I’ve been mulling a post over for a few weeks now… that’s still in the works, but in the mean time, I was hanging out with my buddy Mike this past Saturday and we played a little music. Maybe these will grease the skids on your day:
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a little local action for frankie-boy, flying solo:
small world coffee
14 Witherspoon St.
Princeton, NJ 08540
Thursday, 17-Jan
8 - 9:30pm - FREE
a little guitar, a little banjo… a little whatever. After dinner and before bedtime for you domestic types.
I’ve been away from ensemble music for a few months now, and dabbling in various musical endeavors - some electric guitar with my friend Pat Conte and old friends from many years ago, some fiddle, some twelve-string… but what I’m hearing most insistently for the last week or so is the call of the banjer…
It started innocently enough with a song called Sea-Line Woman… variously spelled “Sea Lion Woman,” “C-Line Woman” - maybe there are other permutations you’ve noted. It’s a field recording made of the Shipp Sisters from about 1939 by Alan Lomax. I’ve played Sea-Line Woman for a long time and while it was always satisfying playing it as an accompanist, I never could just “take off” on the banjo the way I wanted to, just because it was always damn near impossible to communicate when or where to come back in. The solution to that problem was to just sing it myself.
No, I don’t really have the voice for it, but I love the tune, even if I haven’t the slightest idea what the song means or if it means anything at all. What I found was that singing it myself TOTALLY connected me to the song as a whole and freed me up to take the banjo wherever I wanted - even if I didn’t really know where I was going. I decided to turn the video recorder on and captured what I consider to be a “moment” - I don’t think I could ever quite do it in this way ever again… or as well… maybe I could do it better. Anyway, it was revealing to me on some level that what came out was so undeniably me:
I guess you could say that, as a player and interpreter of this music, I tend to try and recreate a specific performance from the inside, so to speak. That approach demands a certain fidelity to the original source. What I found here was that “fidelity to the original source” was impossible, basically. The source was an a capella vocal duet - instrumentally, there was no particular target to hit. I was on my own.
That was an experience I wanted to build on…
Just by chance, Herman E. Johnson has been playing often in the car. If you’re not familiar with it, the song “She Are Looking For Me” is truly a masterpiece of touch, timing and tone. A small miracle in many ways. Putting something like that - where the accompaniment BARELY exists and consists of so much space - on the banjo can be quite a challenge. I think I arrived, quite by accident, at an approach that was rhythmically consistent enough to be convincing played using a downstroke, but flexible enough to shift the timing of the melodic phrases to suit my singing and need to breathe (!). The net result is quite different from the original recording, but still bears a kinship. While not played perfectly (none of these are - very little rehearsal at all, and the ideas are all still very “germinal”), I’m actually rather proud of it:
After recording this, I felt, somehow, that there was one more in me. What it could be was still a mystery… my friend Mr. O’muck suggested Son House’s “My Black Mama,” which seemed like a possibility. In the end though, listening to an old Yazoo LP suggested the final piece - Crying Sam Collins’ unissued “Lonesome Road Blues.” It’s long been one of my favorite melodies, but one of the hings I love about the original recording is the fact that, in the key of C, Collins starts the melody by harmonizing it with an E chord underneath. An odd choice, for sure, but one that sticks with you as sounding undeniably “right” on repeated listening… as a music buddy of mine once described such examples as being “straight through WRONG into RIGHT.” Thank heavens for musical courage. Anyway, left to my own, I wanted to capture something of that without being dictated to by the original recording itself… again, certainly not perfect… and it could certainly stand to be lived in for a while, but I’m strangely proud of the result… I think in some ways, it’s the first time I actually heard my “self.”
I hope you enjoy my Country Blues Banjo triptych. Play on.
A little more Reverend Gary Davis… this one has been on and off my radar for a couple of years and I just got serious about trying to work out the chorus in December last year. Tougher to get right than it seemed, at first… and I definitely don’t quite have it right. I guess that’s why we have a lifetime over which to work it out.
Little Brothers and Poor Riders gigs in March - I’ll post ‘em soon… in the meantime, enjoy!
A new year… time to get projects moving in earnest. This song has been playing in my head on an endless repeat since before the holidays, so I just had to take a crack at it… never really heard anybody else try and play it. Maybe I’m the only person that likes it enough to try!
John Miller was in the area doing some work for Stefan Grossman, and stayed at the house a couple of days… what a blessing to have such an accompanist. Kim knocks it home!
Kim and I found these two guys outside the door a few days ago, so we dug some guitars out of the closet and played a Rosalie Hill tune. Isn’t that what you’d do?
Should be a lovely Spring evening in Red Hook - former students of Rev. Davis, “sons” and “grandsons” - come one, come all.
The Fabulous Jalopy Theatre
315 Columbia Street, Brooklyn, NY
Click on the poster for details.
It was fun to have Eden and John’s East River String Band at small world coffee last week. They turned in a fine set, including “What Can I Say After I Say I’m Sorry,” “Ain’t No Tellin’” and “Screamin’ And Hollerin’ The Blues.” We also had crystalline roses in the house, all the way from western MA. It was great to see him and a real pleasure to have his banjo added to the mix!
The Little Brothers don’t do many local gigs, but we do like this one (except for having to lug the PA!), and having them along made it even more special. For our part, we went heavy on the Mississippi Sheiks, as we’ve been away from that music for a while and it felt great to get back into it. Like doing a rare local gig, it was a little like coming home. Unknown to us, my daughter captured a few songs on our camera, and got one of the few non-Mississippi Sheiks songs we did that night - Wayward Girl from Lottie Kimbrough. We actually recorded it for the last CD and while we were recording it, Kim made some lyric changes (very simple) that made the song nearly autobiographical for her. I’m hoping that we continue to do it pretty regularly, as it’s one of my favorites.
One of the best things about the music I’m involved in is Kim’s singing. As an accompanist, there’s nothing more gratifying than supporting a great singer.