The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band - Peyton On Patton (2011)

> The album

A big damn tribute to Charley Patton

Hey there ! Wanna have a half hour of musical jubilation ? Listen to this big damn homage album from Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band then !
Real name : Josh Peyton. Birth date : April 1981. Birth place : Eagletown, Indiana. The Rev is a big damn heavy bearded man built like a big damn lumberjack and equipped with such a big damn powerful baritone voice that it would frighten a bear. In fact, he is a big damn bear himself ! He's chopping hard on his steel slide guitar, helped by his washboard scratcher wife Breezy (they're married since 2003) and by the bare-hand barrel banger 'Cuz' Persinger.

In 2011, the Rev decided to pay his dues to his idol Charley Patton (who was supposedly born exactly 90 years before him in April 1891), one he considers as the true king father of the Delta blues, by recording eleven of his songs. But he does it his way ! You really have to hear it to understand what his way sounds like.
The album tracks were all recorded on the same day in the old way, as it was done in Patton's days, with just one microphone. It even offers three quite different versions of "Some of These Days I'll Be Gone", one of the Rev's favorite Patton's song.

According to the Rev, the initial project was to make an album exclusively composed of different versions of this same song ! Things apparently evolved in a slightly different way. As a tribute to Patton, the first song, "Jesus Is a Dying Bedmaker", was recorded inside the cotton gin of the legendary Dockery Farms plantation, a place often considered as being the birth place of Delta blues, mainly because Patton spent a good part of his life there, where he became the mentor of "Son" House and younger blues musicians like Robert Johnson or Howlin' Wolf, among others.


Let's make it clear : this is a 95% Rev Peyton album. His two accomplices are barely heard in the remote background. The first thing that strikes, as pointed out above, is the Rev's powerful vocal texture and his cockney-like singing that makes Patton's lyrics sometimes difficult to grab at first. The second thing is the old Irish-like folk sound sometimes given by the Rev to some songs, a characteristic that is absent in Patton's original recordings. This is particularly clear in "Some Of These Days I'll Be Gone", "Tom Rushen Blues" or "Some Happy Days". Nothing really surprising though because blues actually finds his roots in different folk styles brought by immigrants from European countries, among which Ireland has contributed with a quite important quota.
▼ The Bear at work.

Nevertheless this modern revisit of Patton, generally in a faster tempo, is a success. It probably led or will still lead many listeners to (re)discover the original work of the great blues pioneer that Charley Patton was.
From the gospel-styled classic "Jesus Is A Dying Bed Maker" to the jubilant version of  "Shake It And Break It", through the great cover of "Mississippi Boweavil Blues" (1) and the three version of "Some Of These Days I'll Be Gone", this throw-back tribute album is a treat for country blues aficionados and blues history fans. ■

  (1) This traditional song is referring to the "boll weevil" (Anthonomus grandis), a beetle infesting cotton plants, that devastated US plantations in the 1920s, severely wrecking the cotton industry and subsequently ruining many sharecroppers and field workers who were forced to move up North to industrial cities like… Chicago where they exported the Delta blues.

The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band's web site : https://www.bigdamnband.com/

Their YT channel : https://www.youtube.com/user/bigdamnbandofficial/featured (with one video not to be missed of Rev. Peyton playing 18 different instruments (!) on the single song  "John Henry" : https://youtu.be/GuuNm7Sb1WQ?list=PLXiQn6lC94c6YOvQrkDitwU5ZsdA8bPAq)

Some 30 live recordings free for download : https://archive.org/details/TheReverendPeytonsBigDamnBand?sort=creatorSorter

From the album "Peyton on Patton"

► At the Dockery Plantation in the Mississippi Delta :
→ "Jesus is a Dying Bed Maker" : https://youtu.be/N0py9GP7HKI
→ "Some Of These Days": https://youtu.be/mbb2ZiFpNP4
→ "Prayer of Death pt 1" : https://youtu.be/a9L8clY_9W8
► A 7-song playlist : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC58B0857EDD5B692

→ "Some of These Days I'll Be Gone (Patton version)"
→ "Some of These Days I'll Be Gone (Banjo version)"
→ "Shake It and Break It"
→ "Prayer of Death"
→ "Jesus Is A Dying Bedmaker"
→ "Elder Greene Blues"
→ "Mississippi Boweavil Blues"

Interview

► In "The Vinyl District" : https://www.thevinyldistrict.com/storefront/2014/04/reverend-peyton-tvd-interview/

King size live videos

► Live at Telluride Blues & Brews Festival 2019 (3 videos) : https://www.tellurideblues.com/news/the-reverend-peytons-big-damn-band-live-at-telluride-blues-brews-festival
► Live Steam Concert, May 2020 (1h03) : https://youtu.be/pcVDiV7qr8s
► At Asheville Music Hall 11-17-2017 (1h26) : https://youtu.be/aShG-kZwbww

► At Reggie's Rock Club in Chicago :
→ in 2014 (1h21) : https://youtu.be/ALbm3m8YwAo
→ in 2016 (1h38) : https://youtu.be/xjyq4RYA3Q4
► On New Year's Eve 2017 at The Bluebird (1h32) : https://youtu.be/WvO6bL5gqPo

► At Knuckleheads Saloon in Kansas City, Missouri :
→ in 2008 where a train came by to blow it's whistle during the encore of "That Train Song", (1h22) : https://youtu.be/1Z9JsYel2w0
→ in 2009 with the original drummer, Rev's brother Jayme Peyton, (1h38) : https://youtu.be/SuUTsz0qeBI
→ in 2010 with "Cuz" Persinger on drums(1h24) : https://youtu.be/ZFoA8j37AQs
→ in 2015 (1h26) : https://youtu.be/zZtwtDQhDZg

► At Butler Arts Fest in 2015 (1h34) : https://youtu.be/FTbobxsc6OA
► At Fitzgerald's American Music Festival in Berwyn, Illinois, on July 3, 2017 (1h30) : https://youtu.be/1I8EnQETGl0
► At the Cubby Bear in Chicago on April 6, 2013 (encore with special guest Jimbo Mathus) (1h26) : https://youtu.be/YA3xzeD8s_Q

Charley Patton and the Dockery plantation

The 25,600-acre (104 km2) cotton plantation Dockery Farms, between Cleveland and Ruleville, in the Mississippi Delta, was established in 1895 by Will Dockery. Its good reputation for treating his workers and sharecroppers fairly attracted workers from throughout the South. Some became settled sharecroppers working a portion of the land in return for a share of the crop, while others were itinerant workers.

▼ Around 1950.

Around 1900, there lived and worked about 2000 people, including blues musicians. In addition to its railroad terminal, Dockery Farms had its own money coins, its general store, post-office, school, doctor and churches. The workers’ quarters included boardinghouses, where they lived, socialized and played music, particularly guitar, which had been introduced to the area by Mexican workers in the 1890s.
Dockery Farms is widely regarded as the place where Delta blues music was born because musicians resident at Dockery included Charley Patton, Robert Johnson or Howlin' Wolf…

Charley Patton and his family are believed to have moved around 1900 to the Dockery Plantation, where he came under the influence of an older musician, Henry Sloan. In turn, Patton became the central figure of a group of blues musicians including Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson and Eddie "Son" House, who played around the local area.  The plantation became known as a informal musical center. By the mid-1920s, the group widened to include a younger generation of musicians, including Robert Johnson, Chester "Howlin’ Wolf" Burnett, Roebuck "Pops" Staples or David "Honeyboy" Edwards. Some of these were itinerant workers, while others lived more permanently on the farms. (borrowed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dockery_Plantation). ■

►A discovery of Dockery Farms (texe & pics) : https://misspreservation.com/2012/08/14/101-places-dockery-farms-plantation/
► "Talkin' Patton", a 24-mn documentary : https://youtu.be/p9T_dxiTD24
► Another documentary on Patton : https://youtu.be/WDoeswakLw4

► A Tour of Dockery Farms with B.B. King : https://youtu.be/OBRoodYw71I
► Dockery Farms Home of Charlie Patton : https://youtu.be/spC3KsAj-vw
► "Spoonful Blues" (1929) : https://youtu.be/EyIquE0izAg

 😉 The "real" Reverend Peyton,
 of the Scottsville Presbyterian Church, Virginia, around 1855.
▼ Same thick beard but different man...▼

_________________________________

Mr Tchang Bluz Explosion - Time To Move (2021)

> The album

The Jackie Chan of the six-string

Samuel Audrix (surely a Gallic fellow of mine 😉) aka Mr Tchang, and his gang of merry Frenchies, sorry, there's a Spaniard guest in the lot, have put out a nice surprise, not in Canada Dry style (you know, "It looks like alcohol, it has the color of alcohol but it's not alcohol… it's Canada Dry !") because it looks like blues, it sounds like blues, and it is blues. Chicago blues, Memphis blues, Texas blues, Louisiana blues, Mississippi blues… Whatever you want, you get it ! Soul blues, rocking blues, funky blues, rhythm and blues, even a soul ballad like "I Gotta Woman"… Whatever you want, you get it !

These dudes from South Western France have not much more to learn from their models from Chicago, Texas or Mississippi, they master all facets of blues. They are all so far beyond the technical apprenticeship of their instrument that they're able to play what they want. The difference comes from their mastering of something that can't be taught : the feeling, the soul, and a sense of putting out the right sound and note at the right moment.
From his producer seat, Arnaud Fradin, leader of The Roots Combo, who is also on rhythm guitar here, has done a really neat job, managing an excellent sound mix that positively underlines the qualities of each band member.

The band is perfect  : the pair Esclier-Delmas secure a steel solid rhythm section; Sylvain Tejerizo on sax gives an extra soul dimension, when not getting up front in a funky-jazzy style on "Eddie C. N' Jody" for example; and their Catalan guest Victor Puertas brings in the tasteful rich color of his Hammond B3 organ and other keyboards, not forgetting his harmonica.
But the main attraction is of course the boss, 'Mr Tchang' himself. A veteran of the French blues scene, where he's humorously nicknamed the "Six-string's Jackie Chan" or "Riff's Yakuza", he delivers a hot guitar blues style, with a special liking for wah-wah effects (he is undoubtedly a fan of Hendrix), along with his great vocal texture perfectly fit for singing the blues.

Personally, I'll point out "Ain't Superstitious" for its nice intro and organ work ; "Louis", a nice example of Chicago blues sound ; "The Darkness Of Your Love" for its melodic wah-wah guitar part ; "Mississippi Party", a tribute to Delta and Hill Country bluesmen ; "My Woman" with its vibrating guitar and top-notch B3; "Oh, My Love" for its cool swinging style ; "Eddie C. N' Jody" for its New Orleans beat and sax drive. Which doesn't mean that the other tracks belong to the dust bin. Oh, by no mean no !
One regret still : why not trying a few songs (just one or two !) in French just to see what it would sound like… Anyway, I'll make mine the appreciation of Blue Dragon's talented co-manager Lou Cypher in his presentation of the album : "[…] just 2 words: trust me. And I betcha, you won't regret it !"

Videos

► Mr Tchang Bluz Explosion YT Channel : https://www.youtube.com/c/Frenchbluesexplosion
► Plenty of videos on the YT fan channel "fandemistertchang" : https://www.youtube.com/user/fandemistertchang/videos
► "Mississippi Party", album recording : https://youtu.be/UP-QokeSrA4
► Mister Tchang Blues Trio at the Maison du Blues in Châtres-sur-Cher (France) in 2021 : https://youtu.be/mwbsGbe9J1k & https://youtu.be/apXY2hr1Rok
► "Don't worry" live  in 2021 : https://youtu.be/6_bnQC_XP-M

► Mister Tchang's "Jam Blues au Garage", at home in France during the Covid 2020 confinement (76mn) : https://youtu.be/pOqQkDDHNlw
► Mississippi Delta born Peaches Staten & Blues Explosion (featuring Mr Tchang & Víctor Puertas) in Burlada (Spain) in 2019 : https://youtu.be/2fX-DznJ_4s
► In Holland in 2018 : https://youtu.be/IsDF3FOZ_nU

► Short interview of Mr Tchang and show with his band The Easy Money at The Plus-Que-Parfait blues bar in Bergerac (France) in 2014 (1h57) : https://youtu.be/D2H97Omi7hQ or https://youtu.be/HrW9T9XQIh0
► "Once and for all" by Mister Tchang & the French Blues Explosion in 2012 : https://youtu.be/jAWKYeFgm1U
► Mr Tchang & The Texas Sluts in Léognan (France) in 2008 (50mn) : https://youtu.be/7HXRXxM1h8c

Mr Tchang web site (with videos too) : https://mistertchang.com/

VA - Fat Possum-Not The Same Old Blues Crap, 1 & 2 (1997 & 2001)

> Volume 1 / > Volume 2

 The possum's double strike

Fat Possum Records, founded in 1991 in Oxford, Mississippi, by a small gang of smart local blues fans, was originally aimed at taking the last original unrecorded bluesmen of North Mississippi out of the shade of anonymity by recording them before they died. As a matter of fact, many of their early artists did : Asie Payton, King Ernest and Charles Caldwell disappeared before the release of their recordings, Junior Kimbrough died in 1998, R.L. Burnside and Hasil Adkins in 2005, T-Model Ford, Robert Belfour and Elmo Williams in the 2010s. A kind of ethno-musicological mission, like that of the legendary Alan Lomax but with a more commercial approach, though most of their "discoveries" had no such ambitions, happy enough to play on the local juke-joints blues circuit. Incidentally, the number of good musicians worth recording living in North Mississippi is incredible !

In 1997, with enough ammunition in their catalog, Fat Possum decided to advertise it by releasing a compilation panorama of their artists, provocatively baptized "Not The Same Old Blues Crap". Encouraged by its success, a second volume followed in 2001 (click on "Newer Post" at the bottom of the page to find it).

The heavy-weights of Fat Possum's catalog of roots North Mississippi country blues, Ford, Kimbrough, Burnside, Belfour or Chikan are featured of course, and largely standing to their reputation. But what's equally exciting for North Mississippi blues boeotians, is the discovery of less famous but not less interesting musicians : 20 Miles and The Neckbones, halfway between blues and punk rock; the hilarious Jelly Roll Kings; the boogie rocking Elmo Williams; the cock-a-doodle-doo singing rooster Robert Cage; country ballad singer Hasil Adkins; the humorous folkie Scott Dunbar; the excellent Asie Payton and Paul 'Wine' Jones; or the definitely soul King Ernest.

Hill Country hypnotical boogies are dominating these two volumes from the top of their heavy rhythms, but a few humorous blues songs and quieter folk ballads managed to find a little space, especially on Volume 2, as did the unexpected but excellent association of Junior Kimbrough with Charlie Feathers on "I Feel Good Again".

A common commercial trick, these sample albums offer a few previously unreleased tracks : #8 (Burnside's "Come On In") on Vol.1, and on Vol. 2, #3 (Burnside's "Walkin' Blues") and #7 (Asie Payton's "Goin' Back To The Bridge").

According to personal taste, each one will prefer this or that, raw boogies, humorous songs or slower melodic ballads, but all tracks have to be listened to.

In any case, Fat Possum's original musical strategy has to be saluted : how many fine Hill Country bluesmen would have stayed unknown to us without the little rodent.

T Model Ford
► At the WECC 2001
→ Part 1 : https://youtu.be/mLca51aN6bk
→ Part 2 : https://youtu.be/pBQT2fmiRh8
► At Upstairs At Nick's in Philadelphia, 1998 (70mn) : https://youtu.be/emZRQlRReCg

Elmo Williams
► Elmo Williams (guitar) and Hezekiah Early at the 2014 Mississippi Blues Marathon in Jackson, 2014 (14-song playlist) :
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhYda8Q_BaqI88kaHf6ZV6zfgBzsuKR9Q

Robert Cage
► Robert Cage and Hezekiah Early at the Deep Blues Festival II : https://youtu.be/4JQV_cx5Jfg
► In Port Gibson, Mississippi, with Mike Foster on drums : https://youtu.be/IkDFLEY7Pb8

 

Hasil Adkins
► At WIll's Pub in Orlando, Florida, in December 2003 (47mn) : https://youtu.be/9cLpsUmJ4gw

Scott Dunbar
► A WAFB reporter's earnest attempt to interview the eccentric delta blues musician on his front porch in Lake Mary, Mississippi (raw footage) : https://youtu.be/iuSo3XPV1PU

Robert Belfour
► At Colorado College : https://youtu.be/bPPPU20gyxg & https://youtu.be/HLiPDYTuCas
► At the Blues Rules Tour 2013 at La Flêche d'Or, in Paris : https://youtu.be/oEAblq1XHbk
► At the 2010 River Arts Festiva, in Memphis : https://youtu.be/cgaVSjwakFM

Paul 'Wine' Jones
► Live : https://youtu.be/x7_BtZHWXbA (46mn) and https://youtu.be/ktRijX4vMeo (52mn)
► At the WECC 2001 (76mn) : https://youtu.be/vKRK8WRCBZU

King Ernest
► At the Waterfront Blues Festival with The Wild Knights & Randy Chortkoff in 1993 (48mn) : https://youtu.be/M1YofYfPSds


Junior Kimbrough
► A night at Junior Kimbrough's juke-joint near Holly Springs (2h12) : https://youtu.be/V45Nhpu9cUk
► At his juke joint in Chulahoma, Mississippi, in 1990 : https://youtu.be/Bj2GeuVZBM8

R. L. Burnside
► Live in 1984 (55mn) : https://youtu.be/BLF-f4kUtAw
► In Amsterdam in 1993 :
→ At lifelong blues lover Ko de Kort's 50th birthday (100mn) :

https://youtu.be/py4ZFWJGfJM
→ In a pub : https://youtu.be/PV3Q0OdoF5o
► With Dave Stewart at Junior Kimbrough`s juke joint in 1991 : https://youtu.be/EpEY-TAqSO4
► In 1978 : https://youtu.be/6TMvxIRDLws
► At the House Of Blues in Orlando, Florida, in 1999 (R.L. Burnside - vocal, guitar, Kenny Brown - guitar, Cedric Burnside – drums) (72mn) : https://youtu.be/Y3ABAvQckLA

James 'Super Chikan' Johnson
► Playing one of his unique guitar models at the 2011 Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale at Ground Zero Club : https://youtu.be/cug4jSz0Xgw
► At the King Biscuit Mini Blues Bash in Helena, Arkansas, in 2021 : https://youtu.be/iDB2Oh90Hro

Asie Payton (audio only)
→ Worried (his only album, recorded in August 1994 at Junior Kimbrough's Juke Joint, released in1999, two years after his death) : https://youtu.be/v-xAB_MmpgA
Tracklist  : 00:00 - I Love You / 02:44 - Worried Life / 06:49 - Nobody But You / 11:18 - Please Tell Me You Love Me / 14:09 - Asie’s Jam / 19:45 - All I Need Is You / 24:01 - Come Home With You / 27:30 - Skinny Legs And All / 30:20 - I Love You (Solo).
→ Just Do Me Right (unreleased songs recorded in 1980-1993-1994, posthumously issued in 2001) : https://youtu.be/GIRz9mSU7xo
Tracklist  : 00:00 - Back To The Bridge / 03:12 - Do Me Right / 06:29 - 1000 Years / 09:31 - I Got A Friend / 13:16 - Need My Help / 15:41 - Livin’ In So Much Pain / 18:55 - You Got Me Doin’ Things / 22:17 - Why’d You Do It / 25:36 - Nobody But You / 28:31 - Lose My Happy Home / 32:21 - You Don’t Want Me / 35:24 - Watch Yourself / 38:39 - Asie’s Story / 42:14 - Back To The Bridge (2002 Remix)

_____________________________

Spearman Brewers - Won't You Come Go With Me (2013)

►The album

Won't you go for another beer ?

En route for a journey through the past with this all-acoustic multi-instrumentalist duo that throws us back to early twentieth century beer joints music ! They baptized themselves with the odd name of Spearman Brewers, a name that calls for familiar memories in their area though : until it closed down in 1964, the Spearman Brewing Company, was a famous beer maker set in Pensacola (nothing to do with coca or pepsi !), on the gulf coast of western Florida, close to the Alabama state line. A region known as the Florida Panhandle that hasn't much to do with the usual coconut trees and translucent waters image of Miami beaches, the Florida Keys and the Caribbean sea, and rather announces the wet lands and bayous of the coast of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The Spearman Brewers ― Scott Riggs and Jeremy Holcombe ― play, as they call it, "undistilled Panhandle Blues", a "new old stuff" blending different styles.  According to Scott Riggs, interviewed just before the 2018 International Blues Challenge, "Panhandle Blues is a gumbo of sorts. Having listened to a bunch of Piedmont, Delta and Country Blues, it seemed natural to mix them together. Throw in some traditional jazz, gospel, cajun, hokum and jug band and you’ve got what we call Panhandle Blues."

This first album, released in 2013 (they had five out since), might sound like a booze drinking music affair with songs like "Bottle Of Red" or "Get Your Liquor On", or like a sex matter one with songs like "Pay For The Pleasure" or "That Jelly Won't Roll No More", but it's more than that, most of all a modern tribute to old-time American southern popular music and its rich history. "If these guys were anymore "rootsy", you could cultivate them !", wrote a musical writer.

Grand brew-master Scott Riggs plays slide guitar (regular or resonator), mandolin and ukulele, and sings with a nasal voice while Jeremy Holcombe's upright bass is keeping the beat unperturbed, and his interventions on baritone or soprano ukulele underline the original oldie sound of the songs. The music gently swings from track to track while the lyrics seem to be rolling around Riggs tongue like a gum before being uttered, and the mandolin and ukuleles add to this "unfiltered" music a special flavor, not so often found in blues.
An album to listen while savoring with a bottle of cold beer indeed...

 The Spearman Brewing Company (1934-1964) 
→ https://www.pensapedia.com/wiki/Spearman_Brewing_Company
→ https://www.uniquehistoryofpensacola.com/post/pensacola-s-spearman-s-brewery-1935

Spearman Brewers on the Web
→ http://spearmanbrewers.com/index.html
→ https://www.facebook.com/SpearmanBrewers

Interview
► Scott Riggs in 2018  on the 850 ME site : https://wp.me/p1hzLt-1b0

Videos

► Spearman Brewers Panhandle Thursdays : https://www.youtube.com/user/YouRiggs/featured
► At Straight 8 Half Hour Happy Hour, in 2016 : https://youtu.be/dEhYw0fUXLI 

Setlist (35mn) : Straight 8 Stomp Intro, Knock 'Em Back, Get Your Liquor On, The Bottle Is My Home, The Street Where You Got Your Feet, Come What May,  Leave Your Lamplight On, No Matter What She Charges, Straight 8 Stomp Outro.
► Scott Riggs on mandolin on Bukka White's "Black Train Blues" : https://youtu.be/BtoEON1pzfk
► Live at Two Wheelers in Pensacola, in July 2013 :
→ "That Jelly Won't Roll No More" : https://youtu.be/0ELtTZwLTiw
→ Cab Calloway's "Minnie The Moocher" : https://youtu.be/R-h50hN1p-E
→ "Nothing Shakin' In This Town" : https://youtu.be/ofyd_W9ojk0 

►"Nothing To It But To Do It" in New World Landing, in 2016 : https://youtu.be/zWwGEx9BE-M
► Rising Tide" at the Imogene Theatre, in 2016 (featuring dobro and baritone ukulele) : https://youtu.be/KjQvcjbIOKk
► At the Stage Northside, in 2016 :
→ "Nothing To It But To Do It" : https://youtu.be/MpngEYmM7G4
→ "Close Down The Liquor Store" : https://youtu.be/Y1_Q4gHWo-E
► "Knock 'Em Back" live at the 2016 Pensacola Beach Songwriters Festival : https://youtu.be/lmTHJlzgAA8
► At Music Helps Concert : https://youtu.be/pSx97KN5EH0
► At the Daytona Blues Fest in 2017 : https://youtu.be/dqC_Ns-k78Q
► "Don’t mind if I do" at Shred In The Shed in Pensacola, in 2019 : https://youtu.be/BB5o0gIywG8

________________________

Charles Caldwell - Remember Me (2004)

> The album

The tragic story of Charles Caldwell

Unfortunately, the story of Charles W. Caldwell is not the only one of the kind among bluesmen, from Mississippi or elsewhere. When this album, recorded in 2003, was released in February 2004, Caldwell born in 1943 in the Mississippi town of Water Valley, had left this world five months earlier. Hence the choice of the song "Remember Me" as the album's title, certainly chosen by the excellent Fat Possum label whose boss "discovered" this North Mississippi Hill Country blues musician unrecorded so far.

The Gibson guitar model Caldwell played all his life ►

Forty-six years earlier, while working on his father's farm, Caldwell bought a hollow-body Gibson ES-125 guitar, learned how to play by himself, and used this same worn out instrument until the end. This thin and tall man, usually topped by a cow-boy hat, led a hard working life, taking care of his own modest farm around Coffeeville (Mississippi), while working first as a government forest keeper (hunting for raccoons whenever he could !), then in an air conditioning equipment repair plant in Grenada, about 25 kms away, after nearly getting severely wounded several times with his chainsaw. Still, he managed to acquire an old Cadillac car, reason why he was nicknamed Charles "Cadillac" Caldwell.
His performances were limited to occasional local festive gatherings and juke joints, often playing for no more than free liquor. Altogether, his life was not different from that of many of his fellow Mississippi bluesmen who lived a poor and simple life away from the lights of fame.

Caldwell's music, as it appears on this album, stands out because of the man's sound : raw, roots, vintage… whatever synonym of "authentic" you can find will fit. An old guitar and a husky rasping and sometimes trembling voice, occasionally backed by Hill Country typical basic drum rhythms, are all Caldwell needed to deliver his low-down and primary, almost primitive, unsophisticated blues in such a magnificent and poignant way. It's a plain and percussive form of blues, as traditionally played in the Hills, with sorrowful lyrics (most time love conflicts laments) that brings back blues to the original meaning of the term. Caldwell's bare simplicity is precisely what makes his songs so moving. But don't be fooled, the man certainly worked hard and long to master such an apparent basic guitar and vocal style.

Caldwell guitar playing indeed uses interesting personal melodic patterns that distinguishes him from most of his fellow Hill Country blues players, even if his music possesses the same usual repetitive hypnotic structure that is the Hill Country blues trademark. Fat Possum's boss Matthew Johnson was not mistaken when he heard Caldwell for the first time in May 2002, noticing at once this singularity, not talking of the charismatic personality of the man, and deciding such a music had to be recorded.

The eleven tracks of the album sound like a testament from this engaging modest bluesman who lived so far away from the entertainment and music industry for nearly 60 years. Retrospectively, the last track, "Remember Me", appears strangely premonitory. Suffering from a pancreatic cancer, Caldwell recorded the album while  undergoing chemotherapy. In vain ! He died a few months later, deprived of the pride and pleasure of holding the album in his hands.
The album itself was not recorded in vain though : these eleven songs keep Caldwell memory alive. Unfortunately, as time goes by, such discoveries are less and less frequent.
Another old timer gone… Sigh !

Anecdote

The possum and the fox : https://fatpossum.com/collections/charles-caldwell/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charles Caldwell reflected
by the front chrome
of his Cadillac in 1995
(photo © Bill Steber) ►

Unfortunately, it is impossible to find
any video of Caldwell playing live.

 ________________________

John Dee Holeman - Bull Durham Blues (1999)

> The album 

 

Piedmont, cap and hambone

John Dee Holeman, who died in April 2021 at age 92, was the last great elder of North Carolina Piedmont blues (read below). Famous for his cap eternally standing on his head and his checked shirts, he was to Piedmont style what Jimmy "Duck" Holmes, 74, is to the Bentonia blues of Mississippi today. 

Holeman started to play guitar at age 14, listening particularly to the king of Piedmont blues Blind Boy Fuller's 78-rpm discs, like for example "Step It Up and Go" that Holeman chose to cover on this album, probably as a long-time souvenir. But what is less known, is that Holeman was also a talented buckdancer (read below) famous in his home state of North Carolina.

A talented guitar picker, a warm raspy voiced singer and a gifted buckdancer, Holeman, like most of his contemporary country blues musicians, performer at social gatherings and events at nights and on week-ends, while working a regular job on week days. In Durham, where he settled in 1954, he was employed as a heavy equipment operator by the old Liggett and Myers Tobacco Co. factory which produced cigarettes for the international market, especially the Chesterfield and later L&M brands. Later he worked in the construction business.

It took him nearly 50 years to gain recognition out of his area. In the beginning of the 1980s, he played at festivals around the country, and in concerts in Europe and Africa, invited by the State Department. In 1988, he received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Finally at 60 odd years, the doors of recording studios opened to him. In 1991, his first album, "Bull City After Dark" was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award. In 1994, he was contacted by Tim Duffy, the founder of the Music Maker Relief Foundation, who offered him the support of his organization and its recording label. Holeman was nearly 70 when he recorded "Bull Durham Blues" in 1998, under the musical supervision and collaboration of Taj Mahal.

Holeman's vintage Piedmont blues style blends an old style roots voice with a faultless guitar picking technique, though maybe not as elaborate as that of his model Blind Boy Fuller, while opening to outside influences from Texas, Chicago and more The album features two Lightnin' Hopkins songs ("Give Me Back My Wig" and "Hello Central"), two from Muddy Waters ("Sweet Home Chicago" and "Early Morning Blues"), "Little Country Gal" from pianist Otis Spann, and "Big Boss Man" written by Al Smith & Luther Dixon (and not Willie as often mistakenly indicated). The nearby mountains bluegrass isn't forgotten either with "God Loves His Children", a strange gospelish bluegrass due to Foggy Mountain Boys' Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs. Along with a few traditional songs, "Chapel Hill Boogie" is the only original Holeman track.

< JDH & Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal role in this recording deserves a word. Credited as musical adviser on the album, he plays bass on "Sweet Home Chicago", piano on the traditional "Mistreated Blues", guitar on "Chapel Hill Boogie", and hambone on the song of the same name, a singular rap style talking blues. The fact that a bluesman of such stature as Mahal participated to this project is a sign not to be overlooked : he held Holeman in great esteem, and rightly too.

Though not strictly Piedmont in its repertoire, this album is a great token of a country blues style sometimes unjustly eclipsed by its Delta or Hill Country "rivals". Holeman testifies that such a blues style, considered by many specialists as the progenitor of all the other blues forms, deserves primary attention. A track like "Hambone" (read below), for example, links Piedmont blues directly to the African roots of blues by its singular rhythmic concept.
May you rest in peace John Dee Holman...

The Piedmont blues style

The Piedmont region encompasses a chain of foothills running between the Appalachian Range and the Atlantic coastal plain, from Virginia through the Carolinas to Georgia. Blues is considered to have first appeared as such in this area, shaped by the sound of the banjo and by still-remembered African plucked instrumental techniques, probably reflecting an earlier musical tradition than the Mississippi Delta blues.
Bonus: "Step It Up And Go", a 59-mn 1989 documentary, directed by Susan Massengale, featuring an array of North Carolina Piedmont blues masters, including Etta Baker, Thomas Burt, Algie Mae Hinton, Cora Phillips, Joe and Odell Thomas, John D. Holeman, Moses Rascoe... : https://youtu.be/P_xrsSzGku8

Juba, hambone & buckdance…

< JDH hamboing

"Buckdance", "hambone", "bust down" or "jigging", originally called "Pattin' Juba", is a dance based on complex hand rhythms providing various tempos for dancers. A centuries-old tradition among Africans and African Americans, its origin is linked to the African slaves who landed on the East coast of the United States.

It was customary when party musicians took a break and men engaged in competitive solo dancing accompanied only by hand rhythms called "patting". Different from hand clapping, "patting" consists in dancing while slapping different parts of the body (arms, chest, thighs, flanks or sometimes even mouth and cheeks) with bare hands to produce different patterns of percussive rhythms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juba_dance).

> All you want to know about hambone : http://www.bluesjunctionproductions.com/hambone
> The story of hambone told by Diane Ferlatte  (it's interesting to read the presentation texte below the video) : https://youtu.be/VIC469NOqbw

> Holeman "singing" Hambone" with Dom Flemons : https://youtu.be/6mOd4PheLTA
> R.L. Burnside's young sons (Duwayne, Dexter and Michael Joe) hamboning at home in Independence, Mississippi (shot by Alan Lomax in 1978) : https://youtu.be/qJ73okpDa6k
> Hambone on a Mississippi porch by Markus James (slide gourd banjo) & Calvin Jackson (hambone ) : https://youtu.be/gTKE3IaVVmA
> Hambone demonstration by Archie Shepp's drummer Steve McCraven at the Tabarka International Jazz Festival in Tunisia : https://youtu.be/v8r5wxpa3hg
> A Juba dance variant by the Georgia Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters : https://youtu.be/NQgrIcCtys0

Download
> John Dee Holeman live at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro (North Carolina), on Sept. 9, 2009 : https://archive.org/details/johndeeholeman2009-09-05.flac

Videos

> David Holt interviews John Dee Holman and plays washboard on "Come On Down to my House Baby" in Durham. Other songs include "Letter Blues", "Give Me Back My Wig" and "Big Boss Man" : https://youtu.be/NAoWEIdOPxU
> Music Maker Relief Foundation founder Tim Duffy introduces North Carolina blues artists in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 2012 (John Dee Holeman, voice and guitar - Cool John Ferguson, guitar - Gerald Robinson, bass - Bubba Norwood, drums) : https://youtu.be/6KS42PqSogA
> "Shotgun Blues" at the Gromes Hotel in New York in 1989 : https://youtu.be/OWpNOlJSsM8
> Performing "One Black Rat" (excerpt from the Music Maker Relief Foundation DVD) : https://youtu.be/6DHNSqW8rAM

> At the Blue Note Grill in Durham : https://youtu.be/GbPrmhkg3cw
> At Sweetwater in 2014 : https://youtu.be/BbGJeYv2u0I
> "Chapel Hill Boogie" with Andy Coats : https://youtu.be/MaQEtYLASs0
> At the Charlotte Folk Society's in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2010 : https://youtu.be/GOWFbYarwWw

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