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Hi all,
As many of us have discussed here, we grew up listening to music we didn’t know was really blues…ie Led Zeppelin. As our resident expert Don Deering has shown us, there is always a distant original, first recording, that we’ve rarely heard of….today’s NLF inspiration is one of my favorite tunes and my “go to” style of blues as played by Derek Trucks Band…..but listen to the original from 1937 by Sonny Boy Williamson….and then the modern version…wow what a difference….enjoy
RobertoRoberto
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Hi Roberto, thanks for posting this! You’re coming up with some great tunes!
Sonny Boy Williamson was definitely one of the originals but that tune didn’t just spring from him in one piece (and John Lee Curtis Williamson is the original Sonny Boy Williamson [I], but he isn’t the one we know best, that honor belongs to Aleck “Rice” Miller a/k/a Sonny Boy Williamson II, who took his name and claimed to be the original–have to cut him some slack on that because he really was deeply great). The SBW of “Good Morning, School Girl” was murdered in a robbery in 1948 at age 34.
If I were the expert you called me, I’d just rattle off the source for this tune. As it is, I went to Wikipedia, and I quote (but I added all the the links to respective artists): “The melody has been traced to ‘Back and Side Blues,’ a 1934 blues song recorded by Son Bonds. “Good Morning, School Girl” features Williamson’s vocal and harmonica with accompaniment by Big Joe Williams and Robert Lee McCoy (also known as Robert Nighthawk) on guitars.” If I find out about additional background, I’ll add it in a subsequent reply.
That Ten Year’s After riff was one of the first I ever tried to play.
Here’s my YouTube playlist for the two Sonny Boy Williamsons. I shouldn’t have combined them on one list, but once you get to know them you’ll be able to easily distinguish one from the other.
Don D.
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I’d be honored to accept that and try to fill those shoes. I think my first job will be to make a discography and reading list; that will take a little while. In the meantime, I’ll continue to post a different musician every two or three weeks and contribute as much as I know to other discussions. In reality, I’m no expert, just an enthusiast.
Don D.
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Jonny Lang did 2 incredible blues albums, “Lie to me” at 15 and “Wander this World” at 17. He went through addictions to drugs and alcohol and was cured when he found Christianity at 20. We still enjoy his music but it is nothing like the early blues records. My wife and I still remember the raw emotion that came though when we saw him live back then.
MikeMike
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Jonny Lang did 2 incredible blues albums, “Lie to me” at 15 and “Wander this World” at 17. He went through addictions to drugs and alcohol and was cured when he found Christianity at 20. We still enjoy his music but it is nothing like the early blues records. My wife and I still remember the raw emotion that came though when we saw him live back then.
MikeLove Jonny Lang’s music and playing. Very raw edged for sure
His CD Turn Around which was just after his conversion to Christianity. It may not contain the raw edge playing that Lie To Me and Wander This World contained but the depth of the emotion in his vocals more than make up for it. Lang’s life was a mess, like many others, and when his life was changed as it was, you can not only hear but you can feel it in his vocals of the CD
If you can listen to Only A Man from that CD without feeling his heart,….. I won’t say any more. Its a gut wrencher with some of the most touching vocal I’ve heard
My 2 cents anyway
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@JohnStrat
Here you go John…what a great version had never heard it…niiice and raunchy…..what an album!!! Thanks!!! Just got it…there is soooo much I’ve missed out there…….@Don Deering we really do need a Blues Historian..and guide….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHeWHcSFQtM
Roberto
Roberto
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That is such a great album! Thanks for calling this out and posting the clip. This has got to be the version TYA heard and adapted. There’s already something on Hoodoo Man Blues that tells us Junior Wells and Buddy guy were aware of English blues-rock, there’s a reference to “Satisfaction” on one of the tunes (that’s what I remember, uh oh).
“D D DDD C A. G E. C A.”? Or is that lowest note not an E but an F? Sometimes one sounds right…
Don D.
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Hi Roberto is int it a beauty! I think it is a must for every blues collection. I hitchhiked the East Coast back in summer 74 and finally a couple of days before returning home in late October went to Harvard Square with a friend of mine and went round the blues record stores. I had 100 dollars set aside and my friend an expert blues player came with me and picked out a bunch of must have blues albums and one on the list was Hoodoo man Blues. Artists I remember collecting were Howlin wolf, Muddy, Little Walter, Buddy and Junior, Freddie Albert and BB King, jimmy reed and a bunch of others. It made coming home seem not so bad after 5 months. I had a ball the time of my life! Reality had to land!
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Just to add that Hoodoo man blues was I think recorded live in Pepers lounge. That is what gives it that raw feel. I think you can hear a till at one point in the background. To me it was exactly the sort of thing that I wanted to be able to play And seemed to epitomise Southside Chicago blues.
John Strat -
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Yes this is a fundamental album even if not quite at the bottom of the chronological pile, Im sure. Somehow the Stones managed to pick up on the south side Blues scene in the late fifties / early sixties. They are a bit older than me about a decade and I heard and bought all their early stuff and loved it. To me it was some of their very best .. numbers like ‘walking the dog, little red rooster etc’ I saw names like Dixon, Spann and Morganfield on the record labels as the song writer’s and could hear this common thread but nobody seemed to know who they were or where it had come form at least in my circle of friends. In those days there was just about one or two radio stations over hear Radio Luxembourg and later pirate radio in the shape of radio Caroline an off shore boat transmitting to the UK so it wasn’t so easy if you weren’t in London or some metropolis. Any way I finally discovered Muddy and the South side stuff and that was it for me.
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If anyone listens to the Junior Wells “Good Morning Schoolgirl,” what’s that bottom note, E or F? It sounds like the tune is in D, so the note would likely be F, but it sounds like an E to me. Which it could easily be, both sound good.
I’m saying the tune is in D. Please correct me if that’s wrong. Thanks.
Don D.
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John Strat, I got my Hoodoo out; it was recorded at Sound Studios, September 22 & 23, 1965. They were going for a live sound. Since it was Bob Koester (Google him, he’s in the news for opening another record store in Chicago at age 83) for his Delmark label, they were going for what the artists wanted to sound like. He said in the notes: “I always left the ‘producing’ to the leader on our sessions, jazz or blues.”
Hi Roberto, I will organize a discography, reading list and time line, in that order, I think, but it’s going to take a few months. I’m not an expert but I’ll be happy to share what I know, either in the Forum or in messages. If you think of something else that I should/could do, please let me know.
Don D.
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Roberto here is another artist you might know of JB Hutto here is a link https://youtu.be/E-PVxMWWKMM
A great player of that raunchy style we all love so much its good listening.
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