Blind Willie McTell - 1927-35 Searching The Desert For The Blues (2009)

> The album

Legacy of the songster's craft

By many aspects, Blind Willie McTell is close to the cliche image of the traveling hobo musician playing in the streets for a few dimes (or a bottle of cheap booze). The big difference comes from the tangible heritage he left to American blues history, a legacy to which this album opens the doors.

William Samuel McTier was born in 1898 (1901 according to his grave, 1903 according to a few researchers) in Thomson, Georgia, and grew up near Statesboro. His father left the family home early and his mother died in the 1920s. He then became an itinerant musician, a "songster", playing in carnivals, medicine shows and all kinds of local outdoor venues, events and places around Atlanta and as far as Augusta and Macon, a Piedmont blues region, and even Savannah on the coast where he probably got familiar with the "Eastern Seaboard" blues style.

His blindness was compensated by an extraordinary sense of hearing and touch, and the chance he had to learn how to read and write music in braille when attending schools for the blind in his teens, gave him an advantage on many of his sighted contemporary musicians.

McTell soon chose to play exclusively 12-string guitars for a simple reason: their greater volume output made them more suitable for outdoor playing. He also was an adept slide player and his technique on the 12-string was unique because he didn't play it as a rhythm instrument, but with a subtle and elegant slide and finger-picking style.

His vocal ability to sound jolly or mournful in accordance with the song, his highly skilled guitar playing and his art of brilliant improvisations, his enrichment of blues with ragtime, gospel, hokum and story telling songs, white hillbilly singing style and popular tunes, and his excellence in all these genres, allowed him to become a quite popular attraction.

Drawing attention of local music companies, the minstrel recorded for the first time in 1927, at the time 10-inch 78-rpm discs. As a growing number of labels got interested in his work, he recorded simultaneously for different companies under different names (readsee below). The number of titles he recorded during his life is estimated to more than 120.

After 1945, though, his recordings were less successful and his career declined, pushing a frustrated McTell to heavy regular drinking and abandonment of music until in 1957 he became a preacher at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Atlanta. Two years later, in August 1959, a brain hemorrhage definitely put an end to the life of one of the greatest precursors of modern blues, later revered by great artists like The Allman Brothers, Taj Mahal or Bob Dylan*.

This collection of McTell's golden age recordings, alone or with friends Curley Weaver, Ruth Willis and Ruby Glaze (supposedly McTell's wife Ruthy Kate Williams) was magnificently edited and remastered by Andrew Rose, a former senior sound engineer at the BBC and founder of the French company Pristine specialized in high quality digital audio-restoration. The sound is probably better than the original old 78-rpm discs, allowing to (re)discover the "king of 12-string acoustic blues" through 26 amazingly crafted songs. Definitely a must-have !

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* Dylan once called McTell "the Van Gogh of country blues" and wrote in the early 1980s a song clearly titled "Blind Willie McTell" where he sings "And I know no one can sing the blues/Like Blind Willie McTell". The song was finally issued in 1991 on "The Bootleg Series, Vol 1-3: Rare & Unreleased 1961-1991". Bob Dylan sings the song on Jan 12, 2012 at the Hollywood Palladium in honor of Martin Scorsese.

> Recording dates of the 1927-1935 period covered by this collection

01. Stole Rider Blues: 1927-10-18
02. Mama, Tain't Long Fo' Day: 1927-10-18
03. Mr. McTell Got The Blues (take 2): 1927-10-18
04. Three Women Blues: 1928-10-17
05. Dark Night Blues: 1928-10-17
06. Statesboro Blues: 1928-10-17
07. Loving Talking Blues: 1928-10-17
08. Come On Around To My House 

Mama: 1929-10-30
09. Kind Mama: 1929-10-31
10. Drive Away Blues: 1929-11-26
11. Talkin' To Myself: 1930-04-17
12. Southern Can Is Mine: 1931-10-23
13. Broke Down Engine Blues: 1931-10-23
14. Painful Blues: 1931-10-23
15. Scarey Day Blues: 1931-10-23
16. Low Rider's Blues: 1931-10-31
17. Georgia Rag: 1931-10-31
18. Rollin' Mama Blues: 1932-02-22
19. Lonesome Day Blues: 1932-02-22
20. Mama, Let Me Scoop For You: 1932-02-22
21. Searching The Desert For The Blues: 1932-02-22
22. Warm It Up To Me: 1933-09-14
23. Savannah Mama: 1933-09-18
24. Love-Makin' Mama: 1933-09-19
25. Lord, Send Me An Angel: 1933-09-19
26. Lay Some Flowers On My Grave: 1935-04-25
Restoration and remastering by Andrew Rose at Pristine Audio, © March 2009

> The album cover artwork is a painting from a picture shot by famous ethno-musicologist John Lomax, of the Library of Congress Archives of Folk Culture, in 1940 during the recording of McTell in Lomax hotel room in Atlanta.

> Who really was Blind Willie McTell?
Before 1940, McTell recorded, solo or for other fellow musicians, for several labels, sometimes at the same time, under different names depending on the company for contract reasons. He is known as:
- Blind Willie McTell (for Victor and Decca),
- Blind Sammie (for Columbia),
- Georgia Bill (for Okeh),
- Willie Glaze (for Bluebird)
- Hot Shot Willie (for Victor),
- Blind Willie (for Vocalion),
- Barrelhouse Sammie (for Atlantic),
- Pig & Whistle Red (for Regal).

 

> A 56mn enthralling and really poignant documentary biopic of Blind Willie McTell by David Fulmer for Georgia Public Television in 1997 where McTell heard talking about his early life. © South Georgia Folklife Collection at Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections.

 

> An interesting illustrated article on McTell in The New Georgia Encyclopedia: "Blind Willie McTell" by Hal Jacobs.

> McTell's illustrated discography

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