MetaFilter posts tagged with Blues and MuddyWaters

Ahmet Ertegun profiled by George W. S. Trow in 1978

Kattullus — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:42:39 -0800

Ahmet Ertegun was profiled by George W. S. Trow in The New Yorker in a classic piece back in 1978. Ertegun was the son of the Turkish ambassador to the US and he remained behind in D.C. studying medieval philosophy at Georgetown. Instead of devoting himself to his studies he founded Atlantic Records with his friend Herb Abramson. Trow charted how Ertegun moved from tramping through muddy, Louisiana fields in search of hot new sounds to the whirl of Studio 54. Below the cut are links to the songs mentioned in the article, as best as I could find, in the order in which they appear. Hugues Panassié, Le Jazz Hot (performed by Julie Andrews). I couldn't find any online versions of Dirty Mother for You but here's Roosevelt Sykes rippin' it up on Swedish TV in 1972. Couldn't find Ruth Brown singing A - You're Adorable, so here's the Sesame Street version. Ivory Joe Hunter, Since I Met You Baby. I couldn't find any footage or recordings of Bob Howard and His Rhythm, who recorded Button Up Your Overcoat and Memories of You for Atlantic Records, but here's Ruth Etting's 1929 version of the former and Sinatra's 1956 take on the latter. Here's a performance by Boyd Raeburn and His Orchestra who recorded The Lady is a Tramp and How High the Moon for Atlantic, here's Jaye P. Morgan doing the former and Les Paul and Mary Ford the latter. Sticks McGhee and His Buddies, Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee. Couldn't find Clovers' version of Skylark, so here's Bette Midler. I couldn't find a version of Don't You Know I Love You online. Joe Turner, Chains of Love. Ruth Brown, Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean. Joe Turner, Shake, Rattle and Roll. Clyde McPhatter and The Drifters, Money Honey. The Coasters, Searchin'/Young Blood. I couldn't find Chuck Willis' Hang Up My Rock n' Roll Shoes, but here's Bruce Springsteen covering the song and another song by Chuck Willis, What You Gonna Do When Your Baby Leaves You. Bobby Darin, Splish Splash. Ray Charles, What'd I Say? and I Got a Woman. The Rolling Stones, Street Fighting Man, Satisfaction and Love in Vain. Stevie Wonder, Happy Birthday and Uptight/Satisfaction (with The Rolling Stones). Muddy Waters, Hoochie Coochie Man. Aretha Franklin, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You. Professor Longhair, Tipitina (with The Meters). I can't figure out what that Trammps song is that's referenced, but here they're performing Shout. It's impossible to know what Johnny Dodds song Ahmet Ertegun is da da dooing along with, so here's some random Johnny Dodds. I couldn't find Brown Skin Man by Lovie Austin and Her Blues Serenaders, but here's Charleston Mad (Priscilla Steward singing). Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, King Porter. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, You Can't Get That Stuff No More. Fred Astaire, Puttin' on the Ritz. I didn't find The Jealous Kind online. If I missed anything, please add a link.

No Lounld Music

netbros — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:33:33 -0800

As patrons begin to fill a room decorated with toy monkeys, beer posters and a silver disco ball, Mr. Seaberry emerges in a startling suit of red with white pinstripes and a snazzy white hat, and smoking a cheroot. “Po’ Monkey is all anybody ever called me since I was little,” he said. “I don’t know why, except I was poor for sure.” Transformed in the 1950s from a sharecropper shack that was built probably in the 1920s, Poor Monkey's Lounge is one of the last rural juke joints along The Trail of the Hellhound on the Mississippi Delta. Photographs of Po' Monkeys and other Delta Blues History Blues, Booze, & BBQ by Michael Loyd Young Po' Monkey's Juke Joint Flickr group American Music by Annie Liebovitz Early blues musicians you might hear covered at Po' Monkey's Juke Joint. [be sure to click the sound icon to the left of each name for sample music] Son House's place, not only in the history of Delta blues, but in the overall history of the music, is a very high one indeed. He was a major innovator of the Delta style, along with his playing partners Charley Patton and Willie Brown. No blues singer ever presented a more gentle, genial image than Mississippi John Hurt. A guitarist with an extraordinarily lyrical and refined fingerpicking style, he also sang with a warmth unique in the field of blues, and the gospel influence in his music gave it a depth and reflective quality unusual in the field. No two ways about it, the most influential slide guitarist of the postwar period was Elmore James, hands down. Although his early demise from heart failure kept him from enjoying the fruits of the '60s blues revival as his contemporaries Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf did, James left a wide influential trail behind him. Among the earliest and most influential Delta bluesmen to record, Skip James was the best known proponent of the so-called Bentonia school of blues players, a genre strain invested with as much fanciful scholarly "research" as any. If the Delta country blues has a convenient source point, it would probably be Charley Patton, its first great star. His hoarse, impassioned singing style, fluid guitar playing, and unrelenting beat made him the original king of the Delta blues. Like many of his contemporaries on the Chicago circuit, Muddy Waters was a product of the fertile Mississippi Delta. From the late '40s on, he eloquently defined the city's aggressive, swaggering, Delta-rooted sound with his declamatory vocals and piercing slide guitar attack.

John Lee Hooker and the fine art of translation

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:11:11 -0800

You know, I want you to pick up on this. You know, these lyrics are something else. Just dig this. Yeah, whoever put those subtitles on that clip was... um, shall we say, not listening? Let's take a look at that one more time: "Now, I want you to pick up on this" = "Now I want you to pick upon this." "You know, these lyrics are something else." = "Your delirious is something else." "Just dig this." = "This did this."... Knuckleheads. Fortunately, some were listening a little more closely: the same introduction gets rather more accurate subtitles (albeit translated into French) in this clip. Well, whatever. Mainly it's just a great performance from a great bluesman. Here's more from the John Lee Hooker of the 1960s: The awesome, quiet power of Hobo Blues, plus Maudie and Tupelo. And a real treat: Hooker backed by the Muddy Waters band (!) at the Newport Jazz Festival of 1960. Just for reference (and a kick ass performance) here's the band with their usual leader at the same 1960 event in Newport, RI: Muddy Waters at Newport Festival 1960, Hoochie Koochie Man and Rollin' Stone.

Got my mojo working.

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 06:17:35 -0800

Got My Mojo Working was written by the little-known Preston Foster and first recorded in 1956 by the only slightly better-known Ann Cole. It was, of course, the Muddy Waters version that became the hit and a signature song for him: he sang it throughout his entire career, and it has become one of the best-known blues standards of all time. The song itself just has a lot of mojo, you know, so naturally plenty of others have covered it through the years: a small sampling from the YouTubes would include Carl Perkins, Willie Dixon, Elvis Presley, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, JJ Cale, Pinetop Perkins and Louis Jordan. Hell, even Bobby Darin couldn't resist the mojo!. NOTE: Check hoverovers for link descriptions. &creativeAThe original Ann Cole recording is included on the compilation CD Jump, Jive and Swing from Rhino Records. And just for good measure, Lightnin' Hopkins, in a slamming performance of Mojo Hand, and, what the hell, let's hear that one again! Also, JB Lenoir's The Mojo Boogie. Last but not least, Wille Dixon, the bassist and singer seen in one of the Muddy Waters clips and in his own cover of the tune in another clip from this FPP, was of course one of the great songwriters of the blues, a giant figure. I made an FPP on him a while back, which is here.

You may not know the man, but you know the songs.

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 06:19:35 -0800

There's a whole lotta Mefiers interested in the upcoming Led Zeppelin reunion, and it got me to thinking, let's pay a little visit to the Poet Laureate of the blues, Mr. Willie Dixon. After all, without him, there wouldn't have been a Whole Lotta Love, or a Bring It On Home, or... hell, there might not have been any Zep at all... His music has been interpreted and reinterpreted by an astonishing number of musicians. The man wrote a whole lotta songs. Oh, and, he played a little bit of bass, too. He was a whole lotta great.

The blues had a baby and they called it rock & roll

madamjujujive — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 18:19:00 -0800

John Lee Hooker performs Gloria and It Serves Me Right to Suffer with Van Morrison; I'm in the Mood with Bonnie Raitt; The Healer with Santana; Boogie Chilluns with the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton; and Roadhouse Blues with Jim Morrison & the Doors (audio only). [Also, Muddy Waters, Etta James and more blues legends & rock combos inside]

Everyday I Have the Blues

madamjujujive — Thu, 03 Apr 2003 19:12:35 -0800

The Year of the Blues. Who knew? Congress named 2003 "The Year of the Blues." This site offers features like blues riff of the month and an extensive calendar of events. The list includes monthly blues fests all over the world, but if you can't catch any, then save April 23 for a televised American Masters premier tribute to the late great Muddy Waters.

y2karl — Sat, 20 Jul 2002 11:48:24 -0800

Alan Lomax , the legendary collector of folk music who was the first to record towering figures like Leadbelly, Muddy Waters and Woody Guthrie, died yesterday at a nursing home in Sarasota, Fla. He was 87. Mr. Lomax was a musicologist, author, disc jockey, singer, photographer, talent scout, filmmaker, concert and recording producer and television host. He did whatever was necessary to preserve traditional music and take it to a wider audience. (NY Times- Registraion Required) And... Additionally... And this. Also...