This Blues Lover’s Weekly Planner is just what it says – it is a planner for those interested in Blues. Apart from the monthly reference sheets (12) and 52 weekly planner sheets there is plenty that a Blues music lover and musician could usefully use in this planner.
Key advantages of using this planner:
Undated – it lets you fill in the dates as you please,” so you can start using it at any point in the year.
Calendars for 2022, and 2023 are included for easy reference. This planner can therefore be useful anytime during the next two years and beyond.
Blues Musicians – the planner is helpful for everyone, but musicians will find the pages with blank music staves, chord diagrams and the circle of fifths; great for creativity, while getting inspired by the quotations from great Blues musicians.
The Blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling, and understanding. – Willie Dixon
Blues is my life. It’s a true feeling that comes from the heart, not something that just comes out of my mouth. Koko Taylor
You will find pages on blues info such as the circle of fifths and blues harp playing as well as creative pages of music staves and blank chord diagrams. The long list of websites includes references to online harp and guitar tutors.
To purchase the Blues Lovers Weekly Planner find it here and also here
I have worked on several blog posts on ‘great blues harp players’…which have tended to be those players who have since died.So I thought I would explore those who are still living and could be developing into one of those greats …but what criteria to use?
Our harp guru, Adam Gussow, stated his criteria for great blues harp players..so let me re-state:
ORIGINALITY. I call this the three-second test. If you turned on the radio and heard this player, could you tell within three seconds that it was them–assuming you knew their music to begin with? Lurking within what harp players call “tone” is the absolutely individuated voice, if you’re lucky enough to develop one.
INFLUENCE. Are the players in question central to the tradition of blues harmonica as it has emerged over the past 100+ years? Are they foundational in some way? Do they help modernize, consolidate, or conserve the tradition? Have they spawned imitators, including very good players who never escape their orbit? If you leave them off the list, has an injustice plainly been done? (John Lee Williamson changed the way everybody who came after him played harp. Billy Branch and Sugar Blue are, in very different ways, both the inheritors and modernizers of the Chicago blues harmonica tradition.)
TECHNICAL MASTERY. Does this player make music at a speed or with a complexity that sets him or her above the rest? (Little Walter in “Back Track” and “Roller Coaster,” James Cotton in “Creeper Creeps Again,” and Paul Butterfield in “Goin’ to Main Street” set a standard here, and Sonny Terry wins admission on the basis of pretty much any thing he’s every recorded. Sugar Blue raises the bar yet again. And please don’t forget DeFord Bailey.) Or, alternately, does this player have an extraordinary ability to hit the deep blues pitches, especially the so-called “blue third” that I discuss in many of my videos? (Junior Wells exhibits this sort of mastery.)
SOULFULNESS. In some ways, this criterion should lead things off. We’re talking about blues harmonica, after all, not basket weaving. We’re talking about an extraordinarily expressive instrument. The thing it seeks to express is a range of passions and moods, many of them very powerful and a few of them downright ugly. Does this player attack his or her instrument with ferocity that makes you shiver, or jump? Or with a late-night hoodoo-spookiness that makes you feel your own loneliness? Or with some magical combination of all those things that makes you cry? (Howlin’ Wolf makes the Top-10 list for obvious reasons; so does Rice Miller, a.k.a. “Sonny Boy Williamson II.” Rev. Dan Smith, who may be less familiar to you, is the definition of soulful)
RECORDED EVIDENCE. In order to earn a spot on one of the lists below, a player (or the partisans of a player) must be able to convince with the help of recorded evidence. Buddy Bolden was the greatest trumpet player ever to come out of New Orleans, many say, but he never made a recording. Obviously the best and most influential players can’t be fully summarized by 10 minutes’ worth of vinylized or digitized performances, and some players–John Lee Williamson in particular–don’t benefit from this exercise. Still, it has its virtues as a teaching tool and a way of guiding the conversation.
I think technical mastery is a good starting point, but without soul or feeling the harp player would not be my sort of player and without creative and innovative playing -which often comes out of technical mastery plus ‘feel’ for the song, then they also would not appear in my list.
So let’s start and see if you agree with some on my list. I will mainly let them play and see what you think. Of course there is a great spawning ground for harp players in the States, but I have to include some European players as they are also influential.
In some ways we are in a transition -some of those who played with the likes of Muddy Waters are now getting on ,such as the great James Cotton, so while placing them still towards the top of any list we can start to introduce some of the younger players who maintain the tradition, while exploring styles and crossovers for themselves.
Let’s be traditional and begin with those who experienced their formative years with Muddy Waters who always ensured he had a good harp player.
James Cotton (called Cotton by his friends) was born on the first day of July,1935, in Tunica, Mississippi. He was the youngest of eight brothers and sisters who grew up in the cotton fields working beside their mother, Hattie, and father, Mose. On Sundays Mose was the preacher in the area’s Baptist church. Cotton’s earliest memories include his mother playing chicken and train sounds on her harmonica and for a few years he thought those were the only two sounds the little instrument made. His Christmas present one year was a harmonica, it cost 15 cents, and it wasn’t long before he mastered the chicken and the train. King Biscuit Time, a 15-minute radio show, began broadcasting live on KFFA, a station just across the Mississippi River in Helena, Arkansas. The star of the show was the harmonica legend, Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller).
The young Cotton pressed his little ear to the old radio speaker. He recognized the harmonica sound AND discovered something – the harp did more! Realizing this, a profound change came over him, and since that moment, Cotton and his harp have been inseparable – the love affair had begun. Soon he was able to play Sonny Boy’s theme song from the radio show and, as he grew so did his repertoire of Sonny Boy’s other songs. Mississippi summers are ghastly, the heat is unrelenting. He was too young to actually work in the cotton fields, so little Cotton would bring water to those who did. When it was time for him to take a break from his job, he would sit in the shadow of the plantation foreman’s horse and play his harp. His music became a source of joy for his first audience. James Cotton’s star began to shine brightly at a very early age.
By his ninth year both of his parents had passed away and Cotton was taken to Sonny Boy Williamson by his uncle. When they met, the young fellow wasted no time – he began playing Sonny Boy’s theme song on his treasured harp. Cotton remembers that first meeting well and says, “I walked up and played it for him. And I played it note for note. And he looked at that. He had to pay attention.” The two harp players were like father and son from then on. “I just watched the things he’d do, because I wanted to be just like him. Anything he played, I played it,” he remembers. (Jacklyn Hairston)
After that illustrious start, he never looked back, working with Muddy Waters for 12 years before cutting out on his own -his awards and many recordings provide the evidence for a great and influential harp player.
Got my Mojo Working -with Muddy Waters
Dealing with the Devil -1995 -nice acoustic track
James Cotton and Sax Gordon 1992
Slow Blues:
Cotton won a Grammy Award in 1996 for the Traditional Blues Album “Deep in the Blues”
Jerry Portnoy was born in 1943 and grew up in the blues-drenched atmosphere of Chicago’s famous Maxwell Street Market during the golden age of Chicago Blues.
Wilson was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1951, but he grew up in Goleta, California, where he sometimes went by the stage name of “Goleta Slim.” He started with the blues in the late 1960s and was tutored by people likeMuddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Eddie Taylor, Albert Collins, George “Harmonica” Smith, Luther Tucker and Pee Wee Crayton and was influenced by harmonica players like Little Walter, James Cotton, Big Walter Horton, Slim Harpo and Lazy Lester.
He now plays with the fabulous Thunderbirds
slow blues
Not a bad accolade to be called by Muddy Waters – “The greatest harmonica player since Little Walter”
Blue began his career as a street musician and made his first recordings in 1975 with legendary blues figuresBrownie McGhee and Roosevelt Sykes . The following year, he contributed to recordings by Victoria Spivey and Johnny Shines before pulling up stakes and moving to Paris on the advice of pioneer blues pianist Memphis Slim .
sugar blue,muddy,BB and Taj
Hoochie Coochie Man -Switzerland 1995
SB and Willie Dixon
Interview with Romanian Television
SB and Sunnyland Slim
He won a Grammy in 1985 for his work on the Atlantic album, Blues Explosion, recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
Was born in 1947 . He has been playing with his band The Mighty Flyers since 1980 which he formed with his pianist wifeHoney Piazza.Their boogie sound combines the styles of jump blues, West Coast blues and Chicago blues. A great chromatic player.
Being British, I have to add at least one player from these islands -Paul Lamb , who was first influenced by Sonny Terry, who he had the pleasure to work with.
“The only difference between Paul Lamb and the great harmonica players from the States is that Paul doesn’t have a U.S. passport.”
– The Great British R & B Festival , Colne , U.K.
He has played with the likes of Buddy Guy and Junior Wells and was inducted into British Blues Awards Hall Of Fame
Here he is chatting and playing:
Playing in Denmark
Playing in the style of Big Walter Horton
and back again with his band, the Kingsnakes
This is the end of part 1 with part 2 coming soon where we shall look at players such as Mark Hummel, Rick Estrin, Steve Baker and Eddy Martin just to name a few.
Who would you put in your top 20 living blues harp players?
I did not forget Charlie Musselwhite, who I admire, but I have highlighted his playing in earlier blogs…but just to finish, enjoy one of his great songs -Christo Redemtptor
Of course Jazz should be played and listened to every day -but it is good to raise the profile of the broad sweep of Jazz during International Jazz Day on 30th April….
PARIS (AP) — Herbie Hancock and scores of other big names in sound, rhythm and improvisation gathered in Paris on Friday to celebrate a new annual event: International Jazz Day.
Hancock, a UNESCO goodwill ambassador, is the force behind the creation of a world day of jazz on April 30 starting Monday.
The yearly event aims to encourage people around the world to break down barriers between them using music.
“International Jazz Day is the great metaphor for international harmony,” Hancock told The Associated Press in an interview, before kicking off jazz day at UNESCO where it gets an early start.
Things were getting groovy behind the sober, concrete walls of the headquarters of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
About 400 students from Paris music conservatories and schools were taking master classes from Hancock, Dee Dee Bridgewater or Ibrahim Maalouf. Workshops, films, lectures and performances by musicians from around the world preceded an evening concert with an array of artists, including South Africa’s Hugh Masekela and French-born Manu Katche. And to show that jazz crosses musical borders as well as national ones, opera star Barbara Hendricks was taking part.
Hancock planned to cross the Atlantic to New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, for a sunrise concert with jazz luminaries on Monday, then head to the United Nations in New York for a sunset jazz fest for diplomats that will be streamed live. Many countries, from Azerbaijan to India, plan activities of their own to celebrate jazz on Monday.
Jazz by its very nature is a bridge across cultures, says the 72-year-old Hancock, whose roots are in classical music. Jazz musicians feed off each other, exchanging, improvising, inspiring and creating together — and forbidding nothing.
“Jazz is very open and very willing to be inclusive instead of exclusive,” Hancock said. “We all want to live in a jazz world where we all work together, improvise together, are not afraid of taking chances and expressing ourselves.”
Jazz’s roots among African-American slaves have long spoken to others with no voice but music, Hancock said.
“When a human being is oppressed, the natural tendency is to feel anger,” he said. “Jazz is a response to oppression that is not bullets and blood. Jazz is the expression of harmony … and at the same time of hope and freedom.”
While running a folk and blues music club in London I booked John in 1971. He was mesmerizing with a great personality. His records are wonderful-but you really had to see him live. His personality and playing skills just demanded live performances. I have listed a sample, mainly from the 1970’s, but a few more recent as well. Enjoy.
Here he is playing the wonderful ‘May you never‘ in live 1973
“Every record I’ve made – bad, good, or indifferent – is totally autobiographical. I can look back when I hear a record and recall exactly what was going on. That’s how I write. That’s the only way I can write ! Some people keep diaries, I make records.”
Iain David McGeachy was born on the 11th September 1948, the son of two opera singers who divorced when he was five years old. John, as he would later call himself, moved to Glasgow and was brought up by his grandmother. John started to learn how to play the guitar at the age of fifteen being tutored by Hamish Imlach.
In 1973 with Danny Thompson – Make no mistake
His uniqueness comes from both his slurred singing style , the timbre of which has been said to ‘ resemble a tenor saxophone’ and his guitar style which when amplified though fuzzbox and echoplex provides a dreamy backdrop to his own distinctive lyrics.
In 1973 and again with Danny Thompson, his good friend – Couldn’t love you more
On Whistle Test 1975 – Discover the Lover
As Davy Graham was an important influence on John, it is understandable why he was described (in The Times) as “an electrifying guitarist and singer whose music blurred the boundaries between folk, jazz, rock and blues”.
In 1977 on whistle test with Danny Thompson again and Gaspar Lawal –“One World”
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and it is worth comparing a later version with David Gilmour live at the Shaw theatre
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Also in 1977 –Spencer the Rover
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And in 1978 –I’d rather be the devil
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1978 –Small Hours -live from Reading Unversity
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One of my (many) favourites –Bless the Weather -live at Collegiate Theatre London (1978)
**1978 – One day without you
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Quite a year 1978 -this is John showing off the echoplex again – Outside In
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a great summary of his electrifying live performance magic – live from Dublin – again with Danny Thompson:
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Still going strong in 2007 and with new collaborators –May you never with Danny Thompson and Kathy Mattea
John died at the age of 60 in January 2009.
For much of his career, Martyn enjoyed a lifestyle of typical rock’n’roll excess and later struggled with alcoholism. He once told Q Magazine: “If I could control myself more, I think the music would be much less interesting. I’d probably be a great deal richer but I’d have had far less fun and I’d be making really dull music.” In 2003 his right leg was partially amputated after a large cyst under his knee burst, leading him to spend his latter years in a wheelchair.
John Martyn was awarded an OBE in the 2009 New Year honours list.
Throughout his life he kept searching for new musical forms in which to express essential themes: love, loneliness, and what it means to be alive.
He is much missed.
biographical tributes:
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When I was wondering who to book for the university blues club I was sent this record……enough said…I booked him.
At www.johnmartyn.com you can find many of John’s lyrics -such as Stormbringer:
Stormbringer
Time’s gone by
Calendar leaves and snows fly
I might write a poem
If I could think of the words to try
What is there to remember
The winter was December
Just one more year left behind.
She never looked around to see me
She never looked around at all
All I saw was shadows on the wall
She never looked around to see me
She never looked around at all
All I heard was snow that had to fall.
She left in the morning
Quietly that was her way
And on returning
To find I had nothing to say
What is there to remember
The winter was December
Just one more year left behind.
She never looked around to see me
She never looked around at all
All I saw was shadows on the wall
She never looked around to see me
She never looked around at all
All I heard was snow that had to fall…
“Rollin’ and Tumblin’” is a blues song that has been recorded hundreds of times by various artists.Considered as traditional, it has been recorded with many different lyrics and titles. Authorship is most often attributed to Hambone Willie Newbern or McKinley Morganfield (aka Muddy Waters), but Gus Cannon’s Jug Band may also lay a claim.
However, although the rhythm is similar the words certainly vary – watch some of the more recent versions below and enjoy the typical improvised lyrics and variations on the instrument breaks. Sometimes even the title has been changed e.g. Robert Johnson’s “If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day”
Baby Face Leroy did a cover (note the reference to the writer -copyright?)
Rosa Lee Hill Rolled and Tumbled:
And Eric Clapton’s version from his Crossroads guitar festival
If you are wanting to learn blues harmonica (blues harp) the best place to start is with Adam Gussow.
Listen to one of his many and great lessons (you can see I am a fan!)
Having said this , learners learn in different ways, and so it is good to look up several teaching sites and try to learn what you can from each. Some provide some beginners lessons for free in the hope that you will join and pay anything from 4 USD per month upwards for membership. Some provide forums which can be very helpful,when choosing harps, learning specific techniques,knowing which key a particular blues tune is in or just exchanging ideas and realising you are part of a musical community. I will list a few of the popular sites with some of their particular features.
This is Dave Gage’s site , harmonicalessons.com A very comprehensive site – as well as lessons , he has forums, playing tips of the day . even information on making harp repairs, and a full list of playing techniques
Full membership costs $37.95 but there are other membership schemes. Examples of the info available on the site:
About notation
“Number and Arrow” system of notation– The “up” arrows indicate blow (exhale) notes and the “down” arrows are for the draw (inhale) notes- The little “b’s” under the bent arrows are flat signs. One “b” is a half step bend and two “b’s” are a whole step bend (as shown in the graphic below).All riffs are played in the 2nd position– For more information on 2nd position, visit the General Overview section.Use your own timing– Except for the triplet riffs, you can use your own timing with these riffs to make them fit into whatever song you are playing with. Listen to the sound file below the riffs to help get you started.
Problem with the hole 2 draw– If you have a problem with the hole 2 draw you can substitute the hole 3 blow until you have the ability to make the hole 2 draw come out correctly.
For Intermediate and Advanced players– you can add a 4 draw bend between the 4 blow and the 4 draw of the “Almost Blues Scale” riff. This will make it a complete one octave blues scale.
“Jam-To” Blues MIDI File– If you would like a quick, easy background song to begin jamming to, you can use the “Jam-To” MIDI File in “G” to try out the different riffs and ideas outlined here. Additional MIDI files are also available.
12 Bar Blues MIDI File:
Here is a 12 bar blues MIDI file in the key of “G”,Slow_Blues_in_G.mid, that you can download and play/practice to with a standard key of “C” diatonic played in 2nd position. There is over 5 minutes of MIDI music that you can jam to (7 times through the 12 bar blues).
Once you click on the MIDI file it should download and begin to play. If it hasn’t started playing automatically, you can double-click on this file and it should open your operating system’s default MIDI player (Windows Media Player on a PC or QuickTime on a Mac).
Since the first four bars of the song is an intro, the first full 12 bar blues pattern begins on the 5th bar. You can start playing at anytime or wait until the fifth bar to begin the full 12 bar blues pattern.
To accurately come in on bar 5, hit the play button on your MIDI player, and then count 1 2 3 4, 2 2 3 4, 3 2 3 4, 4 2 3 4 (four beats or foot taps per bar), and you’re in. Another way to come in at the beginning of the first full 12 bar blues pattern, is to listen for the drums to do a short 2 beat pickup (or fill) just before all the instruments begin playing at bar 5.
About harmonicas:
And what about harmonicas. Hohner marine band harps have been favourites for decades but the move to plastic parts such as you will find on Lee Oskar harps, have become new stars with new harp players.
I can agree that Lee Oskars are really worth trying,not expensive, but good quality and a wide range of keys (try the Em!)
There are two basic trills used by blues harp players, the hole 4 and 5 draw trill and the hole 3 and 4 draw trill. The idea here is pretty simple. You just draw in on the harp and move the harp back and forth across your mouth either with your hands or by shaking your head. Mastering these trills is not easy however. Again, you have to be careful to sound each note individually or the effect will not be the desired one. Once you have mastered the basic trills you can try things like bending the trilled notes while you trill. You can also experiment with finding other trills on the harp on your own.
The trills look like this:
4-5 draw trill
4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5
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D D D D D D D D D D D D
Click here to download an audio file of the “4-5 draw trill” above played on a “C” harmonica:
Check out the introductory lessons at harmonica club on this site there is plenty of info about all aspects of harmonica playing,including a range of techniques and a useful forum.
TONGUE BLOCKING
$4US per month-and for this you can download tabs/songs in the members area.
There is good introductory video at bluesharmonica
and at blues academy there are some free lessons to get you interested as well as sound files and tabbed songs/tunes and membership starts from $19.95
With the above links and the video starters below – just try some of the lessons first – as I have said, you really have to get the feeling of playing with the teacher – their teaching styles are very different, but you will learn something from all of them. Beware, there are some players with free lessons on youtube that will actually teach you bad habits -the ones below are the better ones to try first.
J.P.Allen has his own site with some good articles on playing the harp as well as listening to others:
For those wanting to learn to play the blues harp – you don’t even have to own a harp.
To start, just listen and learn.
There are many recordings of harp players from the last 100 years and these days compilations can be picked up for just a few dollars/pounds/euros/yen.
Listen to the different styles,see if you can differentiate between when a player is blowing or drawing a note. What about timing and rhythm? What about the relationship between singing and playing the breaks or fill ins? Some great advice on Adam Gussow’s video lessons – as many already know.
For now – just sample some more from the following players:
Jimmy Reed
Jimmy Reed (Mathis James Reed)
BORN: September 6, 1925, Dunleith, MS
DIED: August 29, 1976, Oakland, CA
There’s simply no sound in the blues as easily digestible, accessible, instantly recognizable and as easy to play and sing as the music of Jimmy Reed. His best-known songs — “Baby, What You Want Me to Do,” “Bright Lights, Big City,” “Honest I Do,” “You Don’t Have to Go,” “Going to New York,” “Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby” and “Big Boss Man” — have become such an integral part of the standard blues repertoire, it’s almost as if they have existed forever. Because his style was simple and easily imitated, his songs were accessible to just about everyone from high school garage bands having a go at it to Elvis Presley, Charlie Rich, Lou Rawls, Hank Williams, Jr., and the Rolling Stones, making him a most influential bluesman . His bottom string boogie rhythm guitar patterns (all furnished by boyhood friend and longtime musical partner Eddie Taylor), simple two-string turnarounds, countryish harmonica solos (all played in a neck rack attachment hung around his neck) and mush mouthed vocals were probably the first exposure most White folks had of the blues. And his music — lazy, loping and insistent and constantly built and reconstructed single after single on the same sturdy frame — was a formula that proved to be enormously successful and influential, both with middle-aged Blacks and young White audiences for a good dozen years. Jimmy Reed records hit the charts with amazing frequency and crossed over onto the pop charts on many occasions, a rare feat for an ‘unreconstructed’ bluesman.This is all the more amazing simply because Reed’s music was nothing special on the surface; he possessed absolutely no technical expertise on either of his chosen instruments and his vocals certainly lacked the fierce declamatory intensity of a Howlin’ Wolf or a Muddy Waters. But it was exactly that lack of in-your-face musical confrontation that made Jimmy Reed a welcome addition to everybody’s record collection back in the ’50s and ’60s. And for those aspiring musicians who wanted to give the blues a try, either vocally or instrumentally (no matter what skin color you were born with), perhaps Billy Vera said it best in his liner notes to a Reed greatest hits anthology: “Yes, anybody with a range of more than six notes could sing Jimmy’s tunes and play them the first day Mom and Dad brought home that first guitar from Sears & Roebuck.”
Biography courtesy of All Music Guide to the Blues – Paperback – 2nd edition (1999) Miller Freeman Books; ISBN: 0879305487 – The online version of the All Music Guides may be found atwww.allmusic.com
“Although Marion Jacobs, Aleck Miller, and Walter Horton are widely regarded as the chief architects of post-war blues harmonica, any list would be remiss without George “Harmonica” Smith. Like his contemporaries, Smith was a master of the instrument and left behind a legacy that still echoes in the playing of several harmonica players of the west-coast school; a school built in large part by the man himself.”
George Smith was born on April 22, 1924 in Helena, AR, but was raised in Cairo, IL. At age four, Smith was already taking harp lessons from his mother, a guitar player and a somewhat stern taskmaster — it was a case of get-it-right-or-else. In his early teens, he started hoboing around the towns in the South and later joined Early Woods, a country band with Early Woods on fiddle and Curtis Gould on spoons. He also worked with a gospel group in Mississippi called the Jackson Jubilee Singers.
Smith moved to Rock Island, IL, in 1941 and played with a group that included Francis Clay on drums. There is evidence that he was one of the first to amplify his harp. While working at the Dixie Theater, he took an old 16mm cinema projector, extracted the amplifier/speaker, and began using this on the streets.
His influences include Larry Adler and later Little Walter. Smith would sometimes bill himself as Little Walter Jr. or Big Walter. He played in a number of bands including one with a young guitarist named Otis Rush and later went on the road with the Muddy Waters Band, after replacing Henry Strong.
In 1954, he was offered a permanent job at the Orchid Room in Kansas City where, early in 1955, Joe Bihari of Modern Records (on a scouting trip), heard Smith, and signed him to Modern. These recording sessions were released under the name Little George Smith, and included “Telephone Blues” and “Blues in the Dark.” The records were a success.
James Moore was born on January 11, 1924 in Lobdell, LA.
“Probably the leading practitioner of “swamp blues”. His songs are typically slow, loping blues with a very soulful feeling. His harp playing was simple but very effective. He wrote most of his own material, and his songs have been covered frequently by everyone from the Rolling Stones (I’m a King Bee) to the Fabulous Thunderbirds (Rainin’ in my heart and others).”
In the large stable of blues talent that Crowley, LA producer Jay Miller recorded for the Nashville-based Excello label, no one enjoyed more mainstream success than Slim Harpo. Just a shade behind Lightnin’ Slim in local popularity, Harpo played both guitar and neck-rack harmonica in a more down-home approximation of Jimmy Reed, with a few discernible, and distinctive, differences. Slim’smusic was certainly more laid-back than Reed’s, if such a notion was possible. But the rhythm was insistent and overall, Harpo was more adaptable than Reed or most other bluesmen. His material not only made the national charts, but also proved to be quite adaptable for white artists on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, Kinks, Dave Edmunds with Love Sculpture, Van Morrison with Them, Sun rockabilly Warren Smith,Hank Williams, Jr. and the Fabulous Thunderbirds.
Several of his best tunes were co-written with his wife Lovelle and show a fine hand for song construction, appearing to have arrived at the studio pretty well-formed. His harmonica playing was driving and straightforward, full of surprising melodicism, while his vocals were perhaps best described by writer Peter Guralnick as “if a black country and western singer or a white rhythm and blues singer were attempting to impersonate a member of the opposite genre.” And here perhaps was Harpo’s true genius, and what has allowed his music to have a wider currency. By the time his first single became a Southern jukebox favorite, his songs being were adapted and played by White musicians left and right. Nothing resembling the emotional investment of a Howlin’ Wolf or a Muddy Waters was required; it all came natural and easy, and its influence has stood the test of time.
DIED: January 31, 1970, Baton Rouge, LA
Billy Boy Arnold
Billy Boy Arnold (born William Arnold, September 16, 1935, Chicago, Illinois) is a leading Americanbluesharmonica player, singer and songwriter.
Born in Chicago, he began playing harmonica as a child, and in 1948 received informal lessons from his near neighbour John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, shortly before his death. Arnold made his recording debut in 1952 with “Hello Stranger” on the small Cool label, the record company giving him the nickname “Billy Boy”.
Arnold signed a solo recording contract with Vee-Jay Records, recording the originals of “I Wish You Would” and “I Ain’t Got You“.[2] Both were later covered by The Yardbirds,] and “I Wish You Would” was also recorded by David Bowie on his 1973 album, Pin Ups. “I Wish You Would” was also covered by Hot Tuna, on the 1976 album Hoppkorv.
Billy Branch has followed a very non-traditional path to the blues. Unlike many blues artists, he isn’t from the South. Billy was born in Chicago in 1951 and was raised in Los Angeles. He first picked up a harmonica at the age of ten and immediately began to play simple tunes.
Billy returned to Chicago in the summer of ’69 and graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in political science. It was during these years that he was introduced to the Blues. He soon became immersed in the local blues scene. He spent a great deal of time at legendary blues clubs such as: Queen Bee and Theresa’s Lounge; he learned from such stalwart harmonica players like: Big Walter Horton, James Cotton, Junior Wells and Carey Bell.
His big break came in 1975 during a harmonica battle when he beat Chicago legend, Little Mac Simmons at the Green Bunny Club. He made his first recording for Barrelhouse Records and began to work as an apprentice harp player in Willie Dixon’s Chicago Blues All-Stars. He eventually replaced Carey Bell and worked with Willie Dixon for six years.
During this time, Billy formed the Sons Of Blues (S.O.B.s) featuring musicians who where the sons of famous blues artists. The original S.O.B.s consisted of Billy, Lurrie Bell, Freddie Dixon and Garland Whiteside. They toured Europe and played at the Berlin Jazz Festival. Shortly afterward, they recorded for Alligator Record’s Grammy-nominated Living Chicago Blues sessions, and Billy has been a regular studio player appearing on over fifty albums.
Billy has recorded and/or performed with an incredible list of Blues legends including: Muddy Waters, Big Walter Horton, Son Seals, Lonnie Brooks, Koko Taylor, Johnny Winter, and Albert King. In 1990, he appeared with three harp legends:Carey Bell, Junior Wells, and James Cotton on W.C Handy Award winner, Harp Attack! His most recent recordings for the Polygram label are entitled The Blues Keep Following Me Around and Satisfy Me.
Billy is also passing on the blues tradition to a new generation through his Blues In The Schools program. He is a dedicated blues educator and has taught in the Chicago school system for over twenty years as part of the Urban Gateways Project. In 1996, some of his finest students opened the Main Stage at the Chicago Blues Festival which was broadcast throughout the U.S. on National Public Radio.
Snooky Prior
Snooky Pryor (September 15, 1921 – October 18, 2006) was an Americanblues harp player. He claimed to have pioneered the now-common method of playing amplified harmonica by cupping a small microphone in his hands along with the harmonica, although on his earliest records in the late 1940s he did not utilize this method.
While serving in the U.S. Army he would blow bugle calls through the powerful PA system, which led him to experiment with playing the harmonica that way. Upon discharge from the Army in 1945, he obtained his own amplifier, and began playing harmonica at the outdoor Maxwell Street market, becoming a regular in the Chicago blues scene.
Pryor recorded some of the first postwar Chicago blues records in 1948, including “Telephone Blues” and “Snooky & Moody’s Boogie” with guitaristMoody Jones, and “Stockyard Blues” and “Keep What You Got” with singer/guitarist Floyd Jones. “Snooky & Moody’s Boogie” is of considerable historical significance: Pryor claimed that harmonica ace Little Walter directly copied the signature riff of Prior’s song into the opening eight bars of his own blues harmonica instrumental, “Juke,” an R&B hit in 1952. In 1967, Prior moved south to Ullin, Illinois. He quit music for carpentry in the late 1960s but was persuaded to make a comeback. After he dropped out of sight, Pryor was later re-discovered and resumed periodic recording until his death in nearby Cape Girardeau, Missouri at the age of 85.
“I needed a nickname… all the good ones were taken! You know ‘Muddy Waters’,’Blind Lemon’,’Sonny Boy’…until one night friend and I were leaving a concert – a Doc Watson concert – when somebody threw out of the window a box full of old 78s: I picked one up and it said “Sugar Blues” by Sidney Bechet…That’s it! I thought it was perfect…so here I am…
Born James Whiting – he was raised in Harlem, New York, where his mother was a singer and dancer at the fabled Apollo Theatre. He spent his childhood among the musicians and show people who knew his mother, including the great Billie Holiday, and decided that he wanted to be a performer. Blue received his first harmonica from his aunt, and proceeded to hone his chops by wailing along with Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder songs on the radio, he was soon to be influenced by the jazz greats such as Dexter Gordon and Lester Young.
Sugar Blue has used this background to his advantage, though, creating an ultra-modern blues style and sound that is instantly recognizable as his own.
Blue began his career as a street musician and made his first recordings in 1975 with legendary blues figures Brownie McGhee and Roosevelt Sykes . The following year, he contributed to recordings by Victoria Spivey and Johnny Shines before pulling up stakes and moving to Paris on the advice of pioneer blues pianist Memphis Slim .
While in France, Blue hooked up with members of the Rolling Stones , who instantly fell in love with his sound. The Stones invited Blue to join them in the studio. Besides his work on the Some Girls album, he can be heard on Emotional Rescue and Tattoo You . He appeared live with the group on numerous occasions and was offered the session spot indefinitely, but he turned it down, opting instead to return to the States and put his own band together rather than became a full-time sideman. Before returning to the U.S. in 1982, Blue cut a pair of albums, Crossroads and From Paris to Chicago.
Blue’s decision to return home, despite his growing renown as a session player, was spurred by his desire to work with and learn from the masters of blues harmonica. Thus he came to Chicago and proceeded to sit in with the likes of Big Walter Horton , Carey Bell , James Cotton and Junior Wells . Blue went on to spend two years touring with his friend and mentor Willie Dixon as part of the Chicago Blues All Stars before putting his own band together in 1983. With his own band, Blue’s star continued to rise. He received the 1985 Grammy Award for his work on the Atlantic album, Blues Explosion, recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
Jerry Portnoy
Jerry Portnoy (born 1943 in Chicago, Illinois) is a harmonica musician who has toured with Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton. Jerry grew up in Chicago’s famous Maxwell Street neighborhood where his family owned a store. His exposure to the blues began there with Little Walter and other Chicago Blues masters.
He made a special guest appearance on Bo Diddley‘s 1996 album A Man Amongst Men, playing harmonica on the track “I Can’t Stand It”.
Rod Piazza (born December 18, 1947 in Riverside, California) is an American blues harmonica player and singer. He’s been playing with his band The Mighty Flyers since 1980 which he formed with his pianist wife Honey Piazza. Their boogie sound combines the styles of jump blues, West Coast blues and Chicago blues.
In the mid 1960s, Piazza formed his first band The House of DBS, which later changed its name to the Dirty Blues Band. The band signed with ABC-Bluesway Records and released two albums in 1967 and 1968 respectively.[2] The band broke up in 1968, and Piazza formed Bacon Fat that year. Piazza’s idol and mentor, George “Harmonica” Smith joined the band and they had a “dual harp” sound. Bacon Fat released two albums the following two years. Piazza left and worked in other bands before going solo in 1974.
“Born Aaron Willis in Greensboro, Alabama, “Sonny” (His mom’s nickname for him) had been playing harmonica since he was a child. Seeing Sonny Boy Williamson preform in a Detroit bar in 1953, Willis saw his destiny as a musician.”
When Little Sonny wasn’t working local haunts with John Lee Hooker, Eddie Burns, Eddie Kirkland, Baby Boy Warren, or Washboard Willie (who gave him his first paying gig), he was snapping photos of the patrons for half a buck a snap.
Although not the greatest harp player, and technically there are many better British harp players, Mayall’s ability to bring on young musicians, particularly guitarists (no need to mention them) and gain a wide audience for the blues meant that his playing inspired many a young hopeful by introducing them to the blues.
Listen and enjoy Parchman Farm:
Although John Mayall is often called the ‘father of British blues’ but the honour probably should go to a lesser known musician Cyril Davis who along with Alexis Korner really ‘fathered’ the blues in Britain in the early 50’s.
Being an amateur blues harp player it is great to have the opportunity to do a little research and share some thoughts about the greats.
A good starting point is to get a couple of Muddy Waters CDs and trawl through the different harp players that Muddy recruited and provided the space for them to grow, such as Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, Junior Wells , Walter Horton, James Cotton, Charlie Musselwhite, Paul Oscher, Carey Bell and Jerry Portnoy just to mention a few. They don’t all get into the top ten, but of course this is all subjective.
Just to make the link check out this great vid with Muddy and Sonny Boy Williamson:
Sonny Boy Williamson II (Aleck Rice Miller) was, in many ways, the ultimate blues legend. By the time of his death in 1965, he had been around long enough to have played with Robert Johnson at the start of his career and Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Robbie Robertson at the end of it.
What is known is that by the mid ’30s, he was traveling the Delta working under the alias of Little Boy Blue. With blues legends like Robert Johnson, Robert Nighthawk, Robert Jr. Lockwood, and Elmore James as interchangeable playing partners, he worked the juke joints, fish fries, country suppers, and ball games of the era.
Check out Sonnyboy.com for more on his life and recordings
Known as the “Godfather of the Blues,” Junior Wells was able to grab an audience by the ears and take them on a musical roller-coaster ride with his own unique spin on the classic Chicago blues sound. Often performing alongside guitarist Buddy Guy, Wells enjoyed a lengthy career that spanned 50 years, his staggering harp solos and vocal interplay defining the Chicago blues harp sound at a time when the music was still shedding its country roots, taking the music to new heights of critical acclaim and commercial acceptance.
“If the harmonica is to blues what the saxaphone is to jazz, then Junior Wells is a post-bebop legend and one of the better players of the blues. He was along with James Cotton the last of a generation that grew out of Chicago in the late 40’s and early 50’s, when the blues scene featured such notables as John Lee Williamson and Rice Miller, Little Walter and Walter Horton.”
More than any other harp-slinger, “Little Walter” Jacobs owned the Chicago blues scene from the moment of his arrival in 1946, and through the end of the 1950s. A dynamic soloist, Little Walter created new tones and bright new textures with the instrument.
An underrated vocalist with a gritty, soulful voice, Walter was also a skilled songwriter and natural-born bandleader. The dominant blues harp player of the post-war years, Walter’s influence can still be heard in the music of harpists like Charlie Musselwhite, Rod Piazza, and Kim Wilson.
Some other comments on Little Walter:
Walter electrified the harmonica, transforming it from a back-up instrument to a solo voice, making it moan low or soar high into the stratosphere, like the greatest of instruments, making sounds the harmonica never made before.(Mac Walton)
“Any discussion of Muddy Waters and his harp players must start by focusing on the fiery young harp pioneer Little Walter Jacobs. After brief periods with Little Johnny Jones (better known as a pianist) and Jimmy Rogers (better known as a guitarist) on harp, Walter held the harp seat in Muddy’s regular performing band from around 1947 until 1952, and thereafter continued to appear on Muddy’s recording sessions whenever he was able until shortly before his death in 1968. Although in reality Walter and Muddy were not even part of the same generation of bluesmen – Muddy was born and raised in the Mississippi Delta region fifteen years before Walter, who was from Louisiana Creole country – they shared a musical telepathy that has seldom been equaled. Walter’s darting and swooping harmonica lines seamlessly intertwined with Muddy’s music, adding elements of melody, harmony, and notably, a sense of swing that had previously not been heard in the raw delta funk of Muddy and his peers. Some of the greatest moments in Chicago Blues occurred when these two titans joined forces, so it’s no wonder that both Muddy and Chess Records felt that the harmonica should continue to be a part of “the Muddy sound”
“James Cotton is one of the best-known blues harmonica musicians in the world, and certainly one of the best of the modern Chicago blues stylists, recognized for the power and precision of his playing.”
Musselwhite masters the old Chicago tradition and at the same time experiments like no one else does. Understanding what position he plays on certain tunes is an interesting challenge!
Blues harpist Charlie Musselwhite rose out of the Chicago blues scene of the 1960s and, along with Paul Butterfield, helped bring blues music to a young white audience. His move to Northern California late in the decade brought the blues to the children of flower-power and, in the decades since, the artist has been an effective ambassador for blues music. More than anything, however, Musselwhite has helped expand the stylistic barriers of the blues, bringing elements of jazz, Tex-Mex, and even world music into his traditional mix of Delta and Chicago blues styles.
From one of his best and early albums ‘stand back’ – you must listen to Christo Redemptor….
Paul Butterfield changed from playing the flute to playing blues harp and teamed up with Elvin Bishop and toured clubs where they met and played with the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Junior Wells.
“In the 1960’s in the blues clubs on Chicago’s south side, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was setting off the first depth charges of what would come to be a worldwide blues explosion.
Butterfield played and endorsed (as noted in the liner notes for his first album) Hohnerharmonicas, in particular the diatonic ten-hole ‘Marine Band’ model. He played using an unconventional technique, holding the harmonica upside-down (with the low notes to the right hand side). His primary playing style was in the second position, also known as cross-harp, but he also was adept in the third position, notably on the track ‘East-West’ from the album of the same name, and the track ‘Highway 28’ from the “Better Days” album.
Seldom venturing higher than the sixth hole on the harmonica, Butterfield nevertheless managed to create a variety of original sounds and melodic runs. His live tonal stylings were accomplished using a Shure 545 Unidyne III hand-held microphone connected to one or more Fender amplifiers, often then additionally boosted through the venue’s public address (PA) system. This allowed Butterfield to achieve the same extremes of volume as the various notable sidemen in his band.
Butterfield also at times played a mixture of acoustic and amplified style by playing into a microphone mounted on a stand, allowing him to perform on the harmonica using both hands to get a muted, Wah-wah effect, as well as various vibratos. This was usually done on a quieter, slower tune.
Probably sitting more with the generation before the ‘electric’ harp players based in Chicago, Sonny Terry represents the last of the acoustic harp players.
“Whooping and wailing like a man possessed, Sonny Terry drew listeners into a sultry musical world populated with hot headed women and worried men. Though he often employed an ethereal falsetto voice, he was also capable of unleashing hair-raising hollers. His harmonica style was similarly compelling.
The North Carolina-born legend would vocalize through his harp, thus intensifying the plaintive moan of the instrument.”
“The Wolf began playing “folk blues” acoustic music when he got his first guitar in 1928. Influences include Charlie Patton and Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller). Although he began in an acoustic style, he is best known for his loud and boisterous electric blues.”
“Walter Horton was considered by peers and fans alike to be a genius of the blues harmonica. He created a unique, fluid style that fused blues feeling with an uplifting jazzlike tone. The beauty that he created through his music was in striking contrast to the troubled life he lived.”
As for harmonicas, he used Hohner’s Marine Band. He was just as comfortable playing first position (A harp in the key of A) as with the more standard cross harp (D harp in the key of A). He did not do much with chromatic harmonicas. Although Big Walter could play in the style of other harp players (and was often asked to do so), he has no credible imitators. He is one of a kind.
“One of Chicago’s defining harpists (though often overshadowed by legends like Junior Wells)… Born in Macon, Mississippi on November 14, 1936, Bell moved to Chicago in 1956 with his godfather, respected blues and country and western pianist Lovie Lee.
After having taught himself to play harmonica at eight years old, he started taking lessons from Little Walter, and met Honeyboy Edwards. He remains an eloquent harpist with a commanding voice.”
And where would you put Billy Boy Arnold and George Smith ? Just add some more of your favourites and decide where they go in the top ten!
Adam Gussow, a great supporter of all those trying to learn and to improve their blues harmonica paying, suggests some criteria by which you should judge those who belong in the ‘top 10’:
ORIGINALITY. I call this the three-second test. If you turned on the radio and heard this player, could you tell within three seconds that it was them–assuming you knew their music to begin with? Lurking within what harp players call “tone” is the absolutely individuated voice, if you’re lucky enough to develop one.
INFLUENCE. Are the players in question central to the tradition of blues harmonica as it has emerged over the past 100+ years? Are they foundational in some way? Do they help modernize, consolidate, or conserve the tradition? Have they spawned imitators, including very good players who never escape their orbit? If you leave them off the list, has an injustice plainly been done? (John Lee Williamson changed the way everybody who came after him played harp. Billy Branch and Sugar Blue are, in very different ways, both the inheritors and modernizers of the Chicago blues harmonica tradition.)
TECHNICAL MASTERY. Does this player make music at a speed or with a complexity that sets him or her above the rest? (Little Walter in “Back Track” and “Roller Coaster,” James Cotton in “Creeper Creeps Again,” and Paul Butterfield in “Goin’ to Main Street” set a standard here, and Sonny Terry wins admission on the basis of pretty much any thing he’s every recorded. Sugar Blue raises the bar yet again. And please don’t forget DeFord Bailey.) Or, alternately, does this player have an extraordinary ability to hit the deep blues pitches, especially the so-called “blue third” that I discuss in many of my videos? (Junior Wells exhibits this sort of mastery.)
SOULFULNESS. In some ways, this criterion should lead things off. We’re talking about blues harmonica, after all, not basket weaving. We’re talking about an extraordinarily expressive instrument. The thing it seeks to express is a range of passions and moods, many of them very powerful and a few of them downright ugy. Does this player attack his or her instrument with ferocity that makes you shiver, or jump? Or with a late-night hoodoo-spookiness that makes you feel your own loneliness? Or with some magical combination of all those things that make you cry? (Howlin’ Wolf makes the Top-10 list for obvious reasons; so does Rice Miller, a.k.a. “Sonny Boy Williamson II.” Rev. Dan Smith, who may be less familiar to you, is the definition of soulful)
RECORDED EVIDENCE. In order to earn a spot on one of the top 10 lists , a player (or the partisans of a player) must be able to convince with the help of recorded evidence. Buddy Bolden was the greatest trumpet player ever to come out of New Orleans, many say, but he never made a recording. Obviously the best and most influential players can’t be fully summarized by 10 minutes’ worth of vinylized or digitized performances, and some players–John Lee Williamson in particular–don’t benefit from this exercise. Still, it has its virtues as a teaching tool and a way of guiding the conversation.
And if you want to learn blues harp playing then a good place to start is with Adam’s lessons on you tube and on his web site.
Try these lessons just to get you in the mood
and blues scale playing….
So listen to all blues harp players from the last 100 years (plenty of remasters around), as well as practising whenever you have a quiet moment -easy instrument to carry around so no excuses. And remember what Adam says -listen to a wide variety of music to understand rhythm and improvisation.
Just one year ago -still controversy surrounds his life and death…
Michael Jackson was undoubtedly a talented and creative artist and one, through the media channels and marketing of the time, was able to communicate to a huge global audience.
As a black artist he was also subjected to the racial bias and prejudice of the time and in his early years had to fight his corner (such as the attitudes of MTV). However his journey was made easier by being able to walk the paths that had already been cut by black musicians during the previous 50 years. This is one more debt that he owed.
We need to put his story into historical perspective and understand how other black musicians had put their careers and even their lives in jeopardy while fighting for basic rights as musicians and as human beings.
Music and other creative arts have always been used for people to express themselves and with African-Americans in particular the use of these media have not only been used to express their plight and discrimination but also as a way of describing their own personal identity.
Starting with American enslavement, captured African slaves and their American descendants created work songs, spirituals, gospels, ragtime, jazz, blues, rhythm & blues, and contemporary rap and hip-hop .
Even the different forms of jazz (Dixieland, Swing, Bebop, Avant-garde, and Free Jazz) represent Black people’s struggle to determine a narrative about their existence in the world. Black music can be seen as a way of looking at the world, in the face of white supremacy and anti-Black racism. Jazz has always been creative, innovative, improvisational and often political.
Paul Robeson
Let’ start with Paul Robeson, a true giant in many fields and who ‘ paid with his career for his principles’. Paul Robeson was a truly creative man. He was a singer, an actor, a national football player and a lawyer. Robeson achieved worldwide fame and recognition during his life for his artistic accomplishments, and his outspoken, radical beliefs which largely clashed with the colonial powers of Western Europe and the Jim Crow climate of pre-civil rights America. Robeson was a forerunner in the Civil Rights movement, a leader in the labor movement and a crusader in the anti-lynching movement. Because of his anti-colonialist sentiments, Robeson was investigated by both the CIA and the FBI.
“All that Paul Robeson stood for had enormous impact on American and global history. The combination of his art, intellect and humanity was rarely paralleled. The cruelties visited upon him by the power of the State stands as a great blemish on the pages of American history. But despite the attempt to wipe him from memory, he has endured and continues to influence. It speaks to our most strategic interests that African American children be instructed about the truth of his existence. Indeed it would be in the best interest of all Americans to know what this great patriot offered this nation.” –Harry Belafonte, April 9, 2008, on the occasion of Paul Robeson’s ‘110th’ Birthday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan Gough; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was the daughter of Clarence Holiday. Her father abandoned the family early and refused to acknowledge his daughter until after her first success.Billie Holiday incorporated the song “Strange Fruit” into her set list in 1939. Adapted from a poem, by a New York high school teacher, “Strange Fruit” was inspired by the 1930 lynching of two black men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. It juxtaposes the horrid image of bodies hanging from trees with an description of the idyllic South. Holiday delivered the song night after night, often overwhelmed by emotion, causing it to become an anthem of early civil rights movements.
Lyrics to “Strange Fruit:”
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
On November 10, 1956, she performed before a packed audience at Carnegie Hall, a major accomplishment for any artist, especially a black artist of the segregated period of American history. She died in 1959 , with only$0.70 in the bank after she had been progressively swindled out of her earnings.
Many blues musicians suffered from racist attitudes and often sung about them as way of direct expression of their feelings as well as to raise awareness. This is from one of J.B.Lenoir’s songs:
I never will go back to Alabama, that is not the place for me (2x)
You know they killed my sister and my brother,
And the whole world let them peoples go down there free.
From “Alabama Blues”
JBL
J. B. Lenoir (March 5, 1929 – April 29, 1967) was an African-American blues guitarist and singer/songwriter ,popular in the 1950s and 1960s.
Mayfield is remembered for his introduction of social consciousness into R&B and for pioneering the funk style. Many of his recordings with the Impressions became anthems of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, and his most famous album, Super Fly, is regarded as an all-time great that influenced many and truly invented a new style of modern black music (#69 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums).
James Brown is known as “The Godfather of Soul”, other times as “the hardest working man in show business”. He was a social activist as well as an all round artist.
Many in the black community felt that Brown was speaking out to them more than some major leaders in the country, a sentiment that was strengthened with the release of his groundbreaking landmark single, “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud“.
Brown continued performing benefit concerts for various civil rights organizations including Jesse Jackson‘s PUSH and The Black Panther Party‘s Breakfast program throughout the early-1970s. Brown also continued to release socially-conscious singles such as “I Don’t Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door, I’ll Get It Myself)” (1969), “Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved” (1971), “Talking Loud and Saying Nothing” (1972), “King Heroin” (1974), “Funky President (People It’s Bad)” (1974) and “Reality” (1975).
Like Michael Jackson he had several personal problems that certainly did not make him a saint, but he did leave a legacy that deserves to be recognized.
Charles Mingus was known for being angry and outspoken on the bandstand. That’s why, in response to the 1957 Little Rock Nine incident in Arkansas, when Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to prevent black students from entering a newly desegregated public high school.
Mingus displayed his outrage at the event by composing a piece entitled “Fables of Faubus.” The lyrics, which he penned as well, offer some of the most blatant and harshest critiques of Jim Crow attitudes in all of jazz activism.
Oh, Lord, don’t let ’em shoot us!
Oh, Lord, don’t let ’em stab us!
Oh, Lord, don’t let ’em tar and feather us!
Oh, Lord, no more swastikas!
Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!
Name me someone who’s ridiculous, Danny.
Governor Faubus!
Why is he so sick and ridiculous?
He won’t permit integrated schools.
Then he’s a fool! Oh Boo!
Boo! Nazi Fascist supremacists
Boo! Ku Klux Klan (with your Jim Crow plan)
Two, four, six, eight:
They brainwash and teach you hate.
“Fables of Faubus” originally appeared on Mingus Ah Um (1959), although Columbia Records found the lyrics so incendiary that they refused to allow them to be recorded. In 1960, however, Mingus recorded the song for Candid Records, lyrics and all, on Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus
Odetta Holmes, (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as “The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement”.
Roach also led his own groups, and made numerous musical statements relating to the civil rights movement of African-Americans. His famous composition”Freedom Now Suite” used a photo of black students at a whites-only lunch counter in the South on the album cover.
In African countries there have been many black musicians who have had to fight racism , prejudice and discrimination.
Since 1954, Masekela played music that closely reflected his life experience. The agony, conflict, and exploitation South Africa faced during 1950’s and 1960’s, inspired and influenced him to make music. He was an artist who in his music vividly portrayed the struggles and sorrows, as well as the joys and passions of his country. His music protested about apartheid, slavery, government; the hardships individuals were living. Masekela reached a large population of people that also felt oppressed due to the country’s situation.
Miriam Makeba (4 March 1932 – 10 November 2008) was a South African singer and civil rights activist. The Grammy Award winning artist is often referred to as Mama Afrika.
Fela Anikulapo Kuti (15 October, 1938 – 2 August, 1997), or simply Fela, was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of afrobeat music, human rightsactivist. HMV ranked him #46 on a list of the top-100 most influential musicians of the 20th century.
Not to forget the many other artists who had to make their way against the odds –
Duke Ellington 1943
In a 1944 New Yorker profile of Duke Ellington, Richard Boyer told of a white St. Louis policeman enthusiastically greeting Duke Ellington after a performance, saying: “If you’d been a white man, Duke, you’d have been a great musician.”
Louis Armstrong
“Once the whites who played it and the listeners who loved it began to balk at the limitations imposed by segregation, jazz became a futuristic social force in which one was finally judged purely on the basis of one’s individual ability. Jazz predicted the civil rights movement more than any other art in America.” (Stanley Crouch)
For the last 20 or so years early years education specialists and parents have been interested in the link between music and brain development (e.g. Baby Mozart/Baby Einstein). From Baby Mozart -“Your child’s brain will grow and develop more in the first three years of life than at any other time, and you can help to nurture that growth and development in many important ways”.
baby brain
As has been said, it may not work but it cannot do any harm, listening to Mozart while watching moving images, while gurgling!
Now that new technology has enabled more information to be collected while children and adults are performing certain operations, such as reading, listening, watching, then we are really on the threshold of a breakthrough, not only in terms of learning about learning but on understanding creativity itself.
mri scans
Take a look at some research undertaken by some medical specialists one of whom plays jazz:
“Take 5″
Jazz and science would seem to make strange bedfellows, but both form the basis of Charles Limb’s career. On the one hand, he’s a faculty member at the Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, and a life-long jazz musician. On the other, he’s also a doctor and assistant professor in Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.
“The thing I love about jazz is that in many ways it’s so unscientific,” says Limb. “You know, when you listen to jazz, what you realize is that these musicians, they really live by breaking the rules, by sort of rejecting excessive control over what they’re going to do. And I think for a scientist who sort of thrives on controlling variables and really having a clear sense of order in all things, the freedom that really characterizes jazz, it’s an unusual mix.”
That mix came front and center when Limb decided he wanted to use science to study jazz. In particular, he was interested in the neurological basis of improvisation.
“The mental state, the creative state that you’re in when you’re improvising is entirely different than when you’re playing something that you’ve learned by memory,” he says. “As a jazz musician for most of my life, I’ve always wondered what takes place inside my head when I’m actually improvising something.”
Miles Davis
So Limb teamed up with Dr. Allen Braun, his colleague (at the time) at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). They developed a special keyboard that, with the help of a series of mirrors, could be played by someone inside a functional MRI machine.
imb and Braun wanted to see if different areas of the brain are active when musicians take different approaches to playing.
Jazz pianist
So they recruited six professional piano players who were jazz artists, and had them play inside the MRI under two different schemes:
Low Complexity: The musicians played a simple c-major scale, “something that they’d played thousands of times,” says Limb. Then they improvised to a c-major scale.
High Complexity: The musicians performed a short piece of previously memorized music that Limb composed for the study (called Magnetism, get it?), as a recording of a jazz quartet played in the background. Then they improvised along with the recording.
When Limb and Braun looked at the brain scans, the same thing stood out for both the high and low complexity schemes.
“Improvisation was associated with this very, very similar brain response, independent of level of complexity,” says Limb. “So the really key part of our paper is that improvisation, the unique state in which you’re spontaneously generating new ideas and playing them musically, has a kind of characteristic, signature neural state which we’re looking at when we do these functional scans. We think we really honed in on what is going on in the brain during improvisation.”
eddie harris saxophone
And what’s going on is… nothing (sort of).
Limb says the most interesting thing was that one area went largely silent when the musicians switched to improvisation. That area, a part of the prefrontal cortex, is known for helping us monitor our behavior and performance.
“This is a broad expanse of brain that basically shut down during improvisation.,” says Limb, adding, “One of the things it’s closely involved in is in self-monitoring, and sort of conscious evaluation of what you’re doing. So for example, to judge the appropriateness or correctness of your behavior, this area would be active.”
And Limb says for jazz improv, that makes sense.
thelonius monk
“What you want is to just generate ideas, and you don’t really want to worry too much about whether they sounded right,” he says. “You don’t want to be too inhibited by that. And I think that these musicians are so proficient that they’re able to enter this creative state where they’re essentially uninhibited rather easily.”
For any amateur musicians out there hoping this might lead to some kind of jazz pill, that’s not in the cards. But Limb says it’s a unique look into the physiology of creativity, and he thinks the findings probably apply to other spontaneous artistic creations, such as painting or poetry.
Monk-Coltrane from "monkzone"
He’s also been asked whether using an MRI to study an art form takes away from the mystique with which it’s typically regarded.
“Although there’s a tendency to want to very much romanticize artistic creation, kind of put it on the level of magic or something mystical– while there may be mystical and magical aspects to it, they are products of brain function,” Limb says. “And without making that sound mundane, I think that what we’ve done is try to address the fact that, well, it might be ordinary processes within the brain that are giving rise to these extraordinary musical achievements. To me it makes it in a way more appealing than to just leave it in the kind of abstract realm of something mystical.”
Limb adds, “And on the other hand, I think music is so mathematical that when we start to put all these things together– you know the logic and structure of music, the freedom of jazz– and combine that with the fact that they’re all really products of the human brain, there is sort of a logical correlation that, well, if it’s a product of the brain, we should use tools to study the brain to assess something, even something that’s as seemingly random as jazz.”
The study, published in the February 27 issue of PLoS ONE, was funded by the NIDCD.
miles davis
When jazz musicians improvise, they often play with eyes closed in a distinctive, personal style that transcends traditional rules of melody and rhythm,” says Charles J. Limb, M.D.,
On a serious note…. ….many children do not have the luxury of listening to Mozart and are lucky to survive due to lack of water, poor nutrition and stimulation, and sometimes abuse.
Concerning all children, in the late 1990s and early years of the 21st century, there was substantial new research published to show that: “The years 0-3 are critical in the formation of intelligence, personality and social behavior, and the effects of neglect are cumulative;” and “Brain development before the age of one year is more rapid and intense than previously realized – the brain nearly triples in size within the first year of life, and the brain is much more vulnerable to environmental influences than suspected, including nutrition, but also the quality of interaction, care and stimulation .”Importance of Early Intervention
In the 1970s disability specialists began to recognize that early intervention could arrest and diminish the effects of disability in children, whether involving intense stimulation with developmentally delayed children, targeted exercises and therapy with physically disabled children, orientation and mobility work with blind children or early introduction of sign language with deaf children.
(RI/UNICEF One in Ten on Early Intervention, Volume 20/1999).