Mississippi Fred McDowell

[Tonray's Ghost]

[toomanycats]

Interesting that quote of the cover:

"I do not play no rock 'n' roll."

Rock 'n' roll is an unacknowledged bastard child of the blues that Mississippi Fred McDowell doesn't want to be associated with. I can respect that; the purism of it; the sense of resentment felt by one who has been playing a type of folk music all their life endemic to a certain people, of a particular culture, in a local region, uniquely expressing their joys and sorrows, and who then sees that thing co-opted, transplanted to other parts of the world, morphed into strange other forms, sanitized and commercialized.

If I was a black man from the South playing the blues, and I saw Pat Boone doing his thing and calling it rock 'n' roll, I would not want to be associated with that. I too would probably make a statement explicitly rejecting it.

The bookend to that Mississippi Fred McDowell quote may be Lemmy's words at the opening of every show:

"We are Motörhead and we play rock n' roll."

I'm not exactly sure why Lemmy said that, but I postulate that he wanted to communicate that Motörhead wasn't hard rock, or heavy metal, speed metal, thrash, or any of the other genres which the influence of his band has been cited as being instrumental in the development of. Lemmy wanted Motörhead to be associated with the earliest and most pure form of the art, which for him was rock n' roll. Lemmy loved and embraced the bastard whom Mississippi Fred McDowell disowned.

Great post @tonebender. You're like the older brother I never had whose record collection turns me onto stuff I might have missed.

[tonebender]

I think you meant @Tonray's Ghost.

I hear Baby Please Don't Go frequently on Sirius 74 Bluesville. I listen to that channel a lot and love it when they play all the scratchy vinyl acoustic blues that was so inspirational to all musicians after them. When I am tuned into that channel and they go from the old scratchy vinyl recordings to a brand new song by Joe Bonamassa or some other contemporary artist. It's like looking at a Model T parked next to a brand new Corvertte.

[uwmcscott]

It would be interesting to go back and see how that music was accepted/viewed by contemporaries of the time, as compared to how we accept/discuss new music today. @tonebender I have had Sirius for many years and have never listened to that channel - will definitely check it out on the way home tonight. @Tonray's Ghost , hope all is well over on the other side of the world. A couple guys from of our research group were at a conference in Cambodia last week - they went from MSP to South Korea, then Vietnam, and then Cambodia with some long layovers in-between. Almost 48 hours of total travel time including layovers and transfers.

[Tonray's Ghost]

It would be interesting to go back and see how that music was accepted/viewed by contemporaries of the time, as compared to how we accept/discuss new music today. @tonebender I have had Sirius for many years and have never listened to that channel - will definitely check it out on the way home tonight. @Tonray's Ghost , hope all is well over on the other side of the world. A couple guys from of our research group were at a conference in Cambodia last week - they went from MSP to South Korea, then Vietnam, and then Cambodia with some long layovers in-between. Almost 48 hours of total travel time including layovers and transfers.

I've only been to Cambodia once for a visa run and the only to the special zone between borders where they have several monster casinos. A scarily lawless area where you need to be quite aware of your surroundings at all times. I hear Phnom Penh is quite nice however, someday want to see.

[Tonray's Ghost]

Interesting that quote of the cover:

"I do not play no rock 'n' roll."



Great post @tonebender. You're like the older brother I never had whose record collection turns me onto stuff I might have missed.

You're confused, @tonebender is the guy who can actually play the guitar. I'm the guy hanging out in Thailand chasing mosquitoes

[toomanycats]

I think you meant @Tonray's Ghost.

I hear Baby Please Don't Go frequently on Sirius 74 Bluesville. I listen to that channel a lot and love it when they play all the scratchy vinyl acoustic blues that was so inspirational to all musicians after them. When I am tuned into that channel and they go from the old scratchy vinyl recordings to a brand new song by Joe Bonamassa or some other contemporary artist. It's like looking at a Model T parked next to a brand new Corvertte.

Yes, you're absolutely correct, my mistake. But I still consider you, as well as some others here in the category of being around ten years older than me, as the older brothers I never had. Now @mickey, he's like a kindly, left-handed, weird old uncle.

[tonebender]

It would be interesting to go back and see how that music was accepted/viewed by contemporaries of the time, as compared to how we accept/discuss new music today. @tonebender I have had Sirius for many years and have never listened to that channel - will definitely check it out on the way home tonight. @Tonray's Ghost , hope all is well over on the other side of the world. A couple guys from of our research group were at a conference in Cambodia last week - they went from MSP to South Korea, then Vietnam, and then Cambodia with some long layovers in-between. Almost 48 hours of total travel time including layovers and transfers.

It would be interesting! The Tonebenders always had on the set list a song called Wayfaring Stranger that was a straight 1-4-5 blues tune. The song was an old gospel/folk tune published in 1858. I have had occasion to learn several gospel songs and many are 1-4-5 with the relative minor thrown in. I suppose a lot of music has been that way since humans created instruments and figured out how to produce melodies. Each generation puts a spin on it. The blues players were probably pissing off the elders of the time when they took the chord structures from gospel and folk, changed the phrasing, and created the 12 bar blues with lyrics less than gospel.

It reminds me of the saying, "there is nothing new under the sun." Innovators are few and modifiers are rest of us. This is a great thread.

[uwmcscott]

It reminds me of the saying, "there is nothing new under the sun." Innovators are few and modifiers are rest of us. This is a great thread.

Agreed on all counts, although I also just learned that I can log in to Sirius on my PC and listen at work. Dr. John "One 2am too many" currently playing. We'll see if some blues can help make the day a little less blue

[tonebender]

Awesome, I learned that my Sirius subscription for my wife's car includes the ability for me to have it on my cell phone. That means I can bluetooth it to my Devon receiver on my home stereo and plug it into the aux in both my pickup and the band van. I listen to Sirius 90% of the time. I had the ability to that for several years before I discovered it. Boy, did I miss out all that time.