Ok.

I didn’t think I’d like The Blues, right? It all sounds sort of the same and the quality isn’t great and modern blues artists go against my beliefs that there is anything good made past 1989.

Few exceptions to the rule but I make deals. Alriiiight.

So anyhoo, when I was in college I took a class for my humanities credit called female artists through out history, and one of the papers that were supposed to write was women in music. I picked female blues artists from the 20’s and 30’s. Sweet hell was that a tough one but it exposed me to a type of music that I had been relatively indifferent about until I played some tracks by the empress Ma Rainey. Damn it was awesome, and her  story was pretty bad ass too.

But I digress.

It was inevitable bumping into Robert Johnson and when I did I was hooked. Officially. When I get hooked I like to look up all thier influences in search of the feeling you get when you know that this is the song that this great artist listened to and it made them write some great freakin songs. Makes the hair on your arm stand up.

So I did some research and I found this record company called Yazoo, and they specialize in all kinda blues and Jazz. I found Back to the crossroads, the roots of Robert Johnson.

Holy fucking crap.

If you can get down on the blues than you will poo yourself if you bust out the tracks on this disc…unless of course you already have it then shit dood, you know what I’m talking about.

Now don’t get me wrong I like all the songs but I just wanted to pick a few to give you all an idea as to why I think that if you’re interested you should check it out or at least wiki some of these people for the interesting lives they had. Just sayin is all.

13. REV. E.W. CLAYBORN,
Your Enemy Cannot Harm You (1926)
I can play this one like 3 times. I love this track, it sounds like 2 guitars but it’s only one. Also the subject of  the song is so fucking apt it hurts. Your enemy cannot harm you but watch your close friends. Badass, misery that comes with having friends and not being able to trust nobody no way no how. Awesome.

14. JOHNNY TEMPLE,
Lead Pencil Blues (1935)
This song is cool because its totally about some dude who can’t get it up and him and his woman are both pretty fuckin depressed about it. LOOOOONG before the days of E.D. right? Ha. Hilarious.

20. HARLEM HAMFATS,
Oh Red (1936)
This one is kind of vibin on the edge of Rag, I think that it could still get any crowd hoppin and the horns, hell yeah! The fact that its about some dude pissed off at a bartender for gettin his woman so drunk that she passes out before the party is over speaks to me for some reason, especially the part where she wakes up with a headache…I don’t know why…

So there it is. If you’re interested check it out. I think its worth it and it makes for a comfortable ambience if you’re pullin shots.

Cheers

-R-

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 10:55 pm and is filed under Barista Girl's dusty old music revue, Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.