1914 Larry Adler*
1916 Oscar Wills aka TV Slim*
1921 Big Joe Duskin*
1932 Rockin' Dopsie*
1955 Back Alley John*
2002 Dave Van Ronk+
Happy Birthday
Larry Adler *10.02.1914
.jpg)
Lawrence Cecil „Larry“ Adler (* 10. Februar 1914 in Baltimore, Maryland; † 7. August 2001 in London) war ein US-amerikanischer Mundharmonikaspieler und Autor.
Bereits seit den 1920ern wurde Adler für seine Virtuosität auf der Mundharmonika ausgezeichnet. Er spielte in den 1930ern Kompositionen von Gershwin ein, arbeitete mit Django Reinhardt und dessen Quintette du Hot Club de France, mit John Kirbys Sextett sowie Tanz- und Showorchestern zusammen. In den 1930er Jahren war er als Schauspieler in einigen Filmen zu sehen, 1944 folgte eine weitere Rolle in Musik für Millionen. 1948 absolvierte er einen Auftritt als er selbst in Drei kleine Biester.
Für die Mitarbeit an dem Soundtrack für den Film Die feurige Isabella erhielt er 1955 eine Oscar-Nominierung, obgleich sein Name wegen des McCarthyismus nicht auf dem Filmabspann auftauchte. Später verfasste er für Harper’s Queen eine Lebensmittel-Kolumne. Seine Autobiographie, die nach der Komposition It Ain’t Necessarily So von Gershwin betitelt ist, erschien 1985.
Durch seine Mitarbeit an der CD The Glory of Gershwin, die bis auf Platz zwei der britischen Albumcharts stieg, erhielt er Anfang der 1990er Jahre einen Eintrag in das Guinness-Buch der Rekorde als ältester Musiker, der die Top Ten erreichte. Die ausgekoppelte Single The Man I Love von Kate Bush mit Larry Adler erreichte Platz 27 der britischen Hitparade.[1]
Larry Adler starb am 7. August 2001 in London im Alter von 87 Jahren.
Lawrence "Larry" Cecil Adler (February 10, 1914[2] – August 6, 2001) was an American musician, one of the world's most skilled harmonica players. Ralph Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, Darius Milhaud and Arthur Benjamin composed for him. During his later career he collaborated with Sting, Elton John, Kate Bush and Cerys Matthews.
Biography
Adler was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to a Jewish family, and graduated from Baltimore City College high school.[3] He taught himself harmonica (which he called a mouth-organ)[4] and played professionally at 14. In 1927, he won a contest sponsored by the Baltimore Sun, playing a Beethoven minuet, and a year later he ran away from home to New York. After being referred by Rudy Vallée, Adler got his first theatre work, and caught the attention of orchestra leader Paul Ash, who placed Adler in a vaudeville act as "a ragged urchin, playing for pennies".[5] From there, he was hired by Florenz Ziegfeld and then by Lew Leslie again as an urchin. He broke the typecasting and appeared in a dinner jacket in the 1934 Paramount film Many Happy Returns, and was hired by theatrical producer C. B. Cochran to perform in London. He became a star in the United Kingdom and the Empire, where, it has been written, harmonica sales increased 20-fold and 300,000 people joined fan clubs.".[5]
Adler was one of the first harmonica players to perform major works written for the instrument, often written for him: these include Jean Berger's Concerto for Harmonica and Orchestra "Caribbean" (1941), Cyril Scott's Serenade (harmonica and piano, 1936), Vaughan Williams' Romance in D-flat (harmonica, piano and string orchestra; premiered New York, 1952), Milhaud's Suite Anglais (Paris, May 28, 1947), Arthur Benjamin's Harmonica Concerto (1953), and Malcolm Arnold's Harmonica Concerto, Op. 46 (1954, written for The Proms). He recorded all except the Scott Serenade, some more than once. Earlier, Adler had performed transcriptions of pieces for other instruments, such as violin concertos by Bach and Vivaldi - he played his arrangement of Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in A minor with the Sydney Symphony. Other works he played in harmonica arrangements were by Bartók, Beethoven (Minuet in G), Debussy, Falla, Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue), Mozart (slow movement from the Oboe Quartet, K. 470), Poulenc, Ravel (Boléro), Stravinsky and Walton.
During the 1940s, Adler and the dancer, Paul Draper, formed an act and toured nationally and internationally. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1949 and settled in London, where he remained the rest of his life.
The 1953 film Genevieve brought him an Oscar nomination for his work on the soundtrack, though his name was originally kept off the credits in the United States due to blacklisting. He scored a hit with the theme song of the French Jacques Becker movie Touchez pas au grisbi with Jean Gabin, written by Jean Wiener.
In 1994 for his 80th birthday Adler and George Martin, produced an album of George Gershwin songs, The Glory of Gershwin, on which they performed "Rhapsody in Blue." The Glory of Gershwin reached number 2 in the UK albums chart in 1994.[6] Adler was a and showman. Concerts to support The Glory of Gershwin shoed he was a competent pianist. He each performance with Gershwin's "Summertime", playing piano and harmonica simultaneously. The album included Peter Gabriel, Oleta Adams, Elton John, Sting, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, Meat Loaf, Sinéad O'Connor, Robert Palmer, Cher, Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, Courtney Pine, Issy Van Randwyck, Lisa Stansfield and Carly Simon, all of whom sang Gershwin tunes with an orchestra and Adler adding harmonica solos.
He died in St Thomas' Hospital, London, at 87, on August 7, 2001. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, where his ashes remain.
Other fields
Apart from his career a musician, Adler appeared in movies, including Sidewalks of London (1938), in which he played a harmonica virtuoso. He was a prolific letter writer, his correspondence with Private Eye becoming popular in the United Kingdom. Adler wrote an autobiography — entitled It Ain't Necessarily So — in 1985, and was food critic for Harpers & Queen. He also appeared on the Jack Benny radio program[7] several times, entertaining disabled soldiers in the USA during World War II. A further biography, Me and My Big Mouth appeared in 1994 but he told The Free-Reed Journal: 'That's a lousy book and I don't like it; it's ghosted . ... [It] has a certain amount of factual material but the author completely missed my style and my voice. That's why I hate the book.'[8]
Personal life
Adler had four children, two grandchildren and two great grandchildren, one of whom was Peter Adler who fronted the band, Action, and others,[9] in Dublin, Ireland in the late 1960s. Adler was an atheist.[1] His brother, Jerry Adler (1918–2010) was also an harmonica player.
Larry Adler "St Louis Blues" 1935
Big Joe Duskin (February 10, 1921 – May 6, 2007)[1] was an American blues and boogie-woogie pianist. He is best known for his debut album, Cincinnati Stomp (1978), and the tracks "Well, Well Baby" and "I Met a Girl Named Martha".
Biography
Born Joseph L. Duskin in Birmingham, Alabama,[1] by the age of seven he had started playing piano. He played in church, accompanying his preacher father, the Rev. Perry Duskin. His family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and Duskin was raised near to the Union Terminal train station where his father worked.[2] On his local radio station, WLW, Duskin heard his hero Fats Waller play.[3] He was also inspired to play in a boogie-woogie style by Pete Johnson's, "627 Stomp".[4]
In his younger days Duskin performed in clubs in Cincinnati and across the river in Newport, Kentucky. While serving in the US Army in World War II, he continued to play and, in entertaining the US forces, met his idols Johnson, Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis.[3]
After his military service ended, Duskin's father made him promise to stop playing while the elder Duskin was still alive. However, Rev. Duskin lived to the age of 105, and Joe found alternative employment as a police officer and a postal worker.[2] Therefore Duskin, effectively in the middle of his career, never played a keyboard for sixteen years.[3]
With the encouragement of a blues historian, Steven C. Tracy, by the early 1970s Duskin had begun playing the piano at festivals in the US and across Europe. By 1978, and with the reputation for his concert playing now growing, his first recording, Cincinnati Stomp, was released on Arhoolie Records.[2] The album contained Duskin's cover version of the track, "Down the Road a Piece" [5] and featured Muddy Waters' guitarist Bob Margolin.
He subsequently toured both Austria and Germany, and in 1987 made his inaugural visit to the UK.[3] The same year his part in John Jeremy's film, Boogie Woogie Special, recorded for The South Bank Show, increased Duskin's profile.[3][4] In 1988, accompanied by the guitar-playing Dave Peabody, Duskin recorded his second album, Don't Mess with the Boogie Man.[3] In the following decade, Duskin performed at both the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the Chicago Blues Festival.[2]
His touring in Europe continued before he recorded his final album at the Quai du Blues in Neuilly, France.[3] Several Duskin albums were issued on European labels in the 1980s and 1990s. It was 2004 before Big Joe Jumps Again! (Yellow Dog Records) became his second US-based release, and his first studio recording for sixteen years. It featured Phillip Paul (drums), Ed Conley (bass), and Peter Frampton on guitar.[2]
Duskin was presented with a key to the city in 2004 by the Mayor of Cincinnati.[2] The following year he was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the Ohio Arts Council.[3]
Suffering from the effects of diabetes, Duskin was on the eve of having legs amputated, when he died in May 2007, at the age of 86.[3] The Ohio based Big Joe Duskin Music Education Foundation keeps his musical ideals alive by producing in-school music presentations for public school children.
Biography
Born Joseph L. Duskin in Birmingham, Alabama,[1] by the age of seven he had started playing piano. He played in church, accompanying his preacher father, the Rev. Perry Duskin. His family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and Duskin was raised near to the Union Terminal train station where his father worked.[2] On his local radio station, WLW, Duskin heard his hero Fats Waller play.[3] He was also inspired to play in a boogie-woogie style by Pete Johnson's, "627 Stomp".[4]
In his younger days Duskin performed in clubs in Cincinnati and across the river in Newport, Kentucky. While serving in the US Army in World War II, he continued to play and, in entertaining the US forces, met his idols Johnson, Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis.[3]
After his military service ended, Duskin's father made him promise to stop playing while the elder Duskin was still alive. However, Rev. Duskin lived to the age of 105, and Joe found alternative employment as a police officer and a postal worker.[2] Therefore Duskin, effectively in the middle of his career, never played a keyboard for sixteen years.[3]
With the encouragement of a blues historian, Steven C. Tracy, by the early 1970s Duskin had begun playing the piano at festivals in the US and across Europe. By 1978, and with the reputation for his concert playing now growing, his first recording, Cincinnati Stomp, was released on Arhoolie Records.[2] The album contained Duskin's cover version of the track, "Down the Road a Piece" [5] and featured Muddy Waters' guitarist Bob Margolin.
He subsequently toured both Austria and Germany, and in 1987 made his inaugural visit to the UK.[3] The same year his part in John Jeremy's film, Boogie Woogie Special, recorded for The South Bank Show, increased Duskin's profile.[3][4] In 1988, accompanied by the guitar-playing Dave Peabody, Duskin recorded his second album, Don't Mess with the Boogie Man.[3] In the following decade, Duskin performed at both the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the Chicago Blues Festival.[2]
His touring in Europe continued before he recorded his final album at the Quai du Blues in Neuilly, France.[3] Several Duskin albums were issued on European labels in the 1980s and 1990s. It was 2004 before Big Joe Jumps Again! (Yellow Dog Records) became his second US-based release, and his first studio recording for sixteen years. It featured Phillip Paul (drums), Ed Conley (bass), and Peter Frampton on guitar.[2]
Duskin was presented with a key to the city in 2004 by the Mayor of Cincinnati.[2] The following year he was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the Ohio Arts Council.[3]
Suffering from the effects of diabetes, Duskin was on the eve of having legs amputated, when he died in May 2007, at the age of 86.[3] The Ohio based Big Joe Duskin Music Education Foundation keeps his musical ideals alive by producing in-school music presentations for public school children.
Back Alley John *10.02.1955
Back Alley John (born John Carl David Wilson),[1] (February 10, 1955 – June 22, 2006) was a Canadian blues singer, songwriter and harmonica player.
Beginnings, 1969-1971: Ottawa to Venice, California
Born into a strict military family in Ottawa, Ontario, the young John Wilson rebelled and ran away from home, travelling to Venice Beach, California at the age of 14 in a stolen truck.[1] He stayed in Venice for approximately two years, making a living as a busking harmonica player, and it was in Venice that he acquired the name "Back Alley John". As his brother, Peter Wilson, recalls, "When he got (to Venice), he needed money and he had been playing harmonica since he was little, so he started busking. The street people there kind of took him under their wing and they said 'Listen John, you can't busk on the street 'cause you'll get arrested. You've gotta busk in the back alleys.' So he busked in the back alleys of Venice for a couple of years and that's how he was named Back Alley John."[2][1]
1971-1988: Venice to Ottawa and The Back Alley John Revue
Deported back to Canada, Back Alley John continued to develop his harmonica and singing skills in the Ottawa area. In 1980 together with guitarist Drew Nelson and drummer Sandy Smith, also professionally known as "Sandy Bone",[3] the Back Alley John Revue was formed.[4] They initially played in clubs in Ottawa and nearby towns and often busked on the streets of Ottawa during the early 1980s, particularly on Saturday afternoons in Ottawa's Byward Market, playing blues for passersby in front of the historic Chateau Lafayette House tavern,[5] sometimes gathering crowds numbering in the hundreds. Back Alley John's early reputation was enhanced in 1982 when he won the harmonica competition at the Ottawa Bluesfest, where the jury included Kim Wilson and John Hammond. He later performed with Kim Wilson and Hammond at Ottawa's National Arts Centre and joined Albert Collins on stage during a live performance. During this period, both Back Alley John and Drew Nelson were particularly supportive of the commencement of the blues career of Sue Foley who, in 1984 at the age of sixteen, was singing and playing guitar with Back Alley John. John identified his influences as including Robert Johnson, Lead Belly, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Carrie Bell, Johnny Winter, John Hammond, Norm Clark and Dutch Mason.
The popularity of The Back Alley John Revue grew beyond Ottawa. The group toured Canada on several occasions, but did not release an album.
In 1987 the band reformed under the name "The Blue Lights", including Sandy Smith on drums, plus Drew Nelson and Sue Foley on guitars. The group became the house band of an establishment in Hull, Quebec that was regularly frequented by local musicians and many who were on tour.(citation required) Jeff Healey, Tom Lavin and Emmett "Maestro" Sanders[6] of Koko Taylor's band were among those who showed up to play. It was at this time that The Blue Lights recorded a 45rpm with Greg Labelle's Lowertown Records featuring Back Alley John's song "Mr. Postman" on the A side and Sue Foley singing Big Bill Broonzy's "All By Myself" on the B side.
1988-2006: Calgary
He was a wealth of knowledge on the history of the blues, from the experience he gained by hanging and playing with the masters. I felt he was playing the real blues, not show or pop-styled blues, but the old stuff. Musically, what set John apart was his passion for the country blues style, and not glossing over the in-depth melodies and rhythms of this period of music.
Lindsay Wilson, Remembering Back Alley John[7]
In 1988, Back Alley John fell seriously ill and decided to relocate to Calgary, Alberta, to be near his brother Peter.[8] It was in Calgary that Back Alley John developed his recording career, releasing four independently-distributed albums, and where he continued to develop his reputation as a blues performance artist. Back Alley John's records were generally produced or co-produced by Tim Williams, who is both a producer and performer, well known in blues and folk music circles.[9] Former Ottawa bandmate Sandy Smith joined Back Alley John in Calgary, playing and recording with him regularly.[10]
Back Alley John's recordings were subject to significant critical acclaim. By 1998, he was considered to have become one of the finest blues recording artists in North America.[11] In 1999, he was a "Canadian Real Blues Award" winner, cited by Real Blues Magazine[12] as the Best Canadian Unsigned Talent.[13] In 2002, Calgary country and blues singer Ralph Boyd Johnson[14] included the original song "(Hard Act to Follow) Back Alley John", referencing rougher elements of Back Alley John's life, on Johnson's debut album, Dyin' to Go.[15] Johnson had been housemates with Back Alley John and Billy Cowsill, the latter who had also produced Dyin' to Go.[16]
Back Alley John remained based in Calgary for nearly twenty years, until his death. During this period, Back Alley John was noted for his generosity in sharing his talent with others.[17]
Illness and death
Music is life. Anything less would be uncivilized.
Frequently-expressed sentiment of Back Alley John[1]
Back Alley John's career was cut short by respiratory disease, which resulted in him being in continuous third party care for the last two years of his life. Notwithstanding his physical challenges, which included hepatitis and severe oxygen deprivation, necessitating a wheelchair and constant use of an oxygen tank.[18] Back Alley John literally played the blues until his last breath.[8] He continued to record and to contribute to the recordings of others.[19] Two months before his death, having "flatlined in an ambulance, he somehow made his way to (Calgary's) Ambassador Motor Inn,[20] where he got onstage for a final performance.[1][21] 'He was so close to the end, really bad off, and I couldn't believe he could play,' (his brother) Peter said. 'It wasn't the John I knew, but he still sounded good. It was impressive, but it was heartwrenching, too.'"[8] As the late[22] Mick Joy, John's last steady bass player, close friend and roommate for seven years recalled, "In the final days, he wasn't getting enough oxygen, but it was amazing. He could barely breathe, but he could always pick up harp and blow the harp fine. It was like a mini-miracle every time."[18]
Back Alley John died in Calgary, Alberta on June 22, 2006.
Tributes: 2006 and 2008
On Canada Day, 2006, a memorial concert was held in Calgary in honour of Back Alley John.[8]
In February, 2008, Back Alley John was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame of the Calgary Blues Music Association.[23]
Postscripts
Back Alley John's music continues to receive national radio play. Holger Petersen, founder and owner of Stony Plain Records, has been particularly supportive, through his Saturday Night Blues program on CBC Radio. Drew Nelson included "Please Come Home", a song co-written in the 1980s with Back Alley John, on Nelson's 2014 album, The Other Side.
Back Alley John / bill dowey and the blues devils
Rockin' Dopsie *10.02.1932
Rockin'
Dopsie (a.k.a. Rockin' Dupsee) (February 10, 1932 – August 26, 1993)
was born Alton Rubin in Carencro, Louisiana. He was a leading Zydeco
musician and accordion player who enjoyed popular success first in
Europe and later in the United States.[1]
Career
Dopsie began performing professionally in the late 1940s in Lafayette, Louisiana.[1] His first language was Louisiana Creole French.
Dopsie's debut album came out on Sonet Records of Sweden. He recorded five albums for that label over the next few years and made frequent European tours starting in 1979. His song "That Was Your Mother" with Paul Simon appeared on the Graceland album (1986). Dopsie later recorded with Bob Dylan and appeared in the film Delta Heat in 1992.[1]
Death and legacy
Since Dopsie's death from heart failure in 1993, his band, The Twisters, continues to perform. Now led by his son Dopsie Jr. (accordionist, vocalist and washboard player), with another son Alton Jr., on drums, the band is called Rockin' Dopsie, Jr. & The Zydeco Twisters.[2] Dopsie's younger son Dwayne also plays accordion and leads his own band, Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers.[3]
Dopsie is related to Chanda Rubin, who is a professional tennis championship player .
Career
Dopsie began performing professionally in the late 1940s in Lafayette, Louisiana.[1] His first language was Louisiana Creole French.
Dopsie's debut album came out on Sonet Records of Sweden. He recorded five albums for that label over the next few years and made frequent European tours starting in 1979. His song "That Was Your Mother" with Paul Simon appeared on the Graceland album (1986). Dopsie later recorded with Bob Dylan and appeared in the film Delta Heat in 1992.[1]
Death and legacy
Since Dopsie's death from heart failure in 1993, his band, The Twisters, continues to perform. Now led by his son Dopsie Jr. (accordionist, vocalist and washboard player), with another son Alton Jr., on drums, the band is called Rockin' Dopsie, Jr. & The Zydeco Twisters.[2] Dopsie's younger son Dwayne also plays accordion and leads his own band, Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers.[3]
Dopsie is related to Chanda Rubin, who is a professional tennis championship player .
Rockin' Dopsie Jr. - Fire @ Oyster Fest 2012
Oscar Wills aka TV Slim *10.02.1916
TV Slim (auch T.V. Slim, eigentlich Oscar Wills, * 10. Februar 1916 in Houston; † 21. Oktober 1969 bei Kingman, Arizona) war ein US-amerikanischer Blues- und Rhythm-&-Blues-Musiker (Gesang, auch Gitarre, Geige), Musikproduzent und Songwriter.
Leben und Wirken
Wills begann seine Karriere in Houston, wo er – beeinflusst durch die Musik von DeFord Bailey, Sonny Boy Williamson I., Sonny Boy Williamson II. und Guitar Slim – eigene Kompositionen schrieb. Den Song Dolly Bee konnte er an Don Robey für Junior Parkers Produktion auf Duke Records verkaufen, bevor er die Möglichkeit hatte, das Stück selbst aufzunehmen. Dazu gründete er das Label Speed Records. Mit seinem Song über den kleinen Gauner Flatfoot Sam hatte er einen kleineren lokalen Erfolg.[1][2] Die erste Version des Songs erschien 1957 auf dem kleinen Label Cliff Records, was Stan Lewis, später der Besitzer von Jewel/Paula Records, dazu veranlasste, Oscar Wills, der im Tagesjob Fernseher reparierte, zur Verwendung des Pseudonyms „TV Slim“ zu überreden. Die Single wurde dann unter „T. V. Slim and His Heartbreakers“ auf dem Chess-Sublabel Checker Records (#870) veröffentlicht.
Als Flat Foot Sam anschließend in einer Rhythm-&-Blues-orientierten Neuaufnahme in Cosimo Matassas Studio (mit Robert „Barefootin’“ Parker, Saxophon, Paul Gayten, Klavier, und Charles „Hungry“ Williams, Schlagzeug) von Argo (#5277)[3] veröffentlicht wurde, hatte TV Slim damit einen regionalen Hit. In den folgenden Jahren spielte TV Slim weitere Singles für die Label Speed, Checker, Pzazz, USA, Timbre, Excell und Ideel ein, mit denen er die Geschichte des Flat Foot Sam weiterführte, mit Flatfoot Sam Made a Bet, Flat Foot Sam Met Jim Dandy (1959) und Flat Foot Sam #2. Ferner nahm er vom Rock ’n’ Roll, Rockabilly und Rhythm & Blues beeinflusste Nummern auf, wie den musikalischen Etikette-Ratgeber Don’t Reach Cross My Plate, I Can’t Be Satisfied/Gravy Around Your Steak (Timbre 510), I’m a Real Man/You Won’t Treat Me (Ideel IM-5099), Your Kisses Changed Me (Speed 703) und Tired of Your Cheatin’ & Lying (S-102). TV Slim nahm noch 1968 in Los Angeles, produziert von Paul Gayten und mit dem Arrangement von Teddy Edwards, die Single Don’t Knock the Blues/My Heart’s Full of Pain auf (Pzazz 005[4]). Auf dem Rückweg von einem Auftritt in Chicago starb TV Slim im Oktober 1969 an den Folgen eines Autounfalls in der Nähe von Kingman (Arizona). Albert Collins coverte später TV Slims Song Don't Reach Cross My Plate.
Oscar
"TV Slim" Wills's hilarious tale of a sad sack named "Flat Foot Sam"
briefly made him a bankable name in 1957. Sam's ongoing saga lasted
longer than Slim's minute or two in the spotlight, but that didn't stop
him from recording throughout the 1960s.
Influenced by DeFord Bailey and both Sonny Boy Williamsons on harp and Guitar Slim on axe while living in Houston, Wills sold one of his early compositions, "Dolly Bee," to Don Robey for Junior Parker's use on Duke Records before getting the itch to record himself. To that end, he set up Speed Records, his own label and source for the great majority of his output over the next dozen years.
The first version of "Flat Foot Sam" came out on a tiny Shreveport logo, Cliff Records, in 1957. Local record man Stan Lewis, later the owner of Jewel/Paula Records, reportedly bestowed the colorful nickname of TV Slim on Wills; he was a skinny television repairman, so the handle fit perfectly.
"Flat Foot Sam" generated sufficient regional sales to merit reissue on Checker, but its ragged edges must have rankled someone at the Chicago label enough to convince Slim to recut it in much tighter form in New Orleans with the vaunted studio band at Cosimo's. This time, Robert "Barefootin'" Parker blew a strong sax solo, Chess A&R man Paul Gayten handled piano duties, and Charles "Hungry" Williams laid down a brisk second-line beat. It became Slim's biggest seller when unleashed on another Chess subsidiary, Argo Records.
Slim cut a torrent of 45s for Speed, Checker, Pzazz, USA, Timbre, Excell, and Ideel after that, chronicling the further adventures of his prime mealticket with "Flatfoot Sam Made a Bet," "Flat Foot Sam Met Jim Dandy," and "Flat Foot Sam #2." Albert Collins later covered Slim's Speed waxing of the surreal "Don't Reach Cross My Plate." Wills died in a car wreck outside Klingman, AZ, in 1969 en route home to Los Angeles after playing a date in Chicago.
Influenced by DeFord Bailey and both Sonny Boy Williamsons on harp and Guitar Slim on axe while living in Houston, Wills sold one of his early compositions, "Dolly Bee," to Don Robey for Junior Parker's use on Duke Records before getting the itch to record himself. To that end, he set up Speed Records, his own label and source for the great majority of his output over the next dozen years.
The first version of "Flat Foot Sam" came out on a tiny Shreveport logo, Cliff Records, in 1957. Local record man Stan Lewis, later the owner of Jewel/Paula Records, reportedly bestowed the colorful nickname of TV Slim on Wills; he was a skinny television repairman, so the handle fit perfectly.
"Flat Foot Sam" generated sufficient regional sales to merit reissue on Checker, but its ragged edges must have rankled someone at the Chicago label enough to convince Slim to recut it in much tighter form in New Orleans with the vaunted studio band at Cosimo's. This time, Robert "Barefootin'" Parker blew a strong sax solo, Chess A&R man Paul Gayten handled piano duties, and Charles "Hungry" Williams laid down a brisk second-line beat. It became Slim's biggest seller when unleashed on another Chess subsidiary, Argo Records.
Slim cut a torrent of 45s for Speed, Checker, Pzazz, USA, Timbre, Excell, and Ideel after that, chronicling the further adventures of his prime mealticket with "Flatfoot Sam Made a Bet," "Flat Foot Sam Met Jim Dandy," and "Flat Foot Sam #2." Albert Collins later covered Slim's Speed waxing of the surreal "Don't Reach Cross My Plate." Wills died in a car wreck outside Klingman, AZ, in 1969 en route home to Los Angeles after playing a date in Chicago.
Juvenile Delinquent - TV Slim
R.I.P.
Dave Van Ronk +10.02.2002
Dave Van Ronk (* 30. Juni 1936 in Brooklyn, New York; † 10. Februar 2002 in New York City) war ein US-amerikanischer Gitarrist, Sänger, Songschreiber und eine der treibenden Kräfte des Folk- und Blues-Revivals der 1960er. Er förderte u.a. Bob Dylan und Joni Mitchell.
Van Ronk besuchte eine High School in Queens, die er mit 15 Jahren vorzeitig verließ. Seit 1949 spielte er in einem Barbershop Quartett, Anfang der 1950er ging er zur Handelsmarine. Ab 1956 trat er als professioneller Musiker auf. Van Ronk interessierte sich intensiv für Jazz und Blues, entschied sich aber schließlich für den Blues. Seine Lieder orientierten sich am Werk von Blues-Legenden wie Furry Lewis und Mississippi John Hurt. Sein letztes Konzert gab er wenige Monate vor seinem Tod im Februar 2002.
Die meiste Zeit seines Lebens verbrachte Van Ronk im New Yorker Künstlerviertel Greenwich Village. 2004 wurde dort eine Straße nach ihm benannt. Seine Autobiografie diente als Inspiration für den Film Inside Llewyn Davis der Coen-Brüder.
David Kenneth Ritz "Dave" Van Ronk (June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002) was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street".
He was an important figure in the acoustic folk revival of the 1960s. His work ranged from old English ballads to blues, gospel, rock, New Orleans jazz, and swing. He was also known for performing instrumental ragtime guitar music, especially his transcription of "St. Louis Tickle" and Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag".
Van Ronk was a widely admired avuncular figure in "the Village", presiding over the coffeehouse folk culture and acting as a friend to many up-and-coming artists by inspiring, assisting, and promoting them. Folk performers whom he befriended include Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Patrick Sky, Phil Ochs, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Guthrie Thomas, and Joni Mitchell.
Bob Dylan recorded Van Ronk's arrangement of the traditional song "House of the Rising Sun" on Dylan's first album. A few years later the Animals had a No. 1 hit single with a rock version of the Van-Ronk arrangement of the song,[1] a hit which helped to inaugurate the folk-rock movement.[2]
Van Ronk received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) in December 1997. He died in a New York hospital of cardiopulmonary failure while undergoing postoperative treatment for colon cancer.[3]
Life and career
Van Ronk was born in Brooklyn to a family that was "mostly Irish, despite the Dutch name."[4] He moved from Brooklyn to Queens in 1951 and began attending Holy Child Jesus Catholic School, whose students were mainly of Irish descent. He had been performing in a barbershop quartet since 1949, but left before finishing high school, and spent the next few years bumming around lower Manhattan and twice shipping out with the Merchant Marine.
His first professional gigs were with various traditional jazz bands around New York, of which he later observed: "We wanted to play traditional jazz in the worst way...and we did!" But the trad jazz revival had already passed its prime, and Van Ronk turned to performing blues he had stumbled across while shopping for jazz 78s, by artists like Furry Lewis and Mississippi John Hurt. Van Ronk was not the first white musician to perform African-American blues, but became noted for his interpretation of it in its original context. By about 1958, he was firmly committed to the folk-blues style, accompanying himself with his own acoustic guitar. He performed blues, jazz and folk music, occasionally writing his own songs but generally arranging the work of earlier artists and his folk revival peers. At one point, he was considered for a folk-pop trio with Peter Yarrow. Van Ronk's voice and style were considered too idiosyncratic and the role eventually went to Noel Paul Stookey,(who became the "Paul" in Peter, Paul and Mary).
He became noted both for his large physical stature and his expansive charisma, which bespoke an intellectual, cultured gentleman of many talents. Among his many interests were cooking, science fiction (he was active for some time in science fiction fandom, referring to it as "mind rot",[5] and contributed to fanzines), world history, and politics. During the 1960s he supported radical left-wing political causes and was a member of the Libertarian League and the Trotskyist American Committee for the Fourth International (ACFI, later renamed the Workers League,[6] predecessor to the Socialist Equality Party).[7] In 1974, he appeared at "An Evening For Salvador Allende", a concert organized by Phil Ochs, alongside such other performers as his old friend Bob Dylan, to protest the overthrow of the democratic socialist government of Chile and to aid refugees from the U.S.-backed military junta led by Augusto Pinochet. Although he was less politically active in later years, he remained committed to anarchist/socialist ideals and was a dues-paying member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) almost until his death. After Ochs's suicide in 1976, Van Ronk joined the many performers who played at his memorial concert in the Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden, playing his bluesy version of the traditional folk ballad "He Was A Friend Of Mine".[8]
In 2000, he performed at Blind Willie's in Atlanta, clothed in garish Hawaiian garb, speaking fondly of his impending return to Greenwich Village. He reminisced over tunes like "You've Been a Good Old Wagon," a song teasing a worn-out lover, which he ruefully remarked had seemed humorous to him back in 1962. He was married to Terri Thal in the 1960s,[9] lived for many years with Joanne Grace, then married Andrea Vuocolo, with whom he spent the rest of his life. He continued to perform for four decades and gave his last concert just a few months before his death. He found it amusing to be called "a legend in his own time".
Van Ronk died before completing work on his memoirs, which were finished by his collaborator, Elijah Wald, and published in 2005 as The Mayor Of MacDougal Street.
In 2004, a section of Sheridan Square, where Barrow Street meets Washington Place, was renamed Dave Van Ronk Street in his memory.[10]
Cultural impact
Van Ronk can be described as an irreverent and incomparable guitar artist and interpreter of black blues and folk, with an uncannily precise ability at impersonation. Joni Mitchell often said that his rendition of her song "Both Sides Now" (which he called "Clouds") was the finest ever.
He is perhaps underestimated as a musician and blues guitarist. His guitar work, for which he credits Tom Paley as fingerpicking teacher, is noteworthy for both syncopation and precision. It shows similarities to Mississippi John Hurt's, but Van Ronk's main influence was the Reverend Gary Davis, who conceived the guitar as "a piano around his neck". Van Ronk took this pianistic approach and added a harmonic sophistication adapted from the band voicings of Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington. He ranks high in bringing blues style to Greenwich Village during the 1960s, as well as introducing the folk world to the complex harmonies of Kurt Weill in his many Brecht-Weill interpretations, and being one of the very few hardcore traditional revivalists to move with the times, bringing old blues and ballads together with the new sounds of Dylan, Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. During this crucial period, he performed with the likes of Bob Dylan and spent many years teaching guitar in Greenwich Village, including to Christine Lavin, David Massengill, Terre Roche and Suzzy Roche. He influenced his protégé Danny Kalb and The Blues Project. The Japanese singer Masato Tomobe, American pop-folk singer Geoff Thais and the musician and writer Elijah Wald learned from him as well. Known for making interesting and memorable observations he once said, "Painting is all about space, and music is all about time." In his autobiography Bob Dylan states, "I'd heard Van Ronk back in the Midwest on records and thought he was pretty great, copied some of his recordings phrase for phrase. [...] Van Ronk could howl and whisper, turn blues into ballads and ballads into blues. I loved his style. He was what the city was all about. In Greenwich Village, Van Ronk was king of the street, he reigned supreme."[11]
Thanks to what he had learned from Davis, Van Ronk was among the first to adapt traditional jazz and ragtime to the solo acoustic guitar. His guitar arrangements of such ragtime hits as "St. Louis Tickle", "The Entertainer", "The Pearls" and "Maple Leaf Rag" continue to frustrate and challenge aspiring guitar players. He also did fine compositions of his own in the classic styles, such as "Antelope Rag".
His song "Last Call" is the source of the title of Lawrence Block's book When the Sacred Ginmill Closes.
Van Ronk was among the thirteen people arrested at the Stonewall Inn June 28, 1969—the night that the Stonewall Riots, which many cite as the start of the gay rights movement, began. The New York Times reported the next day that he was arrested and later parolled on his own recognizance for having thrown a heavy object at a patrolman.[12] City records reveal he was charged with felony assault in the second degree[13] and pled guilty to the lesser charge of harassment, classified in 1969 as a violation under pL 240.25. Articles published at the time in The New York Post and the Village Voice reveal that Van Ronk was pulled by police from the crowd outside and dragged inside the Stonewall.[14][15]
The Coen brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis follows a folk singer similar to Van Ronk, and incorporates anecdotes based on Van Ronk's life.[16][17] The release of the film coincides with Down in Washington Square: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection from Smithsonian Folkways which was released on October 29, 2013.
Unlike the title character in the Coen Brothers' film, Van Ronk was actually a swanky dresser who initiated many clothing styles in Greenwich Village during the early and mid 60s.
Personal characteristics
Van Ronk refused for many years to fly and never learned to drive (he would use trains or buses or, when possible, recruit a girlfriend or young musician as his driver), and he declined to ever move from Greenwich Village for any extended period of time (having stayed in California for a short time in the 1960s).[18] Van Ronk's trademark stoneware jug of Tullamore Dew was frequently seen on stage next to him in his early days.
Critic Robert Shelton described Van Ronk as "the musical mayor of MacDougal Street":
[A] tall, garrulous hairy man of three quarters, or, more accurately, three fifths Irish descent. Topped by light brownish hair and a leonine beard, which he smoothed down several times a minute, he resembled an unmade bed strewn with books, record jackets, pipes, empty whiskey bottles, lines from obscure poets, finger picks, and broken guitar strings. He was Bob [Dylan]'s first New York guru. Van Ronk was a walking museum of the blues. Through an early interest in jazz, he had gravitated toward black music - its jazz pole, its jug-band and ragtime center, its blues bedrock... his manner was rough and testy, disguising a warm, sensitive core. Van Ronk retold the blues intimately... for a time, his most dedicated follower was [Bob] Dylan.
He was an important figure in the acoustic folk revival of the 1960s. His work ranged from old English ballads to blues, gospel, rock, New Orleans jazz, and swing. He was also known for performing instrumental ragtime guitar music, especially his transcription of "St. Louis Tickle" and Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag".
Van Ronk was a widely admired avuncular figure in "the Village", presiding over the coffeehouse folk culture and acting as a friend to many up-and-coming artists by inspiring, assisting, and promoting them. Folk performers whom he befriended include Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Patrick Sky, Phil Ochs, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Guthrie Thomas, and Joni Mitchell.
Bob Dylan recorded Van Ronk's arrangement of the traditional song "House of the Rising Sun" on Dylan's first album. A few years later the Animals had a No. 1 hit single with a rock version of the Van-Ronk arrangement of the song,[1] a hit which helped to inaugurate the folk-rock movement.[2]
Van Ronk received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) in December 1997. He died in a New York hospital of cardiopulmonary failure while undergoing postoperative treatment for colon cancer.[3]
Life and career
Van Ronk was born in Brooklyn to a family that was "mostly Irish, despite the Dutch name."[4] He moved from Brooklyn to Queens in 1951 and began attending Holy Child Jesus Catholic School, whose students were mainly of Irish descent. He had been performing in a barbershop quartet since 1949, but left before finishing high school, and spent the next few years bumming around lower Manhattan and twice shipping out with the Merchant Marine.
His first professional gigs were with various traditional jazz bands around New York, of which he later observed: "We wanted to play traditional jazz in the worst way...and we did!" But the trad jazz revival had already passed its prime, and Van Ronk turned to performing blues he had stumbled across while shopping for jazz 78s, by artists like Furry Lewis and Mississippi John Hurt. Van Ronk was not the first white musician to perform African-American blues, but became noted for his interpretation of it in its original context. By about 1958, he was firmly committed to the folk-blues style, accompanying himself with his own acoustic guitar. He performed blues, jazz and folk music, occasionally writing his own songs but generally arranging the work of earlier artists and his folk revival peers. At one point, he was considered for a folk-pop trio with Peter Yarrow. Van Ronk's voice and style were considered too idiosyncratic and the role eventually went to Noel Paul Stookey,(who became the "Paul" in Peter, Paul and Mary).
He became noted both for his large physical stature and his expansive charisma, which bespoke an intellectual, cultured gentleman of many talents. Among his many interests were cooking, science fiction (he was active for some time in science fiction fandom, referring to it as "mind rot",[5] and contributed to fanzines), world history, and politics. During the 1960s he supported radical left-wing political causes and was a member of the Libertarian League and the Trotskyist American Committee for the Fourth International (ACFI, later renamed the Workers League,[6] predecessor to the Socialist Equality Party).[7] In 1974, he appeared at "An Evening For Salvador Allende", a concert organized by Phil Ochs, alongside such other performers as his old friend Bob Dylan, to protest the overthrow of the democratic socialist government of Chile and to aid refugees from the U.S.-backed military junta led by Augusto Pinochet. Although he was less politically active in later years, he remained committed to anarchist/socialist ideals and was a dues-paying member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) almost until his death. After Ochs's suicide in 1976, Van Ronk joined the many performers who played at his memorial concert in the Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden, playing his bluesy version of the traditional folk ballad "He Was A Friend Of Mine".[8]
In 2000, he performed at Blind Willie's in Atlanta, clothed in garish Hawaiian garb, speaking fondly of his impending return to Greenwich Village. He reminisced over tunes like "You've Been a Good Old Wagon," a song teasing a worn-out lover, which he ruefully remarked had seemed humorous to him back in 1962. He was married to Terri Thal in the 1960s,[9] lived for many years with Joanne Grace, then married Andrea Vuocolo, with whom he spent the rest of his life. He continued to perform for four decades and gave his last concert just a few months before his death. He found it amusing to be called "a legend in his own time".
Van Ronk died before completing work on his memoirs, which were finished by his collaborator, Elijah Wald, and published in 2005 as The Mayor Of MacDougal Street.
In 2004, a section of Sheridan Square, where Barrow Street meets Washington Place, was renamed Dave Van Ronk Street in his memory.[10]
Cultural impact
Van Ronk can be described as an irreverent and incomparable guitar artist and interpreter of black blues and folk, with an uncannily precise ability at impersonation. Joni Mitchell often said that his rendition of her song "Both Sides Now" (which he called "Clouds") was the finest ever.
He is perhaps underestimated as a musician and blues guitarist. His guitar work, for which he credits Tom Paley as fingerpicking teacher, is noteworthy for both syncopation and precision. It shows similarities to Mississippi John Hurt's, but Van Ronk's main influence was the Reverend Gary Davis, who conceived the guitar as "a piano around his neck". Van Ronk took this pianistic approach and added a harmonic sophistication adapted from the band voicings of Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington. He ranks high in bringing blues style to Greenwich Village during the 1960s, as well as introducing the folk world to the complex harmonies of Kurt Weill in his many Brecht-Weill interpretations, and being one of the very few hardcore traditional revivalists to move with the times, bringing old blues and ballads together with the new sounds of Dylan, Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. During this crucial period, he performed with the likes of Bob Dylan and spent many years teaching guitar in Greenwich Village, including to Christine Lavin, David Massengill, Terre Roche and Suzzy Roche. He influenced his protégé Danny Kalb and The Blues Project. The Japanese singer Masato Tomobe, American pop-folk singer Geoff Thais and the musician and writer Elijah Wald learned from him as well. Known for making interesting and memorable observations he once said, "Painting is all about space, and music is all about time." In his autobiography Bob Dylan states, "I'd heard Van Ronk back in the Midwest on records and thought he was pretty great, copied some of his recordings phrase for phrase. [...] Van Ronk could howl and whisper, turn blues into ballads and ballads into blues. I loved his style. He was what the city was all about. In Greenwich Village, Van Ronk was king of the street, he reigned supreme."[11]
Thanks to what he had learned from Davis, Van Ronk was among the first to adapt traditional jazz and ragtime to the solo acoustic guitar. His guitar arrangements of such ragtime hits as "St. Louis Tickle", "The Entertainer", "The Pearls" and "Maple Leaf Rag" continue to frustrate and challenge aspiring guitar players. He also did fine compositions of his own in the classic styles, such as "Antelope Rag".
His song "Last Call" is the source of the title of Lawrence Block's book When the Sacred Ginmill Closes.
Van Ronk was among the thirteen people arrested at the Stonewall Inn June 28, 1969—the night that the Stonewall Riots, which many cite as the start of the gay rights movement, began. The New York Times reported the next day that he was arrested and later parolled on his own recognizance for having thrown a heavy object at a patrolman.[12] City records reveal he was charged with felony assault in the second degree[13] and pled guilty to the lesser charge of harassment, classified in 1969 as a violation under pL 240.25. Articles published at the time in The New York Post and the Village Voice reveal that Van Ronk was pulled by police from the crowd outside and dragged inside the Stonewall.[14][15]
The Coen brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis follows a folk singer similar to Van Ronk, and incorporates anecdotes based on Van Ronk's life.[16][17] The release of the film coincides with Down in Washington Square: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection from Smithsonian Folkways which was released on October 29, 2013.
Unlike the title character in the Coen Brothers' film, Van Ronk was actually a swanky dresser who initiated many clothing styles in Greenwich Village during the early and mid 60s.
Personal characteristics
Van Ronk refused for many years to fly and never learned to drive (he would use trains or buses or, when possible, recruit a girlfriend or young musician as his driver), and he declined to ever move from Greenwich Village for any extended period of time (having stayed in California for a short time in the 1960s).[18] Van Ronk's trademark stoneware jug of Tullamore Dew was frequently seen on stage next to him in his early days.
Critic Robert Shelton described Van Ronk as "the musical mayor of MacDougal Street":
[A] tall, garrulous hairy man of three quarters, or, more accurately, three fifths Irish descent. Topped by light brownish hair and a leonine beard, which he smoothed down several times a minute, he resembled an unmade bed strewn with books, record jackets, pipes, empty whiskey bottles, lines from obscure poets, finger picks, and broken guitar strings. He was Bob [Dylan]'s first New York guru. Van Ronk was a walking museum of the blues. Through an early interest in jazz, he had gravitated toward black music - its jazz pole, its jug-band and ragtime center, its blues bedrock... his manner was rough and testy, disguising a warm, sensitive core. Van Ronk retold the blues intimately... for a time, his most dedicated follower was [Bob] Dylan.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen