This Week's Show: February 11, 2011

Bo Carter

Over a month ago, Spinning Tales proclaimed we'd have the blues all winter long.  With two feet or more of snow adorning the fields here in western Massachusetts, it's obvious we've got a lot more blues to play.

This week we'll start with 4 cuts from Columbia's Roots 'n' Blues, Retrospective 1925-1950 featuring Tom Darby and Jimmie Tarlton, Whistlin' Alex Moore, Bo Carter, and Lonnie Johnson. We'll then continue on with a few by blues guitarist Bukka White on the Arhoolie label and more by Lonnie Johnson, sometimes considered the father of jazz guitar, on Smithsonian Folkways.  (This week's first story will actually be a tale by Bukka White!)

We'll then focus in for a bit on Son House, who is often considered to be one the true masters of blues guitar. We'll hear a couple of his songs, then listen to interpretations of those same songs by contemporary blueswoman Rory Block from her 1988 CD "Blues Walking Like a Man: A Tribute to Son House"

Son House

In Rory Block's words Eddie James "Son" House  "was the boulder on which the Cathedral was built."  A musical partner of blues icons Charley Patton and Willie Brown, Son House says he taught Robert Johnson to play.  It's clear he was a role model for the legendary slide guitar of Muddy Waters.  Like Mississippi John Hurt, Son House had faded from public view for decades, working for the New York Central Railroad until he was "rediscovered" in the folk blues revival of the 1960's.  In 1980 he was in the first class of inductees into the Blues Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame.

Then, after the Son set, we'll move from the guitar to the piano and enjoy more blues, ranging through barrelhouse and boogie woogie with Whistlin' Alex Moore on Arhoolie, then Roosevelt Sykes, Champion Jack Dupree and Little Brother Montgomery on the Smithsonian Folkways label.

This Week's Stories

As promised, we'll hear a "shaggy dog" blues story by bluesman Bukka White at around 4:30.  Then we'll continue through Nancy Andry's CD, Winter Lodge, with another Native American tale.