com/.../doc.../interview_excerpts.html

Mike Seeger interviews Dock Boggs, a Virginia coal miner, banjo player and singer of old-time Appalachian mountain music and blues. Boggs once garnered a record deal with Brunswick to record 24 tracks, but he only completed eight before quitting and returning to Virginia during the 1920s. He was all but forgotten as an artist until Seeger rediscovered him in the 1960s.

“Sugar Babe” belongs to a family of “rounder” songs, cultivated especially by young men, carefree and assertive in spirit, often risqué and in the Appalachian South associated in the early part of the last century with the five-string banjo. Afro-american influences show up frequently in the “rounder” songs and it is possible that “Sugar Babe” itslef has afro-american connections.

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”.
1- Sugar Babe - THE HAMMONS FAMILY
2- Sugar Baby - DOCK BOGGS
3- Sugar Babe - JIM KWESKIN
4- Sugar Babe - PINK ANDERSON
5- I ain't got no sugar baby now - ROSCOE HOLCOMB
6- Sugar Babe - UNCLE EARL
7- Sugar Baby - SAM AMIDON
8- Red Rocking Chair - THE NEW LOST CITY RAMBLERS
9- Red Rocking Chair - DOC & MERLE WATSON
10- Red Rocking Chair - GEORGE SHUFFLERY & LAURA BOOSINGER
11- Red Rocking Chair - WAYNE ERBSEN
12- Sugar Baby - BILL FRISELL

Artist: Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers
Author: Noah Lewis
Label: Victor
Year: 1928
His jug was an empty can of kerosine and the other members of his trio were Ashley Thompson (guitar) and author Noah Lewis (harmonica), Minglewood is a corruption of Noah's birthplace Mengelwood near Dyersburg, TN. There's always been a huge levee camp there, big enough for itinerant musicians to earn a few bucks, especially with a song about the place. The Jug Stompers were the oldest jug band from Memphis, older than the Memphis Jug Band. Gus Cannon was 44 when he cut this (See also: Walk Right In and Prison Wall Blues).
1 - Minglewood Blues - Cannon's Jug Stompers
2 - Minglewood Memories - Woody Mann & Bob Brozman
3 - Minglewood - Jim Kweskin
4 - New Minglewood Blues - Noah Lewis
5 - Minglewood Blues - John Lee Granderson
6 - Minglewood Blues - Guy Davis
7 - Narration - Gus Cannon
8 - Walk Right In - Gus Cannon
9 - Crawdad Hole - Gus Cannon
10 - Make me a Pallet on your Floor - Gus Cannon
11 - Salty Dog - Gus Cannon
12 - Come on down to my House - Gus Cannon

the complete transcript of the interview is in this link:
https://www.angelfire.com/folk/longtimecoming/dockboggs/interview_excerpts.html

Mike Seeger interviews Dock Boggs, a Virginia coal miner, banjo player and singer of old-time Appalachian mountain music and blues. Boggs once garnered a record deal with Brunswick to record 24 tracks, but he only completed eight before quitting and returning to Virginia during the 1920s. He was all but forgotten as an artist until Seeger rediscovered him in the 1960s.

the complete transcript of the interview is in this link:
https://www.angelfire.com/folk/longtimecoming/dockboggs/interview_excerpts.html

Mike Seeger interviews Dock Boggs, a Virginia coal miner, banjo player and singer of old-time Appalachian mountain music and blues. Boggs once garnered a record deal with Brunswick to record 24 tracks, but he only completed eight before quitting and returning to Virginia during the 1920s. He was all but forgotten as an artist until Seeger rediscovered him in the 1960s.

the complete transcript of the interview is in this link:
https://www.angelfire.com/folk/longtimecoming/dockboggs/interview_excerpts.html

Mike Seeger interviews Dock Boggs, a Virginia coal miner, banjo player and singer of old-time Appalachian mountain music and blues. Boggs once garnered a record deal with Brunswick to record 24 tracks, but he only completed eight before quitting and returning to Virginia during the 1920s. He was all but forgotten as an artist until Seeger rediscovered him in the 1960s.

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...