Frohe Ostern
Happy Easter
1887 Cripple Clarence Lofton*
1958 W. C. Handy+
1958 W. C. Handy+
1961 Giacomo Aime*
1965 Dave Goodman*
1974 Arthur Crudup+
1979 Joe Willie Wilkins+
2012 Jerry McCain+
Carl Marshall*
1965 Dave Goodman*
1974 Arthur Crudup+
1979 Joe Willie Wilkins+
2012 Jerry McCain+
Carl Marshall*
Happy Birthday
Cripple Clarence Lofton *28.03.1887
Cripple Clarence Lofton begann seine Karriere, obwohl er humpelte, als Steptänzer, woher sein Künstlername rührt. Später wurde er als Pianist im Blues- und Boogie Woogie-Idiom bekannt und zog nach Chicago. Kennzeichen seiner Auftritte war seine energiegeladene Bühnenpräsenz, wo er zu seinem Gesang auch tanzte und pfiff. Der Autor William Russell gab in seinem Buch Boogie Woogie eine Beschreibung seiner Bühnenshow:
"Niemand kann sich über einen Mangel an Abwechslung oder Vielseitigkeit bei Clarence beklagen. Wenn er richtig in Fahrt kommt, ist er ein Zirkus mit drei Runden. Während der einen Nummer spielt und singt er, pfeift einen Chorus und schnippt mit den Fingern wie ein Flamencotänzer, um seinem Blues-Spiel zusätzliche perkussive Begleitung zu geben. Manchmal aber dreht er sich seitwärts, meist mit dem Rücken zum Klavier, als ob er dahintrabe und er stapft mit dem Füßen. Unterdessen beginnt er fängt er wieder an zu singen und ruft ins Publikum oder zu seinem Schlagzeuger. Plötzlich springt er mitten in einer Nummer auf, seine Hände verschränkt, und läuft rund um den Klavierstuhl; dann, ganz unerwartet, brummt er irgendwas in einer tiefen Bass-Stimme. Eine Sekunde später dreht er sich um und kehrt zum Klavier zurück; beide Hände fliegen dann in hohem Tempo über die Tasten. Seine Handlungen und sein Gesichtsausdruck sind so intensiv dramatisch und unterhaltsam wie seine Musik."[2]
Die meisten seiner Songs waren zwölf-taktige Blues; mit seinem einzigartigem Stil fand Lofton bald die Hauptsäule seines Schaffens. Seine ersten Aufnahmen entstanden im April 1935 mit Big Bill Broonzy für Vocalion Records. Er trat später im Nachtclub Big Apple in Chicago auf und spielte bis Ende der 1940er Jahre weitere Schallplatten ein, bis er sich zur Ruhe setzte. Er lebte weiter in Chicago, bis er 1957 an einer Gehirnembolie verstarb.
Lofton war ein wichtiger Bestandteil des Boogie-Woogie Genre in Chicago. Zu seinen bekanntesten Songs gehörten: „Strut That Thing“, „Monkey Man Blues“, „I Don't Know“ und „Pitchin' Boogie“. Sein Talent beeinflusste weitere Spieler wie Pinetop Smith und andere bekannte Boogie-Woogie Künstler wie Meade Lux Lewis, Cow Cow Davenport und Jimmy Yancey. Lofton selbst sagte, sein Vorbild wäre Erwin Helfer gewesen.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripple_Clarence_Lofton
Cripple Clarence Lofton (March 28, 1887 - January 9, 1957), born Albert Clemens in Kingsport, Tennessee, was a noted boogie-woogie pianist and singer.
Life and career
Though Lofton was born with a limp (from which he derived his stage name), he actually started his career as a tap-dancer.[1] Lofton moved on from tap-dancing into the blues idiom known as boogie-woogie and moved on to perform in Chicago, Illinois.
The trademark of Lofton's performances was his energetic stage-presence, where he danced and whistled in addition to singing.[2] A conversant description of Lofton is provided in an excerpt from Boogie Woogie by William Russell:
"No one can complain of Clarence's lack of variety or versatility. When he really gets going he's a three-ring circus. During one number, he plays, sings, whistles a chorus, and snaps his fingers with the technique of a Spanish dancer to give further percussive accompaniment to his blues. At times he turns sideways, almost with his back to the piano as he keeps pounding away at the keyboard and stomping his feet, meanwhile continuing to sing and shout at his audience or his drummer. Suddenly in the middle of a number he jumps up, his hands clasped in front of him, and walks around the piano stool, and then, unexpectedly, out booms a vocal break in a bass voice from somewhere. One second later, he has turned and is back at the keyboard, both hands flying at lightning- like pace. His actions and facial expressions are as intensely dramatic and exciting as his music."[3]
With his distinctive performance style, Lofton found himself a mainstay in his genre: His first recording was in April 1935 for Vocalion Records with guitar accompaniment from Big Bill Broonzy.[4] He later went on to own the Big Apple nightclub in Chicago and continued to record well into the late 1940s, when he retired.[1]
Lofton lived in Chicago until he died from a blood clot in his brain[1] in Cook County Hospital in 1957.[4]
Influence
Lofton was an integral part of the boogie-woogie genre in Chicago.[3] Some of his more popular songs include: "Strut That Thing", "Monkey Man Blues", "I Don't Know" and "Pitchin' Boogie". His talent was likened to that of Pinetop Smith and other prominent boogie-woogie artists including: Meade Lux Lewis, Cow Cow Davenport and Jimmy Yancey. Lofton was also said to have influenced Erwin Helfer.
Life and career
Though Lofton was born with a limp (from which he derived his stage name), he actually started his career as a tap-dancer.[1] Lofton moved on from tap-dancing into the blues idiom known as boogie-woogie and moved on to perform in Chicago, Illinois.
The trademark of Lofton's performances was his energetic stage-presence, where he danced and whistled in addition to singing.[2] A conversant description of Lofton is provided in an excerpt from Boogie Woogie by William Russell:
"No one can complain of Clarence's lack of variety or versatility. When he really gets going he's a three-ring circus. During one number, he plays, sings, whistles a chorus, and snaps his fingers with the technique of a Spanish dancer to give further percussive accompaniment to his blues. At times he turns sideways, almost with his back to the piano as he keeps pounding away at the keyboard and stomping his feet, meanwhile continuing to sing and shout at his audience or his drummer. Suddenly in the middle of a number he jumps up, his hands clasped in front of him, and walks around the piano stool, and then, unexpectedly, out booms a vocal break in a bass voice from somewhere. One second later, he has turned and is back at the keyboard, both hands flying at lightning- like pace. His actions and facial expressions are as intensely dramatic and exciting as his music."[3]
With his distinctive performance style, Lofton found himself a mainstay in his genre: His first recording was in April 1935 for Vocalion Records with guitar accompaniment from Big Bill Broonzy.[4] He later went on to own the Big Apple nightclub in Chicago and continued to record well into the late 1940s, when he retired.[1]
Lofton lived in Chicago until he died from a blood clot in his brain[1] in Cook County Hospital in 1957.[4]
Influence
Lofton was an integral part of the boogie-woogie genre in Chicago.[3] Some of his more popular songs include: "Strut That Thing", "Monkey Man Blues", "I Don't Know" and "Pitchin' Boogie". His talent was likened to that of Pinetop Smith and other prominent boogie-woogie artists including: Meade Lux Lewis, Cow Cow Davenport and Jimmy Yancey. Lofton was also said to have influenced Erwin Helfer.
Dave Goodman *28.03.1965
Gitarrist, Sänger und Songwriter, wurde am 28. März 1965 in Victoria, British Columbia, Kanada geboren. Als jüngstes von sieben Kindern einer musikbegeisterten Familie kam er rasch mit Instrumenten in Berührung. Nachdem er mit zwölf Jahren zunächst Geigenunterricht erhalten hatte, entdeckte er schon wenig später die elektrische Gitarre. Bald darauf musizierte er mit seinen Geschwistern. Unter seinem Mentor, dem Gitarristen und Gitarrenbauer Dave Vidal, wurde die Liebe zur Gitarre rasch intensiver: Vidal zeigte ihm nicht nur, wie man den Blues spielt, sondern auch wie man Gitarren baut und repariert, sowie grundlegende elektrotechnische und handwerkliche Kenntnisse. Seine Teenagerjahre waren zunächst von Jazz geprägt – eine Musik, die er gemeinsam mit seinem Schulfreund, dem späteren Skywalk-Keyboarder Miles Black für sich entdeckte. Das Engagement zeigte rasch Erfolge: Mit 17 Jahren wurde Dave zum besten Jazz-Gitarristen aller Schulen in British Columbia für das “Honor Jazz-Ensemble” der kanadischen Jazz-Legende Phil Nimmons ausgewählt. Die Entscheidung für eine musikalische Laufbahn war gefallen: Nach seinem High-Abschluss ging er nach Vancouver um am dortigen College Jazz bei Bruce Clausen zu studieren.
1982-1990
In den Achtziger Jahren spielte er im Rahmen zahlloser Gigs in allen Teilen Kanadas und in den Vereinigten Staaten – darunter im bekannten Wave Waikiki auf Hawaii, wo er als Gastgeber mit Größen wie David Sanborn, Terry Lynn Carrington und Was not Was auftrat. Der kanadische Jazz-Trompeter Mark Hasselbach sowie der für den Juno – Kanadas Grammy – nominierte Gitarrist Neil James Harnett waren weitere wichtige Begegnungen jener Jahre. Mit der James Healey Band gastierte er als Opener für die Doobie Brothers im Vancouver’ Pacific Colosseum sowie für Meat Loaf und Tower of Power in der 86th. Street Music Hall in Vancouver. 1990 war Zeit für einen Wechsel. Er zog nach Nordkalifornien und wurde rasch zu einer festen Größe der Blues-Szene in der Bay Area. Unter anderem spielte er mit Gitarrist Steve Kimock von The Other Ones, (Bruce Hornsby, Bob Wier) sowie Sänger Judge Murphy.
Es entstanden Aufnahmen für Mike Varney’s Blues Bureau International auf dem ersten eines Dreier-CD-Sets mit Bay Area Blues-Musikern wie Tommy Castro, Johnny Nitro, Garth Webber und Chris Cobb – allesamt Künstler der North Beach Blues Szene.
Als Gitarrist im Trio des bekannten Blues-Musikers, Pianisten und Organisten Stu Blank (mit Ty Smith am Schlagzeug) hatte er Gelegenheit John Lee Hooker kennen zu lernen. Blank, ein langjähriger Freund der Blues-Legende, hatte Hooker zu einem Konzert des Trios in den South San Francisco Club eingeladen. Die Begegnung mit Hooker ist für Dave unvergesslich geblieben: “Er betrat den Club mit Porkpie-Hut und einer Art Haifischhaut-Jackett, in jedem Arm eine hübsche, junge Frau. Er blieb während des gesamten neunzigminütigen Konzerts und pries die Musik der Band in typischer Blues-Diktion:“You b- b -b -boys, y-y -yoos so good, y-yoos so tight”. Dann zückte er seinen Filzstift und signierte Dave’s Stratocaster. Weil Dave Hookers Autogramm lackierte, glänzt es noch heute auf der Gitarre.
Durch sein Interesse für die technischen Aspekte der Gitarre, entwickelte sich in jener Zeit eine Geschäftsbeziehung mit dem renommierten kalifornischen Verstärker-Hersteller Mesa Boogie. Im Rahmen dieser Zusammenarbeit entwickelte Dave den The Revolver, ein rotierendes Lautsprechersystem für Gitarren, vergleichbar dem “Leslie” für Orgeln. Nachdem Mesa Boogie die Lizenz von Dave erworben hatte, begann das Unternehmen 1995 mit der Produktion. Zu den ersten Kunden zählte Carlos Santana, der gleich zwei Geräte erwarb, und von Dave persönlich beliefert und in die Technik eingewiesen wurde – eine weitere frühe Sternstunde in Daves Karriere. Andere Musiker und Bands, die den “Revolver” für ihre Arbeit nutzten, waren Prince, Metallica, Sound Garden, Blues Traveller, Warren Haynes, and Sonny Landreth.
The Dave Goodman Band 1980s
1995 begann Dave als Mitglied der Ford Blues Band durch Europa zu touren. Mit Unterstützung des Schlagzeugers und Produzenten Patrick Ford, Bruder von Bandleader Robben Ford, begann er in Europa Fuß zu fassen und erste Kontakte zu knüpfen. Die Geschäftsbeziehungen intensivierten sich rasch, sodass er von Bear Family Records und bald darauf von CrossCut Records – beides deutsche Label – unter Vertrag genommen wurde. Im Dave Goodmann-Trio mit dem Kanadier Aaron Anderson am Schlagzeug und dem hawaiianischen Bassisten Billy Mendoza spielt Dave weiterhin elektrische Gitarre. Zu hören ist das Trio auf der CD “Live‘96”:index.php?article_id=28&clang=1 (Bear Family Records, BCD 17009), eine Aufnahme vom Breminale Festival in Bremen, die von Songwriter/Manager Manfred Fleckenstein produziert wurde.
1998 wurde zu einem entscheidenden Jahr: Dave verließ Kalifornien und wagte den Umzug nach Deutschland. Seit seinen frühen Teenagerjahren war es immer sein Traum gewesen, in Europa zu leben. Der örtliche Wechsel leitete einen grundlegenden künstlerischen und persönlichen Wandel ein. Es galt einige Dinge zu überdenken. Dave nahm eine Auszeit von der Bühne und konzentrierte sich auf die akustische Gitarre. Zugleich begann er Songtexte zu schreiben, die sich durch eine persönlichere Note auszeichneten, als bisher. Als Resultat der Neuorientierung entstand die erste, ausschließlich auf akustischer Gitarre eingespielte CD “Roadbook Rhymes”:index.php?article_id=27&clang=1 (CrossCut Records CCD 12001) – eine sehr persönliche Sammlung eigener Lieder im “roots songwriter singer Style”. Lediglich bei zwei Stücken wird er von dem Schweizer Gitarristen Hank Shizzoe begleitet. Seine zweite, ebenfalls von Fleckenstein/Goodman produzierte Acoustic-CD “Rocks, Skies and Waters”:index.php?article_id=26&clang=1 (CrossCut Records CCD 12007) folgte 2004. Auch diese Arbeit ist ein sehr persönliches Statement mit Liedern in der großen Tradition amerikanischer Roots-Musik. Dave spielt Solo-Akustik-Gitarre und andere Instrumente sowie im Duo und Trio mit dem deutschen Schlagzeuger Oliver Spanuth und dem russischen Kontrabassisten Paul Pastouchov. Die Verkaufszahlen der CDs waren mehr als zufriedenstellend, auch die Kritik im In- und Ausland zeigte sich überzeugt.
2004
markiert den Beginn einer Zusammenarbeit mit Yamaha Music. Soweit das Tourprogramm es zulässt, ist Dave für die Marke im In- und Ausland unterwegs. In Mittel- und Osteuropa, in England, den USA und in Asien gastiert er für Yamaha im Rahmen von Festivals und Club-Events, unterrichtet in Workshops und in Meisterklassen von Musikschulen. So tourte er für Yamaha in Großbritannien auf einer Solo-Acoustic-Tour und trat neben Künstlern wie Glenn Tilbrook von “Squeeze” und Gitarrenvirtuoso Antonio Forcione unter anderem in der Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh und im Jazz-Club Ronnie Scott’s in London auf. Obwohl sich Dave seit längerem als Solist auf die akustische Gitarre konzentriert, ist die E-Gitarre nicht aus seiner Musik verschwunden: 2011 spielte er auf der Frankfurt Messe unter anderem in Duo- und Bandbesetzung mit Jazzmusikern wie Chris Min Doky, Eric Miyashiro und Nigel Hitchcock. Die Frankfurt Messe hat mittlerweile einen Stammplatz in seinem Kalender. Mit eigenem Programm ist er hier seit 2006 zu hören.
2006-2010
Die Arbeit als Produzent und Komponist gewinnt in dieser Zeit ebenfalls an Bedeutung. Dave war Co-Produzent einer Acoustic-CD für den französischen Sänger Fred Blondin, Songwriter und Begleitmusiker von Rockstar Johny Hallyday. Auch auf “Big Daddy Wilson”:http://www.bigdaddywilsonb.de/’s CD “Love is the Key” (Ruf Records 2010) ist Dave als Co-Autor und an der Gitarre präsent.
Die Begegnung mit Gitarren-Virtuoso Peter Finger führte 2009 zu einer engeren Zusammenarbeit mit dessen Label Acoustic Music Records, wo Dave seine jüngste CD “Side Of The Road”:index.php?article_id=89&clang=1 mit Big Daddy Wilson, Steve Baker und Joe Dinkelbach aufnahm. Dave ist dem Label mittlerweile eng verbunden. 2009 gastierte er auf dem Open Strings Festival von Accoustic Music Records, als regelmäßiger Gast der International Guitar Night Tours ist er auf Konzerten mit Peter Finger zu hören. Dave arbeitet zudem als Video-Kolumnist für das labeleigene Gitarrenmagazin Acoustic Player, wo er Unterrichtsanleitungen und Videos veröffentlicht. Gemeinsam mit zwei weiteren Lehrern unterrichtet er auf dem alljährlichen “Acoustic Music May”-Gitarren-Workshop in Osnabrück.
2010 erschien die DVD “Blue”:index.php?article_id=93&clang=1, ein persönliches Portrait von Dave mit Interviews, Geschichten, Konzertausschnitten sowie – als Extra – einem Gitarren-Workshop. Der unterhaltsame Film entstand in Regie von Willie Burger, unter anderem bekannt durch sein Dubliners-Portrait Five Beards On The Road
2011-Heute
2011 war ein Jahr mit engem Tourneeprogramm: Dave spielte in 18 Ländern und drei Erdteilen, darunter Mittel- und Osteuropa, Skandinavien, Türkei, Nordamerika und Indien. Trotz der vielen Reiseaktivitäten blieb Zeit für neue Ideen und Projekte: In einer neuen Formation spielt Dave mit dem britischen Harmonika-“Steve Baker”:http://www.stevebaker.de/, dem deutsch-schwedischen Cajon-Meister Martin Röttger, und dem deutschen Schlagzeuger Oliver Spanuth. Dave und Baker spielen zusammen im Duo sowie als Trio zusammen mit Röttger und Spanuth.
Wichtigstes Ergebnis der Zusammenarbeit ist die CD “The Wine Dark Sea”:index.php?article_id=100&clang=1, die 2012 erscheint. Auf dem European Music Workshop im Elsass wird das Trio live zu hören sein.
Dave Goodmans Live-Auftritte sind hochenergetische, musikalisch vielseitige und oft sehr humorvolle Konzerterlebnisse. Mit seiner sehr besonderen Mischung unterschiedlichster, im Verlauf seiner zahllosen Reisen entdeckten Musikstile und Traditionen führt er sein Publikum durch ein weit gespanntes Spektrum von Emotionen und Erlebnissen. Mit gefühlvollen Balladen, temperamentvollen Songs und einem virtuosen Gitarrenspiel erzählt er Geschichten, die unterhalten und bewegen.
Guitarist, singer and songwriter was born in Victoria B.C. Canada on March 28, 1965. The youngest of seven children, he grew up in a musical household. Starting with the violin at age 12, he quickly changed over to the electric guitar taking private lessons and playing with his older brothers. As a teenager, under the tutelage of his mentor West Coast blues guitar master and technician Dave Vidal, he learned to play blues as well as guitar building and repair, electronics and pickup winding. From age 15-18 while still at home he immersed himself in jazz playing with school mate (future Skywalk keyboardist) Miles Black in the Victoria clubs and jazz cafes. At age 17 Goodman was selected as best high school jazz guitarist in the province of British Columbia to play in „The Honor Jazz Ensemble“ led by Canadian Jazz legend Phil Nimmons. After graduating from high school, Dave moved to Vancouver to study jazz at Vancouver College under Bruce Clausen.
1982-1990
The next few years found Goodman playing all over Canada as well as in the U.S. including a house gig at the renowned ‘Wave Waikiki’ in Hawaii where he hosted guest sessions with many artists such as David Sanborn, Terry Lynn Carrington and Was Not Was. In this period he also played with Canadian Jazz trumpeter Mark Hasselbach and toured as support for The Jeff Healey Band as well as opening for The Doobie Brothers in Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum.
In 1990 Dave moved to Northern California where he became a fixture in the Bay Area blues scene playing with guitarist Steve Kimock and singer Judge Murphy in the Goodman Murphy band.
During this period he recorded for Mike Varney’s Blues Bureau International label on CD-1 of a three CD set of Bay Area blues artists which featured Tommy Castro, Johnny Nitro, Garth Webber and Chris Cobb, all colleagues in the North Beach blues scene. Dave also played in trio formation with Bay Area blues legend piano/ organist Stu Blank and drummer Ty Smith.
It was with this trio that he had the honor of meeting and playing for John Lee Hooker. Blank, a friend of Hooker’s, invited him to the South San Francisco club where they were playing. John Lee Hooker entered the club, Goodman recalls, in a sharkskin suit, porkpie hat and two beautiful young ladies, one on each arm. Hooker stayed and listened to a ninety minute set. Complimenting the band in his classic talking blues stutter, “you b- b -b -boys, y-y -yoos so good, y-yoos so tight”. He then signed his name with a felt pen on the front of Dave’s Stratocaster. Dave lacquered over the signature and it is still there today. It was a stellar moment in his career he says.
Always keeping a finger in the technical side of music Dave became involved with the world renowned California amplifier manufacturer Mesa Boogie in 1991.
During his years with Mesa, he designed The Revolver, a rotating speaker system for guitar much like a ‘Leslie’ is for organ.
Boogie licensed the Revolver from him and put it into production in 1995. Carlos Santana bought the first two which Dave delivered to him personally and set up in his rig – another very big honor and highlight in his career.
Other artists who obtained Revolvers include Prince, Metallica, Soundgarden, Blues Traveler, Warren Haynes, and Sonny Landreth.
During this period Dave toured Europe as a member of the Ford Blues Band led by Patrick Ford, drummer/producer and brother of Robben Ford. With the help of Patrick Ford he began to make contacts in Europe. Eventually he secured a management deal and a recording contract first with Bear Family Records and later with CrossCut Records both German labels. Through this time Dave was still playing electric guitar in trio formation with Canadian drummer Aaron Anderson and Hawaiian bassist Billy Mendoza as the Dave Goodman Band. This band only released one CD, “Live‘96”:index.php?article_id=28&clang=0 which was recorded at the Breminale Festival and was produced by songwriter Manfred Fleckenstein. It was released on Bear Family Records (BCD 17009) that year.
In 1998, ready for a change from living in California, Dave relocated to Germany. Since his early teens he had always wanted to live in Europe. He also felt it was time to make a musical change as well as doing some soul searching, he took a break from playing live and began concentrating on fingerstyle acoustic guitar and writing songs in a more personal style. His first acoustic CD, “Roadbook Rhymes”:index.php?article_id=27&clang=0 (CrossCut Records CCD 12001) , a very intimate collection of original songs in a roots singer songwriter style was released in 2000 on Crosscut Records. It was mostly a solo recording with three songs in duo formation with guest guitarist from Switzerland, Hank Shizzoe. His second acoustic CD, “Rocks, Skies and Waters”:index.php?article_id=26&clang=0 (CrossCut Records CCD 12007) was released in 2004. It is also a very personal collection of original roots oriented songs ranging from solo, to several instruments played by Dave, as well as trio performances with drums and upright bass. Both CDs sold well and received very positive critiques in Europe.
2004
also marked the beginning of an endorsement deal with Yamaha Music. Aside from his own concert schedule, Dave tours for Yamaha Music taking part in events ranging from festivals and club dates to clinics and master classes in music schools all over Central and Eastern Europe, the U.K. and as far as Asia, the U.S. and Canada. Yamaha has organized solo acoustic tours of the U.K. with Goodman together on the bill with Glenn Tilbrook of “Squeeze” fame and guitar master Antonio Forcione performing in The Queens Hall Edinburgh and Ronnie Scott’s in London. Although focused on his solo acoustic music Dave’s abilities as an electric guitarist have been called upon to play in duo or band formation with Jazz artists Chris Min Doky, Eric Miyashiro and Nigel Hitchcock all of whom he performed with on the 2011 Frankfurt Music Messe. Dave appears almost every year on the Frankfurt Messe playing his solo acoustic program.
2006-2010
Between touring Dave has steadily become more in demand as a producer and composer. He co-produced an acoustic CD for French singer Fred Blondin, who writes songs for and tours with French star Johnny Hallyday. He also co-wrote several tracks and played on Ruf Records artist Big Daddy Wilson “Love Is The Key” album from 2010 as well as numerous sessions.
In 2009 Goodman was approached by Peter Finger to record for his label Acoustic Music Records. The resultant CD “Side Of The Road” featuring Big Daddy Wilson
Steve Baker and Joe Dinkelbach was released later that same year. Since appearing on their Open Strings Festival in 2009 he has frequently been a featured artist on the label’s International Guitar Night tours as well as playing double concerts with Peter Finger. Dave is now a regular workshop/video columnist for Acoustic Music Records online guitar magazine HYPERLINK “http://www.acoustic-player.de/“Acoustic Player as well as releasing instructional books and videos for the label. He is also one of the three teachers in the Acoustic Music May Guitar Workshop which takes place annually in Osnabruck, Germany.
Goodman also released a DVD in 2010 called “Blue”:index.php?article_id=93&clang=0 which is a personal portrait with interviews, stories, concert segments and a guitar workshop as an extra. This highly entertaining film was produced by director Willie Burger who also produced the Dubliners film Five Beards On The Road.
2011-Today
In 2011 Dave performed in eighteen countries including India, Turkey, Greece and all over Eastern, Western and Southern Europe as well as appearing in Scandinavia, the UK, and North America. Despite his busy touring schedule he managed to find time for a new project with Steve Baker with whom he recorded the CD “The Wine Dark Sea”, released in September 2012 on Acoustic Music Records and nominated for the quarterly prize of the German Record Reviewers Association. Goodman and Baker have occasionally appeared as a duo, but the main thrust of their collaboration is as the Dave Goodman Band
together with top line German drummer Oliver Spanuth . Sometimes a real power trio, sometimes a sensitive, almost classically oriented chamber group, the Dave Goodman Band offers a fascinating concert experience with great original songs, beautiful solo work and a high degree of fun and relaxed entertainment.
In the latter part of 2013 Dave recorded a new CD “No Rest For The Wicked”, released in January 2014 on Acoustic Music Records. A retrospective look at his musical and cultural roots, this intense and sparsely produced acoustic recording featuring Oliver Spanuth on percussion is already receiving brilliant critiques.
Goodman is a true multi-talent. As a guitarist, singer, composer and producer, his work is consistently characterized by both stylistic diversity and a remarkable level of artistic output. In autumn 2013 he was invited to appear on the German TV show Supertalent and was unanimously voted into the next round by all four jurors. Despite the heavily hyped setting, Dave remained visibly unimpressed by the media circus and delivered an unaffected and moving rendition of his composition Song For Jimmy which delighted both jury and audience. The power of his music carries its own conviction.
Dave Goodman Live
Whether solo or with the Dave Goodman Band, his live shows are always high energy, and often both extremely funny and deeply moving. His lengthy and varied experience in a wide range of musical styles, developed through his many travels, has translated into a huge repertoire of original songs based on real life situations, which lets him take his audience through a whole gamut of emotions while always leaving space for his infectious spontaneity. Whether sensitive ballads or kick-ass rock’n‘roll, Dave Goodman’s virtuoso guitar work and deeply personal vocals never fail to touch the hearts of the listeners.
Dave Goodman – The man can do it all: he’s a virtuoso guitarist, has a fascinating singing voice, writes texts rich in images and turns them into songs which have hit potential. By Stefan Woldach, ‘Akustik Gitarre’ Magazine, Germany
Carl Marshall *28.03.
Born in Independence, LA.
Now that “Good Lovin’ Will Make You Cry” has become a certified classic in the Southern Soul world Carl Marshall’s popularity has grown rapidly the last several years. But Carl’s actually given his all to the music world for over 30 years now. He grew up in the music streets of New Orleans, Louisiana with his guitar in a band called Sam & the Soul Machine. During the 7+ years he was with them members consisted of Aaron Neville (leave vocals) Sam Henry (keyboards) Gary Brown (sax) Richard Amos (bass) Cyril Neville (congas) Robert Bush (drums).
His first recording was released on Amherst Records in 1976. Under the name Soul Dog Carl released an album called “Movin’ On”, featuring the proto-rap song “Soul Dog”, which was delivered in a trucker’s MC style. A second LP, this time credited to Carl Marshall & The S.D.’s (Soul Dogs), called “I’ll Give My Heart To You” was released in 1980 on Chantilly. In the meantime singles appeared on labels like J.B’s Records, T-Jaye (“Let’s Go Humpin’”, “Your Woman Really Turns Me On”), Double Hit (“I Can’t Live Without You”) and most notably Edge Record Company, Inc. The latter being Al Bell’s first venture after Stax Records where he and Carl recorded a 12 inch single called “Let It Be Me” under the name Marshall & Babb. Further singles and 12 inchers continued to appear, such as “Mardi Gras Party” (as Carl Marshall & Sound Dimension) throughout the 80s.
In the early 90s Carl started his own imprint, Gifft, and began issuing his own LPs of Funk, R & B, Blues, Gospel and Jazz (“This Gift”, “Dead End”, “Let’s Get Fired Up”, “Last Minute”) before joing with Senator Jones’ Hep’ Me Records for one CD, “You Can’t Stop A Woman”, which spawned a regional hit with the title cut. This was followed up with a one album stint at Mardi Gras Records (“A Woman Want A Man, She Don’t Want No Punk”) in 2001.
Carl went back to cutting albums for his Gifft (and later Unleashed) label, scoring “Southern Soul” market hits with songs like “This Is For Grown Folks”, “Grown Folks Party With Me”, “Jingle My Bell”, “Ain’t No Party Like A Grown Folks Party” & “Wind It Up”. During this period Carl also served as a radio personality at the Meridian, Mississippi Clear Channel station Kiss 104.1 (also a Gospel station, WYLD, in New Orleans.)
In 2005 Carl released a song called “Good Lovin’ Will Make You Cry”. At first it was ignored, then gradually over the next couple years the song began to grow as the song began to connect with an audience. By mid-2006 it was one of the hottest songs in Southern Soul music. For over two years it was one of the most loved, played and known song in the genre. During this time Bigg Robb did a remix of the song, which took it to the top for a second run.
In 2008 Carl next signed with a new label, CDS Records, and released his best album yet in 2009, “Look Good For You”, featuring the title cut, “Leave That Man’s Wife Alone” and “Looking For A Real Woman (Looking For Love)” in addition to producing most of the acts for the label.
In 2010 Carl became Vice President of CDS records and released his masterpiece CD, “Love Who You Wanna Love”, and his first DVD, “Grown Folks Live”.
Carl has perfected his musical skills over the years on guitar bass keyboard and drums. In fact, in the early 80s he worked for K-Tel Records where he learned to recreate songs many times over for company. Carl Marshall is a true, dynamic executor. He is a producer- one who has the gift to bring the gift out of other people. He says "a real producer is one who believes in other people's talents and puts his heart and soul in bringing out their greatness.” That's what he does with those he produces. His producer credits include: Jean Knight, Guitar Slim Jr., The Love Doctor, David Brinston, Willie West, Jerry L, Rue Davis, Stan Mosley, Michelle Miller, Charles Wilson, Nellie Tiger Travis, Cicero Blake, TJ Hooker-Taylor, Captain Jack Watson, Chuck Roberson, Gregg A. Smith, Stephanie Pickett, Jim Bennett, Mister Zay, Bobbye Doll Johnson, Patrick Green and more to come.
Carl has the history and the qualifications of one of the best in the music world but he is just now getting the recognition he deserves. Earlier this year the Jus’ Blues Music Awards awarded his song, “Look Good For You”, as “Blues/Soul Song Of The Year”
Since becoming Vice President of CDS Records, the fastest growing label in the business, all light is shining on who he is. Carl has also recently birthed a Gospel division of CDS (CDS Gospel), which he plans to put his whole Soul into. The first Gospel act on CDS Gospel is from Shreveport, La., one singer Rue Davis originally discovered and brought to Carl to produce. These three ladies are called Sisters of Vision (formerly known as Nu' Vizion), who have an album due for release asap.
Carl Marshall is a man that loves the Most High and has high standards in being dedicated to loving people. In his life loving people is first. Music and the music business is next.
Carl Marshall "Jus' Blues"
Giacomo Aime *28.03.1961
Giacomo Aime & The Bluedogs - Muovono le nuvole
Sven Zetterberg *28.03.1952
Sven Zetterberg, geb. 28 März Jahr 1952 in Skärblacka , Provinz Östergötland , ist ein schwedischer Blues und Soul - Musiker, Sänger und Songwriter.
Sven Zetterberg zuvor mit Bands gespielt Telge Blues , Blues Rockers, Blue Fire , vier Hähne und der Chicago Express (1981-1996). Dann fuhr er fort als Solokünstler und tourte auch mit, unter anderem, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy McCracklin , Louisiana Red , Luther Allison und Eddie Boyd .
Er erhielt Cornelis Vreeswijk Stipendium 1989.
Mit dieser Band kommt die wohl beste und bekannteste Soulblues-Band Europas zur Bluesnacht. Frontman Sven gehört zu den wenigen Weißen, die „schwarzen“ Soul authentisch singen und spielen können. Dies und ein Programm mit den frühen Songs des Motown-Labels und anderen Klassikern dieses selten gespielten Genre sollten für einen unvergesslichen Abend sorgen, der nicht nur Blues- und Soulfans begeistern dürfte.
Spricht man über nichtamerikanische Blues-Künstler, führt kein Weg an dem skandinavischen Superstar des Blues vorbei.
Der inzwischen 62-jährige Schwede begann bereits im Alter von 7 Jahren sich mit Musik zu befassen. Wie er selbst in Interviews erklärte, beherrschte er damals kein Wort Englisch. Mit 12 Jahren hörte er das erste Mal
Sonny Boy Williamson, was eine Initialzündung in ihm auslöste.
Er begann Blues-Harp zu spielen und lernte dann mit 24 Jahren Gitarre. 1974 veröffentlichte er sein erstes von insgesamt 18 Blues-Alben. 1999 und 2001 wurde er sogar für den schwedischen Grammy nominiert.
Spricht man über nichtamerikanische Blues-Künstler, führt kein Weg an dem skandinavischen Superstar des Blues vorbei.
Der inzwischen 62-jährige Schwede begann bereits im Alter von 7 Jahren sich mit Musik zu befassen. Wie er selbst in Interviews erklärte, beherrschte er damals kein Wort Englisch. Mit 12 Jahren hörte er das erste Mal
Sonny Boy Williamson, was eine Initialzündung in ihm auslöste.
Er begann Blues-Harp zu spielen und lernte dann mit 24 Jahren Gitarre. 1974 veröffentlichte er sein erstes von insgesamt 18 Blues-Alben. 1999 und 2001 wurde er sogar für den schwedischen Grammy nominiert.
Talking about blues players outside America it´s hard to leave out Sven Zetterberg, Sweden´s most versatile artist in this field. Being both an excellent singer, guitarist,songwriter and harmonica player extraordinary,he has become a house-hold name all over Scandinavia.Born in Skärblacka on the 28th of March in 1952, Sven took music seriously enough to perform in school at the age of seven.”I didn´t know any real english words and couldn´t actually play any instrument but my grand-mother had bought me an acoustic guitar that I fooled around with trying to mimic Elvis Presley.
”The first black performer I heard was Little Richard and he almost drove me crazy with his wild,frantic singing. ”In 1964 he first heard Mick Jagger play harmonica and later that year heard Sonny Boy Williamson(Rice Miller) and that got him started. ”The Blues activated something in me and it still moves me”.
”Harmonica was my main instrument to begin with. I didn´t start playing guitar seriously until I was 24.” The first bluesband, Telge Blues,was formed in 1972 and lasted long enough to make the Phillips record company interested enough to release an album in 1975.
Today,many albums later, Sven hasn´t lost interest in performing or recording and two of his albums, ”Blues from within” and ”Let me get over it” were both nominated for a Grammy in Sweden.
Today, unfortunately, the rules been changed so that no blues cd whatsoever can compete with other types of music in Sweden.
Sven has never regretted that he left his job as a delivery van driver for the swedish postal service back in 1985 to become a full time musician and is constantly performing and recording. His singing and playing through the years have resulted in an unmistakably original style that is his own.”I do a lot of blues ”live” but also include deep soul material,originals as well as classic soul.
Sven Zetterberg Blues Band
Sven Zetterberg: Vocal, Guitar, Harmonica
Anders Lewen: Guitar
Mikael Fahleryd: Bass
Jim Ingvarsson: Drums
Matti Ollikainen/Calle Brickman: Keyboards
Sven Z Trio
Sven Zetterberg: Vocal, Guitar, Harmonica
Little Hank: Guitar
Stefan Stoffe Sundlöf: Drums
”The first black performer I heard was Little Richard and he almost drove me crazy with his wild,frantic singing. ”In 1964 he first heard Mick Jagger play harmonica and later that year heard Sonny Boy Williamson(Rice Miller) and that got him started. ”The Blues activated something in me and it still moves me”.
”Harmonica was my main instrument to begin with. I didn´t start playing guitar seriously until I was 24.” The first bluesband, Telge Blues,was formed in 1972 and lasted long enough to make the Phillips record company interested enough to release an album in 1975.
Today,many albums later, Sven hasn´t lost interest in performing or recording and two of his albums, ”Blues from within” and ”Let me get over it” were both nominated for a Grammy in Sweden.
Today, unfortunately, the rules been changed so that no blues cd whatsoever can compete with other types of music in Sweden.
Sven has never regretted that he left his job as a delivery van driver for the swedish postal service back in 1985 to become a full time musician and is constantly performing and recording. His singing and playing through the years have resulted in an unmistakably original style that is his own.”I do a lot of blues ”live” but also include deep soul material,originals as well as classic soul.
Sven Zetterberg Blues Band
Sven Zetterberg: Vocal, Guitar, Harmonica
Anders Lewen: Guitar
Mikael Fahleryd: Bass
Jim Ingvarsson: Drums
Matti Ollikainen/Calle Brickman: Keyboards
Sven Z Trio
Sven Zetterberg: Vocal, Guitar, Harmonica
Little Hank: Guitar
Stefan Stoffe Sundlöf: Drums
Sven Zetterberg - I'll Take Care Of You (2012)
Sven Zetterberg: vocal, harp & guitar - Jim Ingvarsson: drums -
Torbjörn Eliasson: keys & sax - Anders Lewen: guitar - Mikael
Fahleryd: bass - An amateur footage shot at Frederikshavn Blues Festival
in Denmark - 2nd November 2012
Sven Zetterberg - Twisted (2012)
Sven Zetterberg Blues Band
R.I.P.
Arthur Crudup +28.03.1974
Arthur „Big Boy“ Crudup (* 24. August 1905 in Forest, Mississippi; † 28. März 1974 in Nassawadox, Virginia) war ein US-amerikanischer Blues-Gitarrist und Sänger. Gleich drei Hits von Elvis Presley stammen von Crudup: That's All Right Mama, So Glad You're Mine und My Baby Left Me.
Erst mit 30 Jahren begann Big Boy Crudup, Gitarre zu spielen. Um 1940 zog er nach Chicago, wo er sich als Straßenmusiker durchschlug. Der Musikmanager Lester Melrose lud ihn 1941 zu einer Party im Haus von Tampa Red ein, wo u. a. auch Big Bill Broonzy, Lonnie Johnson und Lil Green zugegen waren. Danach erhielt Crudup einen Plattenvertrag.
Zu den Hits von Crudup in den 1940ern gehören Rock Me Mama, Who's Been Foolin' You, Keep Your Arms Around Me, So Glad You're Mine und Ethel Mae. Meistens spielte er mit dem Bassisten Ransom Knowling und dem Schlagzeuger Judge Riley zusammen.
Mitte der 1950er ließ Crudups Erfolg nach. 1961 brachte er wieder ein Album heraus, doch erst Ende der 1960er gab es ein wirkliches Comeback. Er trat erfolgreich bei Folk- und Blues-Festivals auf, zeitweise wieder mit Knowling. Bis zu seinem Tod 1974 genoss Crudup eine beachtliche Popularität.
1994 wurde Big Boy Crudup in die Blues Hall of Fame aufgenommen.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Crudup
Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup (August 24, 1905 – March 28, 1974) was an American Delta blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known outside blues circles for writing songs such as "That's All Right" (1946),[1] "My Baby Left Me" and "So Glad You're Mine", later covered by Elvis Presley and dozens of other artists.
Career
Arthur Crudup was born in Forest, Mississippi. For a time he lived and worked throughout the South and Midwest as a migrant worker. He and his family returned to Mississippi in 1926. He sang gospel, then began his career as a blues singer around Clarksdale, Mississippi. As a member of the Harmonizing Four, he visited Chicago in 1939. Crudup stayed in Chicago to work as a solo musician, but barely made a living as a street singer. Record producer Lester Melrose allegedly found him while he was living in a packing crate, introduced him to Tampa Red and signed him to a recording contract with RCA Victor's Bluebird label.
He recorded with RCA in the late 1940s and with Ace Records, Checker Records and Trumpet Records in the early 1950s and toured black clubs in the South, including with Sonny Boy Williamson II and Elmore James.[2] He also recorded under the names Elmer James and Percy Lee Crudup. His songs "Mean Old 'Frisco Blues", "Who's Been Foolin' You" and "That's All Right" were popular in the South.[3]
Crudup stopped recording in the 1950s, because of further battles over royalties.[3] His last Chicago session was in 1951. His 1952-54 recording sessions for Victor were held at radio station WGST in Atlanta.[2] He returned to recording with Fire Records and Delmark Records and touring in 1965. Sometimes labeled as "The Father of Rock and Roll", he accepted this title with some bemusement.[3] Throughout this time Crudup worked as a laborer to augment the non-existent royalties and the small wages he received as a singer. Crudup returned to Mississippi after a dispute with Melrose over royalties, then went into bootlegging, and later moved to Virginia where he had lived and worked as a musician and laborer. In the early 1970s, two local Virginia activists, Celia Santiago and Margaret Carter, assisted him in an attempt to gain royalties he felt he was due, with little success.
From the mid-1960s, Crudup returned to bootlegging and working as an agricultural laborer, chiefly in Virginia, where he lived with his family including three sons and several of his own siblings. While he lived in relative poverty as a field laborer, he occasionally sang and supplied moonshine to a number of drinking establishments, including one called The Dew-Drop Inn, in Northampton County, for some time prior to his death from complications of heart disease and diabetes. On a 1970 trip to the United Kingdom, he recorded "Roebuck Man" with local musicians.[3] His last professional engagements were with Bonnie Raitt.[3]
There was some confusion as to his actual date of death because of his use of several names, including those of his siblings. He died of a heart attack in the Nassawadox hospital in Northampton County, Virginia in March 1974.[4][5]
Crudup was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail placed at Forest.
Career
Arthur Crudup was born in Forest, Mississippi. For a time he lived and worked throughout the South and Midwest as a migrant worker. He and his family returned to Mississippi in 1926. He sang gospel, then began his career as a blues singer around Clarksdale, Mississippi. As a member of the Harmonizing Four, he visited Chicago in 1939. Crudup stayed in Chicago to work as a solo musician, but barely made a living as a street singer. Record producer Lester Melrose allegedly found him while he was living in a packing crate, introduced him to Tampa Red and signed him to a recording contract with RCA Victor's Bluebird label.
He recorded with RCA in the late 1940s and with Ace Records, Checker Records and Trumpet Records in the early 1950s and toured black clubs in the South, including with Sonny Boy Williamson II and Elmore James.[2] He also recorded under the names Elmer James and Percy Lee Crudup. His songs "Mean Old 'Frisco Blues", "Who's Been Foolin' You" and "That's All Right" were popular in the South.[3]
Crudup stopped recording in the 1950s, because of further battles over royalties.[3] His last Chicago session was in 1951. His 1952-54 recording sessions for Victor were held at radio station WGST in Atlanta.[2] He returned to recording with Fire Records and Delmark Records and touring in 1965. Sometimes labeled as "The Father of Rock and Roll", he accepted this title with some bemusement.[3] Throughout this time Crudup worked as a laborer to augment the non-existent royalties and the small wages he received as a singer. Crudup returned to Mississippi after a dispute with Melrose over royalties, then went into bootlegging, and later moved to Virginia where he had lived and worked as a musician and laborer. In the early 1970s, two local Virginia activists, Celia Santiago and Margaret Carter, assisted him in an attempt to gain royalties he felt he was due, with little success.
From the mid-1960s, Crudup returned to bootlegging and working as an agricultural laborer, chiefly in Virginia, where he lived with his family including three sons and several of his own siblings. While he lived in relative poverty as a field laborer, he occasionally sang and supplied moonshine to a number of drinking establishments, including one called The Dew-Drop Inn, in Northampton County, for some time prior to his death from complications of heart disease and diabetes. On a 1970 trip to the United Kingdom, he recorded "Roebuck Man" with local musicians.[3] His last professional engagements were with Bonnie Raitt.[3]
There was some confusion as to his actual date of death because of his use of several names, including those of his siblings. He died of a heart attack in the Nassawadox hospital in Northampton County, Virginia in March 1974.[4][5]
Crudup was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail placed at Forest.
Jerry McCain +28.03.2012
Jerry „Boogie“ McCain (* 18. Juni 1930 in Gadsden, Alabama; † 28. März 2012 ebenda[1]) war ein US-amerikanischer Bluesmusiker an der Mundharmonika.
Jerry McCain wurde 1930 als jüngstes von fünf Kindern in Gadsden, Alabama, geboren und begann bereits mit fünf Jahren Mundharmonika zu spielen.[2] Im Jahr 1953 hörte er sein großes Vorbild Little Walter, als dieser mit seinen Aces in Gadsden auftrat. Nach verschiedenen Versionen der Geschichte hat Little Walter ihn mit dem Produzenten Lillian McMurray von Diamond Records bekannt gemacht oder ihn zu seinem ersten Song für Diamond Records inspiriert.[3] Seine erste Single nahm er 1953 für Trumpet Records auf. Bis in die 1970er-Jahre nahm er regelmäßig Platten auf, doch blieb ihm der große Durchbruch versagt. Die Aufnahme für Rex Records, She’s Tough/Steady, wurde später von The Fabulous Thunderbirds gecovert, wobei ihr Harpplayer Kim Wilson McCains Harp nachempfand.
Nach Jahren, die er mit weniger bekannten Bands verbrachte, unterzeichnete er einen Plattenvertrag bei Ichiban Records. Im Jahr 2000 veröffentlichte McCain ein All-Star Album, auf dem er mit Johnnie Johnson, John Primer, Anson Funderburgh, Jimmie Vaughan, Tommy Shannon und Chris Layton (Double Trouble) spielte. Das Werk von McCain wird auch auf der CD von Rhino Records Blues Masters Volume Four: Harmonica Classics gewürdigt, wo er neben Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, Junior Wells, Howlin’ Wolf, Snooky Pryor und George „Harmonica“ Smith mit einem Track vertreten ist.[4]
Seine Heimatstadt würdigt ihren Sohn durch einen eigenen Tag beim alljährlichen Riverfest, einer viertägigen Musikveranstaltung.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_McCain
Jerry McCain, often billed as Jerry "Boogie" McCain (June 18, 1930 – March 28, 2012),[1] was an American electric blues musician,[2] best known as a harmonica player. [3] Born in Gadsden, Alabama, United States, he was one of five children of a poor family, many of his siblings became involved in music as well, most notably his brother, Walter, who played drums on some early recordings.[1] McCain picked up the harmonica from itinerant musicians "Chick" and "Shorty" who played at the local bars (and street corners) when he was young.
Biography
McCain was a fan of the music of Little Walter and met the artist when, in 1953, he traveled to Gadsden for a show.[1] McCain's recording debut came via Trumpet Records the same year under the name "Boogie McCain", with his brother Walter on drums. The two tracks were "East of the Sun" and "Wine-O-Wine". After recruiting Christopher Collins, who would be with him throughout most of his career, he went on to the Excello label. During his years with the Excello (1955–57) he developed his amplified harmonica style, and unusual blues lyrics. The Excello Label period saw the release of such noted songs as "The Jig's Up", and "My Next Door Neighbor". His later recording for Rex Records "She's Tough" / "Steady" was an inspiration to The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and Kim Wilson duplicated McCain's harp work on their version.[1]
McCain also released singles and albums for Columbia, under their Okeh Records label (1962), and for the Nashville based Jewel (1965–68) record label.[1] The complete collection of his Jewel label records are available on a compilation album and, in recent years, several of his early recordings have been released on "retrospective" and compilation CDs, including the Verose Vintage album, Good Stuff. His longest partner, Ichiban Records, also released several retrospectives in the 1990s, including ICH1516-2: Jerry McCain.
In 1989, after a period spent performing and touring with lesser known bands, McCain signed with Ichiban Records, and released the albums: Blues and Stuff, Struttin' My Stuff, and Love Desperado. During his time with Ichiban, McCain also released one record on the Jericho label, This Stuff Just Kills Me, which featured Jimmie Vaughan and Johnnie Johnson.[1] His 1977 release, This Stuff Just Kills Me eventually appeared on the Music Maker label.
In 2002, Ichiban released an album called American Roots: Blues featuring McCain.[1] McCain's abridged work was featured on track 8 of the Rhino Records Blues Masters Volume Four: Harmonica Classics, with an almost lost recording of "Steady". McCain's inclusion in the Blues Master series, was alongside Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, Junior Wells, Howlin' Wolf, Snooky Pryor, and George "Harmonica" Smith.
The City of Gadsden honored McCain by including his own day at their annual Riverfest Event;[4] a four day music event. The addition of The Jerry McCain Broad Street Blues Bash rounded out the entertainment and allowed many local citizens to experience McCain. A commemorative CD, featuring some of McCain's music, was compiled for sale at the 1997 Riverfest Event. In 1996, McCain was selected by the Etowah Youth Orchestras as the most well-known musician from Gadsden. The EYO commissioned the composer Julius Williams to write a work for solo harmonica and orchestra, to be performed by McCain and the Etowah Youth Symphony Orchestra, as a part of the City of Gadsden's Sesquicentennial Celebration. "Concerto for Blues Harmonica and Orchestra" was premiered in November 1996, on the EYO's Fall Formal Concert at Wallace Hall, on the campus of Gadsden State Community College. McCain performed the solo harmonica part with the EYSO, under the direction of Michael R. Gagliardo. The "Concerto" was subsequently performed in Alice Tully Hall, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City in June 1997, with McCain, the EYSO, and Julius Williams conducting.
Biography
McCain was a fan of the music of Little Walter and met the artist when, in 1953, he traveled to Gadsden for a show.[1] McCain's recording debut came via Trumpet Records the same year under the name "Boogie McCain", with his brother Walter on drums. The two tracks were "East of the Sun" and "Wine-O-Wine". After recruiting Christopher Collins, who would be with him throughout most of his career, he went on to the Excello label. During his years with the Excello (1955–57) he developed his amplified harmonica style, and unusual blues lyrics. The Excello Label period saw the release of such noted songs as "The Jig's Up", and "My Next Door Neighbor". His later recording for Rex Records "She's Tough" / "Steady" was an inspiration to The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and Kim Wilson duplicated McCain's harp work on their version.[1]
McCain also released singles and albums for Columbia, under their Okeh Records label (1962), and for the Nashville based Jewel (1965–68) record label.[1] The complete collection of his Jewel label records are available on a compilation album and, in recent years, several of his early recordings have been released on "retrospective" and compilation CDs, including the Verose Vintage album, Good Stuff. His longest partner, Ichiban Records, also released several retrospectives in the 1990s, including ICH1516-2: Jerry McCain.
In 1989, after a period spent performing and touring with lesser known bands, McCain signed with Ichiban Records, and released the albums: Blues and Stuff, Struttin' My Stuff, and Love Desperado. During his time with Ichiban, McCain also released one record on the Jericho label, This Stuff Just Kills Me, which featured Jimmie Vaughan and Johnnie Johnson.[1] His 1977 release, This Stuff Just Kills Me eventually appeared on the Music Maker label.
In 2002, Ichiban released an album called American Roots: Blues featuring McCain.[1] McCain's abridged work was featured on track 8 of the Rhino Records Blues Masters Volume Four: Harmonica Classics, with an almost lost recording of "Steady". McCain's inclusion in the Blues Master series, was alongside Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, Junior Wells, Howlin' Wolf, Snooky Pryor, and George "Harmonica" Smith.
The City of Gadsden honored McCain by including his own day at their annual Riverfest Event;[4] a four day music event. The addition of The Jerry McCain Broad Street Blues Bash rounded out the entertainment and allowed many local citizens to experience McCain. A commemorative CD, featuring some of McCain's music, was compiled for sale at the 1997 Riverfest Event. In 1996, McCain was selected by the Etowah Youth Orchestras as the most well-known musician from Gadsden. The EYO commissioned the composer Julius Williams to write a work for solo harmonica and orchestra, to be performed by McCain and the Etowah Youth Symphony Orchestra, as a part of the City of Gadsden's Sesquicentennial Celebration. "Concerto for Blues Harmonica and Orchestra" was premiered in November 1996, on the EYO's Fall Formal Concert at Wallace Hall, on the campus of Gadsden State Community College. McCain performed the solo harmonica part with the EYSO, under the direction of Michael R. Gagliardo. The "Concerto" was subsequently performed in Alice Tully Hall, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City in June 1997, with McCain, the EYSO, and Julius Williams conducting.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd Feat. Jerry "Boogie" McCain - Potato Patch - USA 2006
W. C. Handy +28.03.1958
W. C. Handy (* 16. November 1873 in Florence, Alabama; † 28. März 1958 in New York, bürgerlich William Christopher Handy) war ein US-amerikanischer Blues-Komponist, Trompeter und Bandleader. Vielfach wird er als der „Vater des Blues“ bezeichnet.Als Sohn freigelassener Sklaven fand W. C. Handy seine musikalischen Wurzeln in der Kirchenmusik und den Klängen der freien Natur, in der er aufwuchs. Er erlernte verschiedene Handwerke, doch kaufte er sich bald eine erste eigene Gitarre. Seine Eltern waren damit nicht einverstanden – für sie war Gitarrenmusik ein Zeichen der Sünde – und meldeten ihn zum Orgelunterricht an, was ihrer christlichen Überzeugung eher entsprach. Der junge William Christopher setzte jedoch seinen Kopf durch und anstelle der Orgel lernte er Trompete spielen.
Seine musikalischen Interessen waren vielfältig. Er sang in einer Minstrel Show und arbeitete als Bandleader, Chorleiter, Kornettist und Trompeter. Mit 23 Jahren leitete er die Band Mahara’s Colored Minstrels. 1893 spielte er auf der Weltausstellung in Chicago, 1902 tingelte er durch Mississippi, wo er mit der ursprünglichen Musik der einfachen Schwarzen in Berührung kam.
Am 19. Juli 1896 heiratete Handy Elizabeth Price. Kurz danach begann er seine Arbeit mit Mahara’s Minstrels, mit denen er drei Jahre lang für 6 Dollar Wochenlohn durch halb Amerika und Kuba reiste. Anschließend ließ sich das junge Paar in Huntsville in Alabama in der Nähe von Florence nieder, wo am 29. Juni 1900 das erste von sechs Kindern geboren wurde. Das zweite Kind war die Sängerin Katherine Handy (1902–1982).
Von 1900 bis 1902 war Handy als Musiklehrer an einem College für Schwarze tätig, bevor er wieder mit Mahara’s Minstrels auf Tour ging. Ab 1903 leitete er sechs Jahre lang eine schwarze Band, The Knights of Pythias, in Clarksdale in Mississippi.
1909 zog die Band nach Memphis, Tennessee, und richtete sich an der Beale Street ein; nach dieser Straße benannte er den Beale Street Blues, ein weiterer Meilenstein in der Entwicklung des Blues. In dieser Zeit entwickelte Handy aus seinen Beobachtungen der schwarzen Musik und der Reaktion der Weißen darauf den Stil, der später als Blues populär werden sollte. 1909 entstand der Memphis Blues, der 1912 veröffentlicht wurde und als das erste je veröffentlichte Bluesstück gilt. Das Stück machte Handy einem größeren Publikum bekannt. Auch soll es das New Yorker Tanzpaar Vernon und Irene Castle zur Entwicklung des Foxtrott inspiriert haben. Handy verkaufte die Rechte am Memphis Blues für 100 Dollar.
1917 zog Handy nach New York, wo er bessere Arbeitsbedingungen zu finden hoffte. Zur gleichen Zeit wurde Jazzmusik populär, und viele der Kompositionen Handys wurden zu Jazz-Standards. In den 1920ern eröffnete Handy seine eigene Plattenfirma Handy Record Company in New York.
Am 14. Januar 1925 machten Bessie Smith und Louis Armstrong mit Handys St. Louis Blues eine der besten Bluesaufnahmen der 1920er Jahre. 1926 brachte Handy eine Blues-Anthologie heraus, Blues: An Anthology: Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs, wahrscheinlich der erste Versuch, den Blues umfassend zu dokumentieren und als Teil der amerikanischen Kultur zu verstehen. Im Juni 1929 wurde ein Film gedreht, in dem Bessie Smith den St. Louis Blues sang und der bis 1932 als Vorfilm in Kinos überall in den Staaten gezeigt wurde. Der Siegeszug des Blues war nicht aufzuhalten.
1941 veröffentlichte Handy seine Autobiografie Father of the Blues: An Autobiography. 1944 erschien Unsung Americans Sing über schwarze amerikanische Musiker. Insgesamt schrieb Handy fünf Bücher (siehe unten).
Durch einen Unfall wurde Handy 1943 blind. Nach dem Tod seiner ersten Frau heiratete er 1954 im Alter von 80 Jahren seine Sekretärin Irma Louise Logan, die, wie er oft betonte, zu seinen Augen geworden war.
1955 erlitt Handy einen Schlaganfall und musste von da an einen Rollstuhl benutzen. Zu seinem 84. Geburtstag kamen über 800 Gäste ins Waldorf-Astoria-Hotel.
Am 28. März 1958 starb W. C. Handy. Mehr als 25.000 Menschen nahmen an seiner Bestattungsfeier in Harlem teil. Über 150.000 Menschen versammelten sich in den umliegenden Straßen. W. C. Handy ist auf dem Woodlawn-Friedhof im New Yorker Stadtteil Bronx bestattet.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._C._Handy
William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 – March 28, 1958) was an American blues composer and musician.[1] He was widely known as the "Father of the Blues".
Handy remains among the most influential of American songwriters. Though he was one of many musicians who played the distinctively American form of music known as the blues, he is credited with giving it its contemporary form. While Handy was not the first to publish music in the blues form, he took the blues from a regional music style with a limited audience to one of the dominant national forces in American music.
Handy was an educated musician who used folk material in his compositions. He was scrupulous in documenting the sources of his works, which frequently combined stylistic influences from several performers.
Early life
Handy was born in Florence, Alabama to parents Elizabeth Brewer, and Charles Barnard Handy. His father was the pastor of a small church in Guntersville, a small town in northeast central Alabama. Handy wrote in his 1941 autobiography, Father of the Blues, that he was born in the log cabin built by his grandfather William Wise Handy, who became an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) minister after emancipation. The log cabin of Handy's birth has been saved and preserved near downtown Florence.
Growing up he apprenticed in carpentry, shoemaking and plastering.
Handy was a deeply religious man, whose influences in his musical style were found in the church music he sang and played as a youth, and in the natural world. He later cited the sounds of nature, such as "whippoorwills, bats and hoot owls and their outlandish noises", the sounds of Cypress Creek washing on the fringes of the woodland, and "the music of every songbird and all the symphonies of their unpremeditated art" as inspiration.
Handy's father believed that musical instruments were tools of the devil.[2] Without his parents' permission, Handy bought his first guitar, which he had seen in a local shop window and secretly saved for by picking berries and nuts and making lye soap. Upon seeing the guitar, his father asked him, "What possessed you to bring a sinful thing like that into our Christian home?" Ordering Handy to "Take it back where it came from", his father quickly enrolled him in organ lessons. Handy's days as an organ student were short-lived, and he moved on to learn the cornet. Handy joined a local band as a teenager, but he kept this fact a secret from his parents. He purchased a cornet from a fellow band member and spent every free minute practicing it.
Musical development
He worked on a "shovel brigade" at the McNabb furnace, and described the music made by the workers as they beat shovels, altering the tone while thrusting and withdrawing the metal part against the iron buggies to pass the time while waiting for the overfilled furnace to digest its ore. "With a dozen men participating, the effect was sometimes remarkable...It was better to us than the music of a martial drum corps, and our rhythms were far more complicated."[3] He wrote, "Southern Negroes sang about everything...They accompany themselves on anything from which they can extract a musical sound or rhythmical effect..." He would later reflect that, "In this way, and from these materials, they set the mood for what we now call blues".[4]
In September 1892, Handy travelled to Birmingham, Alabama to take a teaching exam, which he passed easily, and gained a teaching job in the city. Learning that it paid poorly, he quit the position and found industrial work at a pipe works plant in nearby Bessemer.
During his off-time, he organized a small string orchestra and taught musicians how to read notes. Later, Handy organized the Lauzetta Quartet. When the group read about the upcoming World's Fair in Chicago, they decided to attend. To pay their way, group members performed at odd jobs along the way. They arrived in Chicago only to learn that the World's Fair had been postponed for a year. Next they headed to St. Louis, Missouri but found working conditions very bad.
After the quartet disbanded, Handy went to Evansville, Indiana, where he helped introduce the blues. He played cornet in the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. In Evansville, Handy joined a successful band that performed throughout the neighboring cities and states. His musical endeavors were varied: he sang first tenor in a minstrel show, worked as a band director, choral director, cornetist and trumpeter.
At age 23, Handy became band master of Mahara's Colored Minstrels. In their three-year tour, they traveled to Chicago, throughout Texas and Oklahoma, through Tennessee, Georgia and Florida, and on to Cuba. Handy earned a salary of $6 per week. Returning from Cuba, the band traveled north through Alabama, and stopped to perform in Huntsville. Weary of life on the road, he and his wife Elizabeth decided to stay with relatives in his nearby hometown of Florence.
Marriage and family
In 1896 while performing at a barbecue in Henderson, Kentucky, Handy met Elizabeth Price. They married shortly afterward on July 19, 1896. She had Lucille, the first of their six children, on June 29, 1900 after they had settled in Florence, Alabama, his hometown.
Teaching music
Around that time, William Hooper Councill, President of Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes (AAMC) (today named Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University) in Normal, Alabama, recruited Handy to teach music at the college. Handy became a faculty member in September 1900 and taught through much of 1902.
His enthusiasm for the distinctive style of uniquely American music, then often considered inferior to European classical music, was part of his development. He was disheartened to discover that the college emphasized teaching European music considered to be "classical". Handy felt he was underpaid and could make more money touring with a minstrel group.
Studying the blues
In 1902 Handy traveled throughout Mississippi, where he listened to the various black popular musical styles. The state was mostly rural, and music was part of the culture, especially of the Mississippi Delta cotton plantation areas. Musicians usually played the guitar, banjo and to a much lesser extent, the piano. Handy's remarkable memory enabled him to recall and transcribe the music heard in his travels.
After a dispute with AAMC President Councill, Handy resigned his teaching position to rejoin the Mahara Minstrels and tour the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. In 1903 he became the director of a black band organized by the Knights of Pythias, located in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Handy and his family lived there for six years. In 1903 while waiting for a train in Tutwiler in the Mississippi Delta, Handy had the following experience:
A lean loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept... As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars....The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard.[4][5]
About 1905 while playing a dance in Cleveland, Mississippi, Handy was given a note asking for "our native music".[6] He played an old-time Southern melody, but was asked if a local colored band could play a few numbers. Three young men with a battered guitar, mandolin, and a worn-out bass took the stage.[7] [8]
They struck up one of those over and over strains that seem to have no beginning and certainly no ending at all. The strumming attained a disturbing monotony, but on and on it went, a kind of stuff associated with [sugar] cane rows and levee camps. Thump-thump-thump went their feet on the floor. It was not really annoying or unpleasant. Perhaps "haunting" is the better word.[7][9]
Handy noted square dancing by Mississippi blacks with "one of their own calling the figures, and crooning all of his calls in the key of G."[10] He remembered this when deciding on the key for "St Louis Blues".
It was the memory of that old gent who called figures for the Kentucky breakdown—the one who everlastingly pitched his tones in the key of G and moaned the calls like a presiding elder preaching at a revival meeting. Ah, there was my key – I'd do the song in G.[11]
In describing "blind singers and footloose bards" around Clarksdale, Handy wrote, "[S]urrounded by crowds of country folks, they would pour their hearts out in song ... They earned their living by selling their own songs – "ballets," as they called them—and I'm ready to say in their behalf that seldom did their creations lack imagination."[12]
In 1909 Handy and his band moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where they started playing at clubs on Beale Street. The genesis of his "Memphis Blues" was as a campaign tune written for Edward Crump, a successful Memphis mayoral candidate in 1909 (and future "boss"). Handy later rewrote the tune and changed its name from "Mr. Crump" to "Memphis Blues."
The 1912 publication of his "Memphis Blues" sheet music introduced his style of 12-bar blues; it was credited as the inspiration for the foxtrot dance step by Vernon and Irene Castle, a New York–based dance team. Some consider it to be the first blues song. Handy sold the rights to the song for US$100. By 1914, when Handy was 40, he had established his musical style, his popularity increased significantly, and he composed prolifically.
Handy wrote about using folk songs:
The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect... by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key was major..., and I carried this device into my melody as well... This was a distinct departure, but as it turned out, it touched the spot.[13]
The three-line structure I employed in my lyric was suggested by a song I heard Phil Jones sing in Evansville ... While I took the three-line stanza as a model for my lyric, I found its repetition too monotonous ... Consequently I adopted the style of making a statement, repeating the statement in the second line, and then telling in the third line why the statement was made.[14]
Regarding the "three-chord basic harmonic structure" of the blues, Handy wrote the "(tonic, subdominant, dominant seventh) was that already used by Negro roustabouts, honky-tonk piano players, wanderers and others of the underprivileged but undaunted class".[13] He noted,
In the folk blues the singer fills up occasional gaps with words like 'Oh, lawdy' or 'Oh, baby' and the like. This meant that in writing a melody to be sung in the blues manner one would have to provide gaps or waits.[15]
Writing about the first time "St Louis Blues" was played (1914), Handy said,
The one-step and other dances had been done to the tempo of Memphis Blues ... When St Louis Blues was written the tango was in vogue. I tricked the dancers by arranging a tango introduction, breaking abruptly into a low-down blues. My eyes swept the floor anxiously, then suddenly I saw lightning strike. The dancers seemed electrified. Something within them came suddenly to life. An instinct that wanted so much to live, to fling its arms to spread joy, took them by the heels.[16]
His published musical works were groundbreaking because of his ethnicity, and he was among the first blacks to achieve economic success because of publishing. In 1912, Handy met Harry H. Pace at the Solvent Savings Bank in Memphis. Pace was valedictorian of his graduating class at Atlanta University and student of W. E. B. Du Bois. By the time of their meeting, Pace had already demonstrated a strong understanding of business. He earned his reputation by recreating failing businesses. Handy liked him, and Pace later became manager of Pace and Handy Sheet Music.
While in New York City, Handy wrote:
I was under the impression that these Negro musicians would jump at the chance to patronize one of their own publishers. They didn't... The Negro musicians simply played the hits of the day...They followed the parade. Many white bands and orchestra leaders, on the other hand, were on the alert for novelties. They were therefore the ones most ready to introduce our numbers. [But,] Negro vaudeville artists...wanted songs that would not conflict with white acts on the bill. The result was that these performers became our most effective pluggers.[17]
In 1917, he and his publishing business moved to New York City, where he had offices in the Gaiety Theatre office building in Times Square.[18] By the end of that year, his most successful songs: "Memphis Blues", "Beale Street Blues", and "Saint Louis Blues", had been published. That year the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a white New Orleans jazz ensemble, had recorded the first jazz record, introducing the style to a wide segment of the American public. Handy initially had little fondness for this new "jazz", but bands dove into his repertoire with enthusiasm, making many of them jazz standards.
Handy encouraged performers such as Al Bernard, "a young white man" with a "soft Southern accent" who "could sing all my Blues". Handy sent Bernard to Thomas Edison to be recorded, which resulted in "an impressive series of successes for the young artist, successes in which we proudly shared." Handy also published the original "Shake Rattle and Roll" and "Saxophone Blues", both written by Bernard. "Two young white ladies from Selma, Alabama (Madelyn Sheppard and Annelu Burns) contributed the songs "Pickaninny Rose" and "O Saroo", with the music published by Handy's company. These numbers, plus our blues, gave us a reputation as publishers of Negro music."[19]
Expecting to make only "another hundred or so" on a third recording of his "Yellow Dog Blues" (originally titled "Yellow Dog Rag"[20] ), Handy signed a deal with the Victor company. The Joe Smith[21] recording of this song in 1919 became the best-selling recording of Handy's music to date.[22][23]
Handy tried to interest black women singers in his music, but initially was unsuccessful. In 1920 Perry Bradford persuaded Mamie Smith to record two of his non-blues songs, published by Handy, accompanied by a white band: "That Thing Called Love" and "You Can't Keep a Good Man Down". When Bradford's "Crazy Blues" became a hit as recorded by Smith, African-American blues singers became increasingly popular. Handy found his business began to decrease because of the competition.[24]
In 1920 Pace amicably dissolved his long-standing partnership with Handy, with whom he also collaborated as lyricist. As Handy wrote: "To add to my woes, my partner withdrew from the business. He disagreed with some of my business methods, but no harsh words were involved. He simply chose this time to sever connection with our firm in order that he might organize Pace Phonograph Company, issuing Black Swan Records and making a serious bid for the Negro market. . . . With Pace went a large number of our employees. . . . Still more confusion and anguish grew out of the fact that people did not generally know that I had no stake in the Black Swan Record Company."[25]
Although Handy's partnership with Pace was dissolved, he continued to operate the publishing company as a family-owned business. He published works of other black composers as well as his own, which included more than 150 sacred compositions and folk song arrangements and about 60 blues compositions. In the 1920s, he founded the Handy Record Company in New York City. Bessie Smith's January 14, 1925, Columbia Records recording of "Saint Louis Blues" with Louis Armstrong is considered by many to be one of the finest recordings of the 1920s. So successful was Handy's "Saint Louis Blues" that in 1929, he and director [Dudley Murphy] collaborated on a RCA motion picture project of the same name, which was to be shown before the main attraction. Handy suggested blues singer Bessie Smith have the starring role, since she had gained widespread popularity with that tune. The picture was shot in June and was shown in movie houses throughout the United States from 1929 to 1932.
In 1926 Handy authored and edited a work entitled Blues: An Anthology—Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs. It is probably the first work that attempted to record, analyze and describe the blues as an integral part of the U.S. South and the history of the United States. To celebrate the books release and to honor Handy, Small's Paradise in Harlem hosted a party Handy Night on Tuesday October 5, which contained the best of jazz and blues selections provided by the entertainers Adelaide Hall, Lottie Gee, Maude White and Chic Collins.[26]
The genre of the blues was a hallmark of American society and culture in the 1920s and 1930s. So great was its influence, and so much was it recognized as Handy's hallmark, that author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his novel The Great Gatsby that "All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the "Beale Street Blues" while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust. At the gray tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor."
Later life
Following publication of his autobiography, Handy published a book on African-American musicians entitled Unsung Americans Sing (1944). He wrote a total of five books:
Blues: An Anthology: Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs
Book of Negro Spirituals
Father of the Blues: An Autobiography
Unsung Americans Sing
Negro Authors and Composers of the United States
During this time, he lived on Strivers' Row in Harlem. He became blind following an accidental fall from a subway platform in 1943. After the death of his first wife, he remarried in 1954, when he was eighty. His new bride was his secretary, the former Irma Louise Logan, whom he frequently said had become his eyes.
In 1955, Handy suffered a stroke, following which he began to use a wheelchair. More than eight hundred attended his 84th birthday party at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
Death
On March 28, 1958 he died of bronchial pneumonia at Sydenham Hospital in New York City.[27] Over 25,000 people attended his funeral in Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church. Over 150,000 people gathered in the streets near the church to pay their respects. He was buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York.
Compositions
Handy's songs do not always follow the classic 12-bar pattern, often having 8- or 16-bar bridges between 12-bar verses.
"Memphis Blues", written 1909, published 1912. Although usually subtitled "Boss Crump",
it is a distinct song from Handy's campaign satire, "Boss Crump don't 'low no easy riders
around here", which was based on the good-time song "Mamma Don't Allow It."
"Yellow Dog Blues" (1912), "Your easy rider's gone where the Southern cross the Yellow
Dog." The reference is to the crossing at Moorhead, Mississippi, of the Southern Railway
and the local Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad, called the Yellow Dog. By Handy's
telling locals assigned the words "Yellow Dog" to the letters Y.D.(for Yazoo Delta) on the
freight trains that they saw.[28]
"Saint Louis Blues" (1914), "the jazzman's Hamlet."
"Loveless Love", based in part on the classic, "Careless Love". Possibly the first song to
complain of modern synthetics, "with milkless milk and silkless silk, we're growing used to
soulless soul."
"Aunt Hagar's Blues", the biblical Hagar, handmaiden to Abraham and Sarah, was
considered the "mother" of the African Americans.
"Beale Street Blues" (1916), written as a farewell to the old Beale Street of Memphis
(actually called Beale Avenue until the song changed the name); but Beale Street did not
go away and is considered the "home of the blues" to this day. B.B. King was known as the
"Beale Street Blues Boy" and Elvis Presley watched and learned from Ike Turner there. In
2004 the tune was included as a track on the Memphis Jazz Box compilation as a tribute
to Handy and his music.
"Long Gone John (From Bowling Green)", tribute to a famous bank robber.
"Chantez-Les-Bas (Sing 'Em Low)", tribute to the Creole culture of New Orleans.
"Atlanta Blues", includes the song known as "Make Me a Pallet on your Floor" as its
chorus.
"Ole Miss Rag" (1917), a ragtime composition, recorded by Handy's Orchestra of
Memphis.
Handy remains among the most influential of American songwriters. Though he was one of many musicians who played the distinctively American form of music known as the blues, he is credited with giving it its contemporary form. While Handy was not the first to publish music in the blues form, he took the blues from a regional music style with a limited audience to one of the dominant national forces in American music.
Handy was an educated musician who used folk material in his compositions. He was scrupulous in documenting the sources of his works, which frequently combined stylistic influences from several performers.
Early life
Handy was born in Florence, Alabama to parents Elizabeth Brewer, and Charles Barnard Handy. His father was the pastor of a small church in Guntersville, a small town in northeast central Alabama. Handy wrote in his 1941 autobiography, Father of the Blues, that he was born in the log cabin built by his grandfather William Wise Handy, who became an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) minister after emancipation. The log cabin of Handy's birth has been saved and preserved near downtown Florence.
Growing up he apprenticed in carpentry, shoemaking and plastering.
Handy was a deeply religious man, whose influences in his musical style were found in the church music he sang and played as a youth, and in the natural world. He later cited the sounds of nature, such as "whippoorwills, bats and hoot owls and their outlandish noises", the sounds of Cypress Creek washing on the fringes of the woodland, and "the music of every songbird and all the symphonies of their unpremeditated art" as inspiration.
Handy's father believed that musical instruments were tools of the devil.[2] Without his parents' permission, Handy bought his first guitar, which he had seen in a local shop window and secretly saved for by picking berries and nuts and making lye soap. Upon seeing the guitar, his father asked him, "What possessed you to bring a sinful thing like that into our Christian home?" Ordering Handy to "Take it back where it came from", his father quickly enrolled him in organ lessons. Handy's days as an organ student were short-lived, and he moved on to learn the cornet. Handy joined a local band as a teenager, but he kept this fact a secret from his parents. He purchased a cornet from a fellow band member and spent every free minute practicing it.
Musical development
He worked on a "shovel brigade" at the McNabb furnace, and described the music made by the workers as they beat shovels, altering the tone while thrusting and withdrawing the metal part against the iron buggies to pass the time while waiting for the overfilled furnace to digest its ore. "With a dozen men participating, the effect was sometimes remarkable...It was better to us than the music of a martial drum corps, and our rhythms were far more complicated."[3] He wrote, "Southern Negroes sang about everything...They accompany themselves on anything from which they can extract a musical sound or rhythmical effect..." He would later reflect that, "In this way, and from these materials, they set the mood for what we now call blues".[4]
In September 1892, Handy travelled to Birmingham, Alabama to take a teaching exam, which he passed easily, and gained a teaching job in the city. Learning that it paid poorly, he quit the position and found industrial work at a pipe works plant in nearby Bessemer.
During his off-time, he organized a small string orchestra and taught musicians how to read notes. Later, Handy organized the Lauzetta Quartet. When the group read about the upcoming World's Fair in Chicago, they decided to attend. To pay their way, group members performed at odd jobs along the way. They arrived in Chicago only to learn that the World's Fair had been postponed for a year. Next they headed to St. Louis, Missouri but found working conditions very bad.
After the quartet disbanded, Handy went to Evansville, Indiana, where he helped introduce the blues. He played cornet in the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. In Evansville, Handy joined a successful band that performed throughout the neighboring cities and states. His musical endeavors were varied: he sang first tenor in a minstrel show, worked as a band director, choral director, cornetist and trumpeter.
At age 23, Handy became band master of Mahara's Colored Minstrels. In their three-year tour, they traveled to Chicago, throughout Texas and Oklahoma, through Tennessee, Georgia and Florida, and on to Cuba. Handy earned a salary of $6 per week. Returning from Cuba, the band traveled north through Alabama, and stopped to perform in Huntsville. Weary of life on the road, he and his wife Elizabeth decided to stay with relatives in his nearby hometown of Florence.
Marriage and family
In 1896 while performing at a barbecue in Henderson, Kentucky, Handy met Elizabeth Price. They married shortly afterward on July 19, 1896. She had Lucille, the first of their six children, on June 29, 1900 after they had settled in Florence, Alabama, his hometown.
Teaching music
Around that time, William Hooper Councill, President of Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes (AAMC) (today named Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University) in Normal, Alabama, recruited Handy to teach music at the college. Handy became a faculty member in September 1900 and taught through much of 1902.
His enthusiasm for the distinctive style of uniquely American music, then often considered inferior to European classical music, was part of his development. He was disheartened to discover that the college emphasized teaching European music considered to be "classical". Handy felt he was underpaid and could make more money touring with a minstrel group.
Studying the blues
In 1902 Handy traveled throughout Mississippi, where he listened to the various black popular musical styles. The state was mostly rural, and music was part of the culture, especially of the Mississippi Delta cotton plantation areas. Musicians usually played the guitar, banjo and to a much lesser extent, the piano. Handy's remarkable memory enabled him to recall and transcribe the music heard in his travels.
After a dispute with AAMC President Councill, Handy resigned his teaching position to rejoin the Mahara Minstrels and tour the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. In 1903 he became the director of a black band organized by the Knights of Pythias, located in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Handy and his family lived there for six years. In 1903 while waiting for a train in Tutwiler in the Mississippi Delta, Handy had the following experience:
A lean loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept... As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars....The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard.[4][5]
About 1905 while playing a dance in Cleveland, Mississippi, Handy was given a note asking for "our native music".[6] He played an old-time Southern melody, but was asked if a local colored band could play a few numbers. Three young men with a battered guitar, mandolin, and a worn-out bass took the stage.[7] [8]
They struck up one of those over and over strains that seem to have no beginning and certainly no ending at all. The strumming attained a disturbing monotony, but on and on it went, a kind of stuff associated with [sugar] cane rows and levee camps. Thump-thump-thump went their feet on the floor. It was not really annoying or unpleasant. Perhaps "haunting" is the better word.[7][9]
Handy noted square dancing by Mississippi blacks with "one of their own calling the figures, and crooning all of his calls in the key of G."[10] He remembered this when deciding on the key for "St Louis Blues".
It was the memory of that old gent who called figures for the Kentucky breakdown—the one who everlastingly pitched his tones in the key of G and moaned the calls like a presiding elder preaching at a revival meeting. Ah, there was my key – I'd do the song in G.[11]
In describing "blind singers and footloose bards" around Clarksdale, Handy wrote, "[S]urrounded by crowds of country folks, they would pour their hearts out in song ... They earned their living by selling their own songs – "ballets," as they called them—and I'm ready to say in their behalf that seldom did their creations lack imagination."[12]
In 1909 Handy and his band moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where they started playing at clubs on Beale Street. The genesis of his "Memphis Blues" was as a campaign tune written for Edward Crump, a successful Memphis mayoral candidate in 1909 (and future "boss"). Handy later rewrote the tune and changed its name from "Mr. Crump" to "Memphis Blues."
The 1912 publication of his "Memphis Blues" sheet music introduced his style of 12-bar blues; it was credited as the inspiration for the foxtrot dance step by Vernon and Irene Castle, a New York–based dance team. Some consider it to be the first blues song. Handy sold the rights to the song for US$100. By 1914, when Handy was 40, he had established his musical style, his popularity increased significantly, and he composed prolifically.
Handy wrote about using folk songs:
The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect... by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key was major..., and I carried this device into my melody as well... This was a distinct departure, but as it turned out, it touched the spot.[13]
The three-line structure I employed in my lyric was suggested by a song I heard Phil Jones sing in Evansville ... While I took the three-line stanza as a model for my lyric, I found its repetition too monotonous ... Consequently I adopted the style of making a statement, repeating the statement in the second line, and then telling in the third line why the statement was made.[14]
Regarding the "three-chord basic harmonic structure" of the blues, Handy wrote the "(tonic, subdominant, dominant seventh) was that already used by Negro roustabouts, honky-tonk piano players, wanderers and others of the underprivileged but undaunted class".[13] He noted,
In the folk blues the singer fills up occasional gaps with words like 'Oh, lawdy' or 'Oh, baby' and the like. This meant that in writing a melody to be sung in the blues manner one would have to provide gaps or waits.[15]
Writing about the first time "St Louis Blues" was played (1914), Handy said,
The one-step and other dances had been done to the tempo of Memphis Blues ... When St Louis Blues was written the tango was in vogue. I tricked the dancers by arranging a tango introduction, breaking abruptly into a low-down blues. My eyes swept the floor anxiously, then suddenly I saw lightning strike. The dancers seemed electrified. Something within them came suddenly to life. An instinct that wanted so much to live, to fling its arms to spread joy, took them by the heels.[16]
His published musical works were groundbreaking because of his ethnicity, and he was among the first blacks to achieve economic success because of publishing. In 1912, Handy met Harry H. Pace at the Solvent Savings Bank in Memphis. Pace was valedictorian of his graduating class at Atlanta University and student of W. E. B. Du Bois. By the time of their meeting, Pace had already demonstrated a strong understanding of business. He earned his reputation by recreating failing businesses. Handy liked him, and Pace later became manager of Pace and Handy Sheet Music.
While in New York City, Handy wrote:
I was under the impression that these Negro musicians would jump at the chance to patronize one of their own publishers. They didn't... The Negro musicians simply played the hits of the day...They followed the parade. Many white bands and orchestra leaders, on the other hand, were on the alert for novelties. They were therefore the ones most ready to introduce our numbers. [But,] Negro vaudeville artists...wanted songs that would not conflict with white acts on the bill. The result was that these performers became our most effective pluggers.[17]
In 1917, he and his publishing business moved to New York City, where he had offices in the Gaiety Theatre office building in Times Square.[18] By the end of that year, his most successful songs: "Memphis Blues", "Beale Street Blues", and "Saint Louis Blues", had been published. That year the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a white New Orleans jazz ensemble, had recorded the first jazz record, introducing the style to a wide segment of the American public. Handy initially had little fondness for this new "jazz", but bands dove into his repertoire with enthusiasm, making many of them jazz standards.
Handy encouraged performers such as Al Bernard, "a young white man" with a "soft Southern accent" who "could sing all my Blues". Handy sent Bernard to Thomas Edison to be recorded, which resulted in "an impressive series of successes for the young artist, successes in which we proudly shared." Handy also published the original "Shake Rattle and Roll" and "Saxophone Blues", both written by Bernard. "Two young white ladies from Selma, Alabama (Madelyn Sheppard and Annelu Burns) contributed the songs "Pickaninny Rose" and "O Saroo", with the music published by Handy's company. These numbers, plus our blues, gave us a reputation as publishers of Negro music."[19]
Expecting to make only "another hundred or so" on a third recording of his "Yellow Dog Blues" (originally titled "Yellow Dog Rag"[20] ), Handy signed a deal with the Victor company. The Joe Smith[21] recording of this song in 1919 became the best-selling recording of Handy's music to date.[22][23]
Handy tried to interest black women singers in his music, but initially was unsuccessful. In 1920 Perry Bradford persuaded Mamie Smith to record two of his non-blues songs, published by Handy, accompanied by a white band: "That Thing Called Love" and "You Can't Keep a Good Man Down". When Bradford's "Crazy Blues" became a hit as recorded by Smith, African-American blues singers became increasingly popular. Handy found his business began to decrease because of the competition.[24]
In 1920 Pace amicably dissolved his long-standing partnership with Handy, with whom he also collaborated as lyricist. As Handy wrote: "To add to my woes, my partner withdrew from the business. He disagreed with some of my business methods, but no harsh words were involved. He simply chose this time to sever connection with our firm in order that he might organize Pace Phonograph Company, issuing Black Swan Records and making a serious bid for the Negro market. . . . With Pace went a large number of our employees. . . . Still more confusion and anguish grew out of the fact that people did not generally know that I had no stake in the Black Swan Record Company."[25]
Although Handy's partnership with Pace was dissolved, he continued to operate the publishing company as a family-owned business. He published works of other black composers as well as his own, which included more than 150 sacred compositions and folk song arrangements and about 60 blues compositions. In the 1920s, he founded the Handy Record Company in New York City. Bessie Smith's January 14, 1925, Columbia Records recording of "Saint Louis Blues" with Louis Armstrong is considered by many to be one of the finest recordings of the 1920s. So successful was Handy's "Saint Louis Blues" that in 1929, he and director [Dudley Murphy] collaborated on a RCA motion picture project of the same name, which was to be shown before the main attraction. Handy suggested blues singer Bessie Smith have the starring role, since she had gained widespread popularity with that tune. The picture was shot in June and was shown in movie houses throughout the United States from 1929 to 1932.
In 1926 Handy authored and edited a work entitled Blues: An Anthology—Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs. It is probably the first work that attempted to record, analyze and describe the blues as an integral part of the U.S. South and the history of the United States. To celebrate the books release and to honor Handy, Small's Paradise in Harlem hosted a party Handy Night on Tuesday October 5, which contained the best of jazz and blues selections provided by the entertainers Adelaide Hall, Lottie Gee, Maude White and Chic Collins.[26]
The genre of the blues was a hallmark of American society and culture in the 1920s and 1930s. So great was its influence, and so much was it recognized as Handy's hallmark, that author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his novel The Great Gatsby that "All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the "Beale Street Blues" while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust. At the gray tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor."
Later life
Following publication of his autobiography, Handy published a book on African-American musicians entitled Unsung Americans Sing (1944). He wrote a total of five books:
Blues: An Anthology: Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs
Book of Negro Spirituals
Father of the Blues: An Autobiography
Unsung Americans Sing
Negro Authors and Composers of the United States
During this time, he lived on Strivers' Row in Harlem. He became blind following an accidental fall from a subway platform in 1943. After the death of his first wife, he remarried in 1954, when he was eighty. His new bride was his secretary, the former Irma Louise Logan, whom he frequently said had become his eyes.
In 1955, Handy suffered a stroke, following which he began to use a wheelchair. More than eight hundred attended his 84th birthday party at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
Death
On March 28, 1958 he died of bronchial pneumonia at Sydenham Hospital in New York City.[27] Over 25,000 people attended his funeral in Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church. Over 150,000 people gathered in the streets near the church to pay their respects. He was buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York.
Compositions
Handy's songs do not always follow the classic 12-bar pattern, often having 8- or 16-bar bridges between 12-bar verses.
"Memphis Blues", written 1909, published 1912. Although usually subtitled "Boss Crump",
it is a distinct song from Handy's campaign satire, "Boss Crump don't 'low no easy riders
around here", which was based on the good-time song "Mamma Don't Allow It."
"Yellow Dog Blues" (1912), "Your easy rider's gone where the Southern cross the Yellow
Dog." The reference is to the crossing at Moorhead, Mississippi, of the Southern Railway
and the local Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad, called the Yellow Dog. By Handy's
telling locals assigned the words "Yellow Dog" to the letters Y.D.(for Yazoo Delta) on the
freight trains that they saw.[28]
"Saint Louis Blues" (1914), "the jazzman's Hamlet."
"Loveless Love", based in part on the classic, "Careless Love". Possibly the first song to
complain of modern synthetics, "with milkless milk and silkless silk, we're growing used to
soulless soul."
"Aunt Hagar's Blues", the biblical Hagar, handmaiden to Abraham and Sarah, was
considered the "mother" of the African Americans.
"Beale Street Blues" (1916), written as a farewell to the old Beale Street of Memphis
(actually called Beale Avenue until the song changed the name); but Beale Street did not
go away and is considered the "home of the blues" to this day. B.B. King was known as the
"Beale Street Blues Boy" and Elvis Presley watched and learned from Ike Turner there. In
2004 the tune was included as a track on the Memphis Jazz Box compilation as a tribute
to Handy and his music.
"Long Gone John (From Bowling Green)", tribute to a famous bank robber.
"Chantez-Les-Bas (Sing 'Em Low)", tribute to the Creole culture of New Orleans.
"Atlanta Blues", includes the song known as "Make Me a Pallet on your Floor" as its
chorus.
"Ole Miss Rag" (1917), a ragtime composition, recorded by Handy's Orchestra of
Memphis.
Joe Willie Wilkins +28.03.1979
Joe Willie Wilkins (January 7, 1923[2] – March 28, 1979)[3][4] was an
American Memphis blues guitarist, singer and songwriter.[1] Whilst he
influenced contemporaries such as Houston Stackhouse, Robert Nighthawk,
David Honeyboy Edwards, and Jimmy Rogers,[5] Wilkins' bigger impact was
on up and coming guitarists, including Little Milton, B.B. King, and
Albert King.[6] Wilkins' songs included "Hard Headed Woman" and "It's
Too Bad."
Biography
Wilkins was born in Davenport, Coahoma County, Mississippi.[1][6] He grew up on a plantation near Bobo. His father, Papa Frank Wilkins, was a local sharecropper and guitarist, whose friend was the country bluesman, Charley Patton. Young Wilkins learned to play guitar, harmonica and accordion. His early proficiency of the guitar, and slavish devotion to learning from records, earned him the nickname of "Walking Seeburg" (Seeburg Corporation being an early manufacturer of jukebox).[1]
Becoming a well-known musician in the Mississippi Delta, by the early 1940s Wilkins took over from Robert Lockwood, Jr. in Sonny Boy Williamson II's band. In 1941, Wilkins reloacted to Helena, Arkansas, and joined both Williamson and Lockwood on KFFA Radio's "King Biscuit Time".[6][7] Through the 1940s Wilkins broadcast regularly playing alongside Williamson, Willie Love, Robert Nighthawk, Elmore James, Memphis Slim, Houston Stackhouse and Howlin' Wolf. His guitar playing appeared on several recordings by Williamson, Love and Big Joe Williams, for the latter of whom he played bass.[1]
For Muddy Waters, Wilkins was noted as the first guitarist from the Delta who played single string guitar riffs without a slide. Later on, Muddy Waters stated
“ "The man is great, the man is stone great. For blues, like I say, he's the best." ”
Forming The Three Aces with Willie Nix and Love in 1950, he rejoined Williamson at KWEM Radio, which led on to Wilkin's becoming part of the studio band at Sun Records. He was also utilised by Trumpet Records, and as a prominent sideman, Wilkins recorded with Williamson, Love, Nix, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Roosevelt Sykes, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter, Mose Vinson, Joe Hill Louis, Elmore James, and Floyd Jones.[6]
Charley Booker's final recording was as a guest with Wilkins at a 1973 blues festival at Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.[8] The same year, Mimosa Records released a single of Wilkin's debut vocal performance. Adamo Records later issued a live album of some of his concert dates.[6]
His working relationship and friendship with Houston Stackhouse endured over the years, with Stackhouse at one time living in the same premises as Wilkins and his wife. Wilkins and Stackhouse played at various blues music festivals, and were part of the traveling Memphis Blues Caravan.[9] After undergoing a colostomy in the late 1970s, Wilkins still continued to perform.[1]
Wilkins is buried near Memphis in the Galilee Memorial Gardens.[6]
Confusion over dates
There is some confusion over both Wilkins' date of birth and death; various sources quote 1921 or 1922 as his year of birth, and some cite 1981 for his death. In the latter respect Allmusic erroneously stated "his final performances were an East Coast tour in 1981, and he died in the week following these engagements.
Biography
Wilkins was born in Davenport, Coahoma County, Mississippi.[1][6] He grew up on a plantation near Bobo. His father, Papa Frank Wilkins, was a local sharecropper and guitarist, whose friend was the country bluesman, Charley Patton. Young Wilkins learned to play guitar, harmonica and accordion. His early proficiency of the guitar, and slavish devotion to learning from records, earned him the nickname of "Walking Seeburg" (Seeburg Corporation being an early manufacturer of jukebox).[1]
Becoming a well-known musician in the Mississippi Delta, by the early 1940s Wilkins took over from Robert Lockwood, Jr. in Sonny Boy Williamson II's band. In 1941, Wilkins reloacted to Helena, Arkansas, and joined both Williamson and Lockwood on KFFA Radio's "King Biscuit Time".[6][7] Through the 1940s Wilkins broadcast regularly playing alongside Williamson, Willie Love, Robert Nighthawk, Elmore James, Memphis Slim, Houston Stackhouse and Howlin' Wolf. His guitar playing appeared on several recordings by Williamson, Love and Big Joe Williams, for the latter of whom he played bass.[1]
For Muddy Waters, Wilkins was noted as the first guitarist from the Delta who played single string guitar riffs without a slide. Later on, Muddy Waters stated
“ "The man is great, the man is stone great. For blues, like I say, he's the best." ”
Forming The Three Aces with Willie Nix and Love in 1950, he rejoined Williamson at KWEM Radio, which led on to Wilkin's becoming part of the studio band at Sun Records. He was also utilised by Trumpet Records, and as a prominent sideman, Wilkins recorded with Williamson, Love, Nix, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Roosevelt Sykes, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter, Mose Vinson, Joe Hill Louis, Elmore James, and Floyd Jones.[6]
Charley Booker's final recording was as a guest with Wilkins at a 1973 blues festival at Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.[8] The same year, Mimosa Records released a single of Wilkin's debut vocal performance. Adamo Records later issued a live album of some of his concert dates.[6]
His working relationship and friendship with Houston Stackhouse endured over the years, with Stackhouse at one time living in the same premises as Wilkins and his wife. Wilkins and Stackhouse played at various blues music festivals, and were part of the traveling Memphis Blues Caravan.[9] After undergoing a colostomy in the late 1970s, Wilkins still continued to perform.[1]
Wilkins is buried near Memphis in the Galilee Memorial Gardens.[6]
Confusion over dates
There is some confusion over both Wilkins' date of birth and death; various sources quote 1921 or 1922 as his year of birth, and some cite 1981 for his death. In the latter respect Allmusic erroneously stated "his final performances were an East Coast tour in 1981, and he died in the week following these engagements.
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