This Week's Show: March 25-28

Georgia on My Mind:
The Blues Men and Women of Georgia

When you bring up the history of the blues, many folks will immediately envision the Mississippi delta, or perhaps, depending on the era, refer to the cities of Memphis or Chicago. But throughout the years, from the early recordings of Barbeque Bob to the sizzlin' blues rock of the Allman Brothers Band, the red clay roads of rural and small town Georgia and the city streets of Atlanta have provided the world with a wealth of the blues.

"Barbecue Bob" Hicks

This week Spinning Tales has Georgia on its mind as we hear from blues artists like Robert "Barbecue Bob" Hicks. Hicks, his brother Charlie and Curley Weaver were taught to play the guitar by Curley's mother, Savannah "Dip" Weaver, a highly regarded pianist and guitar player and his 1927 recording "Barbecue Blues" made him Columbia's best selling artist at the time. By the time of his untimely death in 1931 (at age 29)
of TB and pneumonia brought on during an influenza epidemic, he had recorded 68 songs, some of them collaborations with his brother Charlie or others, including Nellie Florence.  His final recordings in 1930 were done as a member of the Georgia Cotton Pickers, with Curley Weaver also playing guitar and singing-- and a 16 year old Buddy Moss playing harmonica. We'll also hear more from Weaver and Moss who would go on to record solo, as members of the Georgia Browns, and with other musicians over the years including Josh White, Blind Willie McTell and Fred McMullen . (Weaver's daughter, Cora Mae Bryant would continue father's legacy as Atlanta's "Empress of the Blues" until her death in 2008.)

Wrapped around our two stories this week, we'll also hear early recordings of Blind Willie McTell, Lowe Stokes and His North Georgians, Tom Darby and Jimmy Tarlton, Fiddlin' John Carson, Peg Leg Howell and others, focusing  for a bit on Cecil Barfield, the rural bluesmen that George Martin discovered in 1976.  An example of the blues played throughout rural Georgia far from the recording studios of the big cities, Barfield (aka William Robertson) had been playing the blues since he rigged up a cooking oil can with a single string at age 5, frailing and singing at parties, frolics and other events over the years as he lived a life of rural poverty "plowing mules and tractors."

Many of this week's artists didn't come by the blues easily, it emerged from lives sometimes marred with stretches in prison, dire poverty and heartbreak. Some like Barbecue Bob lived short lives.  Others like Frank Edwards died at age 93 in South Carolina as he was being driven back to his home in Atlanta after what became his final recording session in 2002.  Some, like Blind Willie McTell, apparently ended their lives in alcoholism, again playing on the streets for change.  Others like Georgia Tom Dorsey, "the father of black gospel music" had long and successful professional careers.

Yet, as diverse as their lives may have been, they were united in their passion for playing the blues.  For them--and for us--this music sings of something essentially human. And through the magic of technology it is ours again this week on Spinning Tales.

This Weeks Stories:

This week we'll rejoin Kendry on her eight month journey from Cairo to South Africa at around 4:30 and then hear another Native American story "The Passing of the Buffalo" from Nancy Andry's CD, Winter Lodge, at 5:30 or so.  Join us for these tales and--as always--the music!