https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd3TpjWyVX0&feature=kp
Monday, March 31, 2014
Sunday, March 30, 2014
The Original Sonny Boy Williamson
I realized as I get ready to celebrate the birthday of my dear friend and roommate, that she shares her day with a blues harmonica legend.
With that we'll keep it short today and pay tribute to that blues legend on what would have been his 100th birthday. John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson was born on March 30th, 1914 in Jackson, Tennessee. Known as "the father of modern blues harp" he left a big mark on the world of blues by bringing the harmonica from the world of country blues into a more modern and mainstream setting. Though he was killed at the young age of 34 in 1948, he left more than a lifetimes worth of influence on the modern blues.
In the year before his death this song made it to the top 5 of Billboard's hit singles. Happy Birthday to the original Sonny Boy Williamson, we celebrate your life.
http://youtu.be/yq5RspThWwA
With that we'll keep it short today and pay tribute to that blues legend on what would have been his 100th birthday. John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson was born on March 30th, 1914 in Jackson, Tennessee. Known as "the father of modern blues harp" he left a big mark on the world of blues by bringing the harmonica from the world of country blues into a more modern and mainstream setting. Though he was killed at the young age of 34 in 1948, he left more than a lifetimes worth of influence on the modern blues.
In the year before his death this song made it to the top 5 of Billboard's hit singles. Happy Birthday to the original Sonny Boy Williamson, we celebrate your life.
http://youtu.be/yq5RspThWwA
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Backwater Blues
Today I want to highlight a blues song that became important for me while spending time in Nicaragua. While spending a weekend in a community called Nueva Esperanza I learned of a flood that had devastated the area. The natural disaster had unnatural undertones riddled with racism and classism. The impoverished rural community was struck harder and received inadequate resources and aid in the aftermath of the devastating flood.
It reminded me of a blues song written and recorded by Bessie Smith in 1927, Backwater Blues. Smith's song is the story being affected by a great flood while living in the lowlands of Mississippi. Bessie Smith was very popular and the highest paid blues singer of her time, and her song became especially popular during a massive flood that hit the delta region that same year. Called the "greatest flood in history," the natural disaster of 1927 devastated the cotton-growing delta region of Mississippi. Ten feet of water drowned over a million acres of land causing widespread panic.
The natural disaster highlighted the turmoil of the delta region's racial undertones by disproportionately affecting black plantation workers who lived in the floodzone. Political upheaval came about when white politicians and plantation owners were faced with a decision of evacuating African American residents whose homes had been lost. Cotton farms require large amounts of physical labor. Plantation owners worried that evacuating their black laborers would result in an exodus to northern cities like Chicago, where personal and economic opportunity for people of color was greater.
Tension over racial inequality arose in many facets of the Mississippi flood of 1927. Black plantation workers were paid low wages forcing them to live in the lowlands that were more likely to flood. Camps, formed to house the victims of the flood who had lost homes, unequally favored whites with more plentiful supplies of food and better conditions. The fallout of this great flood played a role in what became known as The Great Migration, when six million African Americans moved out of the South toward Chicago and other northern cities.
It's no wonder that Bessie Smith's, Backwater Blues, became an anthem of that great flood and all of its deep historical and political impact. As we continue to see modern day examples of natural disasters that bring racial and socioeconomic tensions to light, Bessie's song still strikes a chord.
It reminded me of a blues song written and recorded by Bessie Smith in 1927, Backwater Blues. Smith's song is the story being affected by a great flood while living in the lowlands of Mississippi. Bessie Smith was very popular and the highest paid blues singer of her time, and her song became especially popular during a massive flood that hit the delta region that same year. Called the "greatest flood in history," the natural disaster of 1927 devastated the cotton-growing delta region of Mississippi. Ten feet of water drowned over a million acres of land causing widespread panic.
The natural disaster highlighted the turmoil of the delta region's racial undertones by disproportionately affecting black plantation workers who lived in the floodzone. Political upheaval came about when white politicians and plantation owners were faced with a decision of evacuating African American residents whose homes had been lost. Cotton farms require large amounts of physical labor. Plantation owners worried that evacuating their black laborers would result in an exodus to northern cities like Chicago, where personal and economic opportunity for people of color was greater.
Tension over racial inequality arose in many facets of the Mississippi flood of 1927. Black plantation workers were paid low wages forcing them to live in the lowlands that were more likely to flood. Camps, formed to house the victims of the flood who had lost homes, unequally favored whites with more plentiful supplies of food and better conditions. The fallout of this great flood played a role in what became known as The Great Migration, when six million African Americans moved out of the South toward Chicago and other northern cities.
It's no wonder that Bessie Smith's, Backwater Blues, became an anthem of that great flood and all of its deep historical and political impact. As we continue to see modern day examples of natural disasters that bring racial and socioeconomic tensions to light, Bessie's song still strikes a chord.
Friday, March 28, 2014
I recently found myself in a nailbitingly exciting game of bar trivia. An interesting question came up. The question was "which beetle poses the greatest threat to the cotton crop in the south." Immediately I thought of Led Belly's rendition of the blues song Boll Weevil. I am from Minnesota. I have never seen a cotton field and I definitely had no idea what a boll weevil was. However, I knew from the context of the song that it was some sort of pest that terrorized southern cotton farmers. Following my gut, we put down the answer, "boll weevil," and sure enough, SCORE! We got the trivia question right.
All this got me thinking. Though I am no expert in blues music or blues history, this genre has a particularly strong draw for me. Having gained that tiny piece of historical trivia through my basic blues music education reminded me of why I fell in love with the genre in the first place. Woven into the words and notes of blues music is deep sense of history and context. The story telling sucks me in and leaves me wanting more.
And with that reminder, Blues Every Damn Day, was born. This will be my way to share the continuation of my blues education. Every day I will highlight a new blues song. I will include music from some of my amazing blues playing friends in Minneapolis and (maybe) I will eventually share my own artistic endeavors. When possible I will give some historical context and about the artist or song.
So today I will give tribute to that famous blues song that taught me a little bit about the boll weevil. A boll weevil is a little cotton-feeding beetle that migrated from mexico through texas and the rest of the south in the 1920's and 1930s. It devastated cotton crops therefore wreaking major havoc on farmers and the entire industry. And where there is turmoil, there are blues singers. Countless songs about the boll weevil came about chronicling the story of that little destructive bug.
Without further delay, let's kick things off with a little story from Led Belly about a boll weevil just looking for a home.
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