|
Sweet Home Chicago
"Sweet Home Chicago" is a blues standard first recorded by Robert Johnson in 1936. While often credited to Johnson, the song has precedents in several earlier blues songs. It has become a popular anthem for the city of Chicago, despite ambiguity in Johnson's original lyrics. Numerous artists have interpreted the song in a variety of styles. Earlier songs The melody of "Sweet Home Chicago" can be found in several blues songs, including "Honey Dripper Blues," "Red Cross Blues," and "Kokomo Blues," which served as the immediate model. The lyrics for "Honey Dripper Blues No. 2" by Edith North Johnson follow a typical AAB structure: Lucille Bogan (as Bessie Jackson) used an AB plus refrain structure in "Red Cross Man": Blues historian Elijah Wald suggests that Scrapper Blackwell was the first to reference a specific city in his "Kokomo Blues," using an AAB verse: "Kokola Blues," recorded by Madlyn Davis in 1927, also references Kokomo, Indiana, in the refrain: In 1932, Jabo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Johnson
Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His singing, guitar playing and songwriting on his landmark 1936 and 1937 recordings have influenced later generations of musicians. Although his recording career spanned only seven months, he is recognized as a master of the blues, particularly the Delta blues style, and as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as perhaps "the first ever rock star". As a traveling performer who played mostly on street corners, in juke joints, and at Saturday night dances, Johnson had little commercial success or public recognition in his lifetime. He had only two recording sessions both produced by Don Law, one in San Antonio in 1936, and one in Dallas in 1937, that produced 29 distinct songs (with 13 surviving alternate takes). These songs, recorded solo in improvised studios, were the sum of his recorded output. Most were released a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Papa Charlie McCoy
Charles "Papa Charlie" McCoy (May 26, 1909 – July 26, 1950) was an American Delta blues musician and songwriter. Career McCoy was born in Jackson, Mississippi. He was best known by his nickname, Papa Charlie. As a guitarist and mandolin player, he was one of the major blues accompanists of his time. He played in the Mississippi area with his band, the Mississippi Hot Footers. As a slide guitarist, he recorded under the name Tampa Kid, releasing "Keep on Trying". He and his older brother Kansas Joe McCoy performed together in the 1930s and 1940s and recorded as the McCoy Brothers. McCoy and Bo Carter recorded several sides as the Mississippi Mud Steppers, including two variations of Cow Cow Davenport's "Cow Cow Blues": the first, an instrumental, was released as "The Jackson Stomp", and the second, with lyrics and vocals by McCoy, as "The Lonesome Train, That Took My Girl from Town". They also wrote and recorded "The Vicksburg Stomp" (a version of which was recorded by the m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and business failures around the world. The economic contagion began in 1929 in the United States, the largest economy in the world, with the devastating Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929 often considered the beginning of the Depression. Among the countries with the most unemployed were the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Weimar Republic, Germany. The Depression was preceded by a period of industrial growth and social development known as the "Roaring Twenties". Much of the profit generated by the boom was invested in speculation, such as on the stock market, contributing to growing Wealth inequality in the United States, wealth inequality. Banks were subject to laissez-faire, minimal regulation, resulting in loose lending and wides ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana) that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" ("Southern" in the sense of "characteristic of its region, the American South"), because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history. The Delta is long and across at its widest point, encompassing about , or, almost 7,000 square miles of alluvial floodplain. Originally covered in hardwood forest across the bottomlands, it was developed as one of the richest cotton-growing areas in the nation before the American Civil War (1861–1865). The region attracted many speculators who developed land along the riverfronts for cotton plantations; they became wealthy planters dependent on the labor of people they enslaved, who composed the vast majority of the popula ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different ethnic background. Modern variants of racism are often based in social perceptions of biological differences between peoples. These views can take the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems in which different races are ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared inheritable traits, abilities, or qualities. There have been attempts to legitimize racist beliefs through scientific means, such as scientific racism, which have been overwhelmingly shown to be unfounded. In terms of political systems (e.g. apartheid) that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leroy Carr
Leroy Carr (March 27, 1904 or 1905 – April 29, 1935) was an American blues singer, songwriter and pianist who developed a laid-back, crooning technique and whose popularity and style influenced such artists as Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. Music historian Elijah Wald has called him "the most influential male blues singer and songwriter of the first half of the 20th century". He first became famous for " How Long, How Long Blues", his debut recording released by Vocalion Records in 1928. Life and career Leroy Carr was born March 27, 1905 in Nashville, Tennessee. His parents were John Carr, a laborer at Vanderbilt University, and Katie Lytle, a domestic worker. After his parents separated, Carr moved to Indianapolis, Indiana with his mother. Carr was a self-taught piano player. After dropping out of high school, Carr travelled with a circus, and in the early 1920s served in the U.S. Army. Carr returned to Indianapolis and worked in a meat-packing plant. He was married and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Roland
Walter Roland (possibly December 20, 1902 – October 12, 1972) was an American blues and boogie-woogie pianist, guitarist and singer, noted for his association with Lucille Bogan, Josh White and Sonny Scott. The music journalist Gérard Herzhaft stated that Roland was "a great piano player... as comfortable in boogie-woogies as in slow blues," adding that "Roland – with his manner of playing and his singing – was direct and rural." Biography Roland was born in Ralph, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. Possible dates include December 20, 1902 (according to his Social Security documentation), or December 4, 1903 (according to his death certificate), though the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc suggest 1900 on the basis of 1910 census information. Roland started playing on the Birmingham blues circuit in the 1920s. A competent and versatile pianist, his range covered slow blues to upbeat, jaunty boogie-woogie numbers. He was also skilled as a guitar player and had a forcef ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roosevelt Sykes
Roosevelt Sykes (January 31, 1906July 17, 1983) was an American blues musician, also known as "the Honeydripper". Career Sykes was born the son of a musician in Elmar, Arkansas. "Just a little old sawmill town", Sykes said of his birthplace. The Sykes family was living in St. Louis by 1909. Sykes often visited his grandfather's farm near West Helena. He began playing the church organ around the age of ten. "Every summer I would go down to Helena to visit my grandfather on his farm," he told biographer Valerie Wilmer. "He was a preacher and he had an organ I used to practice on, trying to learn how to play. I always liked the sound of the blues, liked to hear people singing, and since I was singing first, I was trying to play like I sang." Sykes was baptized at 13 years old, his lifelong beliefs never conflicting with playing the blues. At age 15, he went on the road playing piano in a barrelhouse style of blues. Like many bluesmen of his time, he traveled around playing to all-ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boogie
Boogie is a repetition (music), repetitive, swung note, swung note or shuffle rhythm,Burrows, Terry (1995). ''Play Country Guitar'', p.42. Dorling Kindersley Limited, London. . groove (music), "groove" or pattern used in blues which was originally played on the piano in boogie-woogie (music), boogie-woogie music. The characteristic rhythm and feel of the boogie was then adapted to guitar, double bass, and other instruments. The earliest recorded boogie-woogie song was in 1916. By the 1930s, Swing music, swing bands such as Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Louis Jordan all had boogie hits. By the 1950s, boogie became incorporated into the emerging rockabilly and rock and roll styles. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s country bands released country boogies. Today, the term "boogie" usually refers to dancing to pop, disco, or rock music. History The boogie was originally played on the piano in boogie-woogie music and adapted to guitar. Boogie-woogie is a style of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bottleneck Guitar
Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos that reflect characteristics of the human singing voice. It typically involves playing the guitar in the traditional position (flat against the body) with the use of a slide fitted on one of the guitarist's fingers. The slide may be a metal or glass tube, such as the neck of a bottle, giving rise to the term bottleneck guitar to describe this type of playing. The strings are typically plucked (not strummed) while the slide is moved over the strings to change the pitch. The guitar may also be placed on the player's lap and played with a hand-held bar (lap steel guitar). Creating music with a slide of some type has been traced back to African stringed instruments and also to the origin of the steel guitar in Hawaii. Near the beginning of the 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Davis (blues)
Walter Davis (March 1, 1911 or 1912"Walter Davis" FindaGrave.com. Retrieved October 17, 2016. – October 22, 1963) was an American singer, pianist, and songwriter who was one of the most prolific blues recording artists from the early 1930s to the early 1950s. He was unrelated to the pianist Walter Davis, Jr. Davis had a rich singing voice that was as expressive as the best of the |
Tommy McClennan
Tommy McClennan (January 4, 1905 – May 9, 1961) was an American Delta blues singer and guitarist. Life and career McClennan was born in Durant, Mississippi, and grew up in the town. He played and sang blues in a rough, energetic style. He made a series of recordings for Bluebird Records from 1939 through 1942. He regularly played with his friend Robert Petway. His voice is heard in the background on Petway's recording of "Boogie Woogie Woman" (1942). McClennan's singles in this period included " Bottle It Up and Go", "New Highway No. 51", "Shake 'Em on Down", and "Whiskey Head Woman". Several of his songs have been covered by other musicians, including " Cross Cut Saw Blues" (covered by Albert King) and "My Baby's Gone" (Moon Mullican). McClennan's "I'm a Guitar King" was included in the 1959 collection ''The Country Blues'', issued by Folkways Records. McClennan died of bronchopneumonia in Chicago, Illinois, on May 9, 1961. Citation "He had a different style of play ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
