I turned to the recordings of Gil Scott-Heron after writing that he should have and did known better than to abuse drugs as he did, leading to his decline and demise. They make me ever more impressed with his scope and intensity, in both long ago and recent work. His 2010 recording “Me and the Devil” fully justifies the black and white zombie pulp of the video by Coodie and Chike that accompanies it. It’s a horror song of a burned out, psychotic soul, a new link in an American tradition running from Edgar Allan Poe through Robert Johnson and Howlin’ Wolf to Jim Thompson, George Romero and Martin Scorsese. [Read more…]
Robert Johnson on speed
Musicologists are convinced blues icon Robert Johnson’s recordings as released are 20% faster than he performed in two solo sessions in 1936 and 1937. It’s unclear whether they were sped up intentionally (to push their excitement, which seems hardly necessary) or accidentally at some point in the chain between microphone and pressing plant. What is obvious is that since only 11 of the 41 existent Johnson takes were issued by Vocalion on 78 rpm discs during his lifetime (and one posthumously), his complete documented repertoire of 29 tunes issued on two Columbia Records lps, King of the Delta Blues Singers (1961) and King of the Delta Blues Singers, Vol. 2 (1970) and finally 41 tracks, alternates and all, released on a best-selling 2-CD boxed set, Robert Johnson The Complete Recordings by Columbia in 1990, we have probably never heard what the blues’ most influential singer-guitarist actually sounded like.
Blues lyrics: write to win
For tickets to Jazz at Lincoln Center this weekend or a dvd of Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson performing live, try writing a blues. How hard can it be?
“Minutes seem like hours, hours seem like days,
Seems my baby would stop her lowdown ways” — Muddy Waters, “Country Blues”
 “Woke up this morning, looked ’round for my shoes
You know I had those mean old walkin’ blues” — Robert Johnson, “Walkin’ Blues”Â
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“Whoa, oh tell me baby
Where did ya stay last night? An’ why don’t ya hear me cryin’?
Whoo hoo, whoo whoo,Â
Whoo who. . . ” — Howlin’ Wolf, “Smokestack Lightning”