You want the Old Skool? You can't handle the Old Skool! You don't even have a clue what the Old Skool is! *chops down door* Here's ...Johnny!!!

June 29, 2007 2:13 PM

Here is Uncle John Scruggs singing and playing Little Log Cabin Round the Lane in RealAudio Dial Up and DSL format. The dancing is great and I do like the walk-on kitten part, myself.

That's from the Center For Southern African-American Music Video Link Page. Their audio link page is a wonder, too with individual artists galore. But, for the real deal, check out the Various Artist compilation album pages. Those may be 20 second of so mp3 clips but, still, those Yazoo, Document and Folkways albums are the bomb and there you get a taste of what they offer. And anywhere you can hear, for example, even a few bars of Blind Alfred Reed's How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live ? or Estil C. Ball and Lacey Richardson's Trials, Troubles, Tribulations rules in my world.
posted by y2karl (9 comments total)

I Surrender!! Nice work, sir.
posted by jonson at 2:17 PM on June 29, 2007

By the way, why were so many of them Blind? Was it something about the music that caused blindness, or something about the Blindness that drove them to play the blues?
posted by jonson at 2:18 PM on June 29, 2007

'sCool
posted by taosbat at 2:26 PM on June 29, 2007

By the way, why were so many of them Blind? Was it something about the music that caused blindness, or something about the Blindness that drove them to play the blues?

The latter--playing music was one thing poor blind men could do to earn an honorable living in an agrarian society.
posted by y2karl at 2:30 PM on June 29, 2007

That was amazing. Thanks.

The latter--playing music was one thing poor blind men could do to earn an honorable living in an agrarian society.

Music does not cause blindness. Blindness causes music.
posted by Area Control at 5:11 PM on June 29, 2007

Blind Alfred Reed's How Can A Poor Man etc has been available on Internet Archive since...forever! See here. And also see, oh, these: Blind Willie McTell, Robert Johnson, Prince Albert Hunt...lots more.
posted by CCBC at 1:37 AM on June 30, 2007

Yes, I even did a post on it back in the day.
posted by y2karl at 6:33 AM on June 30, 2007

And you were even a member then, no less....
posted by y2karl at 6:34 AM on June 30, 2007

Okay, granpa karl, sorry I missed your earlier input.
posted by CCBC at 12:55 PM on July 6, 2007