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Arhoolie Records Artists
Arhoolie Records is an American small independent record label that was run by Chris Strachwitz and is based in El Cerrito, California, United States (it is actually located in Richmond Annex but has an El Cerrito postal address.) The label was founded by Strachwitz in 1960 as a way for him to record and produce music by previously obscure "down-home blues" artists such as Lightnin' Hopkins, Snooks Eaglin, and Bill Gaither. Strachwitz despised most commercial music as mouse music. Arhoolie still publishes blues and folk music, Tejano music including Lydia Mendoza, Los Alegres de Terán, Flaco Jiménez, regional Mexican music, cajun, zydeco, and bluegrass. History Chris Strachwitz immigrated with his family from Silesia in 1947, and became enamored with American regional music after seeing the film ''New Orleans''. He eventually settled in the San Francisco bay area, and in 1960 he headed to Texas to record bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins, but it turned out that Hopkins was in Berkel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trust instrumentality and is not formally a part of any of the Federal government of the United States#branches, three branches of the federal government. The institution is named after its founding donor, British scientist James Smithson. It was originally organized as the United States National Museum, but that name ceased to exist administratively in 1967. The Smithsonian Institution has historical holdings of over 157 million items, 21 museums, 21 libraries, 14 education and research centers, a zoo, and historical and architectural landmarks, mostly located in Washington, D.C. Additional facilities are located in Maryland, New York (state), New York, and Virg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zydeco
Zydeco ( ; ) is a music genre that was created in rural Southwest Louisiana by French speaking, Afro-Americans of Creole heritage. It blends African and Caribbean rhythms, blues and rhythm and blues with music indigenous to the Louisiana Creoles, such as la la and juré. The main instruments are accordion and a zydeco rubboard, washboard, scrubboard or vest frottoir. Characteristics Zydeco music is typically played in an uptempo, syncopated manner with a strong rhythmic core, and often incorporates elements of blues, rock and roll, soul music, R&B, and early Creole music. Zydeco music is centered on the accordion, which leads the rest of the band, and a specialized washboard, called a vest frottoir, as a prominent percussive instrument. Other common instruments in zydeco are the electric guitar, bass, keyboard, and drum set. If there are accompanying lyrics, they are typically sung in English or French. Many zydeco performers create original zydeco compositions, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercy Dee Walton
Mercy Dee Walton (born Mercy Davis Walton, August 3, 1915 – December 2, 1962) was an American jump blues pianist, singer and songwriter, whose compositions went from blues to R&B numbers. According to journalist Tony Russell in his book ''The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray'', "Walton created a series of memorable blues about the unattractiveness of rural life, sardonically aimed at the black migrant workers in southern California who constituted his typical audience". Biography Born in Waco, Texas, he moved to California just before World War II. He started playing piano at age 13 and learned his style from many of the ten-cent party house pianists that played out in the country on weekends. To make ends meet, he had to earn his living in the fields chopping cotton, picking grapes or cutting spinach. During this time, the musician who impressed Walton the most was Delois Maxey, who never had an opportunity to record. In 1949, Walton made his first record for the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Joe Williams
Joseph Lee Williams (October 16, 1903 – December 17, 1982) was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar. Performing over five decades, he recorded the songs "Baby, Please Don't Go", "Crawlin' King Snake", and "Peach Orchard Mama", among many others, for various record labels. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame on October 4, 1992. The blues historian Barry Lee Pearson (''Sounds Good to Me: The Bluesman's Story'', ''Virginia Piedmont Blues'') described Williams's performance: :When I saw him playing at Mike Bloomfield's "blues night" at the Fickle Pickle, Williams was playing an electric nine-string guitar through a small ramshackle amp with a pie plate nailed to it and a beer can dangling against that. When he played, everything rattled but Big Joe himself. The total effect of this incredible apparatus produced the most buzzing, sizzling, African-sounding music I have ever heard. From busking ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whistlin' Alex Moore
Alexander Herman "Whistlin' Alex" Moore (November 22, 1899 – January 20, 1989), was an American blues pianist, singer and whistler. He is best remembered for his recordings of "Blue Bloomer Blues" (which he first recorded in 1929, as well as later in life), "Across the Atlantic Ocean" and "Black Eyed Peas and Hog Jowls". Early life Moore was born in Dallas, Texas. At the age of three, his family moved to El Paso, Texas, but returned to Dallas three years later for his father's job, who was a professional candy maker. Although his family did not own a piano Moore learned the instrument by watching others, including a female cousin, and practicing on instruments he found around town. He also learned to play harmonica as a boy, and was a tap dancer and whistler. He took a more serious interest in playing piano in his mid-teens, although he never learned how to read music. In 1915 he performed on Dallas radio station WWR, and continued to play for tips at various social gathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melvin Jackson
Melvin "Lil' Son" Jackson (August 16, 1915, Tyler, TexasMay 30, 1976, Dallas) was an American blues guitarist and singer. He was a contemporary of Lightnin' Hopkins. Biography Jackson's mother played gospel guitar, and he played early on in a gospel group, the Blue Eagle Four. He became a mechanic and served in the U.S. Army during World War II, after which he pursued a career as a blues musician. He recorded a demo and sent it to Bill Quinn, the owner of Gold Star Records, in 1946. Quinn signed him to a recording contract and released "Freedom Train Blues" in 1948, which became a nationwide hit in the U.S. Jackson recorded for Imperial Records between 1950 and 1954, both as a solo artist and with a backing band. His 1950 song "Rockin' and Rollin" was recast by later musicians as " Rock Me Baby". In 1951, Quinn shuttered the Gold Star label and sold or leased his catalogue of master recordings to other labels, with Modern Records buying 32 unreleased Jackson and Lightnin' Hopk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Ace
Babe Kyro Lemon Turner (December 21, 1905 – November 7, 1972) was an American Texas blues musician most frequently known by the stage name Black Ace. He was also known as B. K. Turner, Black Ace Turner, Babe Turner and Buck Turner. Biography Turner was born in Hughes Springs, Texas, and was raised on his family's farm. He taught himself to play guitar and performed in east Texas from the late 1920s on. In the early 1930s he began playing with Smokey Hogg and Oscar "Buddy" Woods, a lap steel guitarist. Turner then bought a National resonator guitar and began playing what a later music critic called "Hawaii meets the Delta." In 1937, Turner recorded six songs (possibly with Hogg as second guitarist) for Decca Records in Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Musical ensemble, bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All-Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar, and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as compact discs (CDs) replaced LP record, LPs and cassette (format), cassettes as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it, he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Field Holler
The field holler or field call is mostly a historical type of vocal work song sung by field slaves in the United States (and later by African American forced laborers accused of violating vagrancy laws) to accompany their tasked work, to communicate usefully, or to vent feelings. It differs from the collective work song in that it was sung solo, though early observers noted that a holler, or ‘cry’, might be echoed by other workers. Though commonly associated with cotton cultivation, the field holler was also sung by levee workers, and field hands in rice and sugar plantations. Field hollers are also known as corn-field hollers, water calls, and whoops. An early description is from 1853 and the first recordings are from the 1930s. The holler is closely related to the call and response of work songs and arhoolies. The Afro-American music form ultimately influenced strands of African American music, such as the blues and thereby rhythm and blues, as well as negro spiritu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mance Lipscomb
Beau De Glen "Mance" Lipscomb (April 9, 1895 – January 30, 1976) was an American blues singer, guitarist and songster. Biography Lipscomb was born April 9, 1895, near Navasota, Texas. His father had been born into slavery in Alabama; his mother was half African American and half Native American. As a youth, Lipscomb took the name Mance (short for Abolitionism in the United States, ''emancipation'') from a friend of his oldest brother, Charlie. His father left home when he was a child, so he had to leave school after the third grade to work in the fields alongside his mother. For most of his life, Lipscomb supported himself as a tenant farmer in Texas. His mother bought him a guitar and he taught himself to play by watching and listening. He became an accomplished performer then and played regularly for years at local gatherings, mostly what he called "Saturday night suppers" hosted by someone in the area. He and his wife regularly hosted such gatherings for a while. Unti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Navasota, Texas
Navasota is a city primarily in Grimes County, Texas, United States. The population was 7,643 at the 2020 census. In 2005, the Texas Legislature designated Navasota as the "Blues Capital of Texas" in honor of the late Mance Lipscomb, a Navasota native and blues musician. Technically, a sliver of Navasota is in Brazos County, which is part of the Bryan-College Station Metropolitan area. Geography Navasota is located in southwestern Grimes County, east of the Navasota River (a tributary of the Brazos River). It is northwest of Houston. Texas State Highway 105 is the main east–west route that passes through the center of Navasota, leading southwest to Brenham and east to Conroe. Texas State Highway 6 passes north–south through the eastern side of the city as a four-lane bypass, leading northwest to College Station and south to Hempstead. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which , or 0.47%, is water. History The F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mack McCormick
Robert Burton "Mack" McCormick (August 3, 1930 – November 18, 2015) was an American musicologist and folklorist. Biography McCormick was born in 1930 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was brought up by his mother, in Alabama, Colorado, West Virginia and Texas, as she traveled to find work as a hospital technician. Career He dropped out of high school to work at a ballroom in Cedar Point, Ohio, running errands for the musicians performing there. He later worked as an electrician, cook, carnival worker and taxi driver. In 1946, he met record store owner and discographer Orin Blackstone in New Orleans and began assisting him in researching and compiling Blackstone's multivolume ''Index to Jazz''. McCormick became Texas correspondent for ''Down Beat'' in 1949. He developed an interest in blues and began traveling and researching the lives and origins of undocumented blues musicians around the country and learning about folk traditions and customs. In the late 1950s, McCormick ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
