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Thursday, March 09, 2006
MOTHERLESS CHILE BLUES
Barbecue Bob
Columbia 78 : 1927
Available on: Barbecue Bob vol. 1: 1927-1928
Document : 1994
[Buy It]
ROCK'N'ROLL
John Lee Hooker
Modern 78 : 1950
Available on: The Classic Early Years 1948-1951
JSP : 2002
[Buy It]
I wasn't organ-harvesting, Brian - I was peddling penicillin, in Vienna. But I know what you mean: Like Barbecue Bob, 'I'm a motherless child/And I don't know right from wrong.'
I'm not the only one who's confused: Lord I rolled and I rolled
And I tried the whole night long.
Lord, I rolled this morning-
I didn't know right from wrong John Lee Hooker sings in "Rock'n'Roll." This song shouldn't even exist - everyone knows rock and roll started when Elvis swept himself into Sun Studios, in 1954 or so - but here it is, recorded in Detroit for Modern Records, four years earlier. You'll say it's not a rock and roll song, and (again) I know what you mean, but then - what is?
ROCK IT FOR ME
Ella Fitzgerald
Decca 78 : 1937
Available on: The Early Years, Part 1
Verve : 1997
[Buy It]
ROCK ME
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Decca 78 : 1941
Available on: The Gospel of The Blues
MCA : 2000
[Buy It]
Here's Ella Fitzgerald, with the Chick Webb Orchestra, recording for Decca in May of 1937. Light years away from rock and roll as we know it, butIt's true that, once upon a time, the opera was the thing,
But today the rage is rhythm and rhyme
So won't you satisfy my soul with the rock and roll- does set the stage for "Roll Over, Beethoven," doesn't it? And here's Rosetta Tharpe's "Rock Me," which makes a pretty segue, to boot. This was recorded with Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra, also for Decca, in New York, in September of 1941. Jerma Jackson read the song brilliantly in her book "Singing in My Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age." Another Dorsey wrote the song - "as a prayer for divine protection," Jackson writes:Jesus hear me praying
Hear the words that I'm saying - but Tharpe "coached her plea with vague references that failed to address the divine by name":Now don't you hear me singing,
Hear the words that I'm saying- and would have given Dorsey's next line: Moist my soul with water from on high an erotic twist John Donne & Hildegard von Bingen would have appreciated (had Tharpe left it in, which she didn't).
THE STORY OF A MARRIED WOMAN
John Lee Hooker
Modern 78 : 1950
Available on: The Classic Early Years 1948-1951
JSP : 2002
[Buy It]
DEVIL GOT MY WOMAN
Skip James
Paramount 78 : 1930
Available on: The Complete Early Recordings
Yazoo : 1994
[Buy It]
Like "Rock'n'Roll," "The Story of a Married Woman" is a nervous, uncertain song, full of shame and dread: "You'se a married woman/I'm scared to call your name."(The opening words of the song this post started off with are "Lord my mind is a woman/Don't know what she means." And midway through "Devil Got My Woman" (first couplet: "I'd rather be the devil/That to be that woman's man"), Skip James singsLord I lay down last night,
Tried to get my rest-
My mind got to ramblin'
Like a wild geese from the west. (This song's always cited as a sort of proof of life - American authenticy's doing well, folks - cue up Ghost World and stick another 78 on the wall! but - listen!))
None of these are rock and roll songs - but then, what's rock and roll? I wish I had Nick Tosches' "Unsung Heroes of Rock and Roll" around - he listed two pages worth of songs with the title, most of them from the 20s, 30s, and 40s. The phrase goes way back - it described the shoulder-rolling and back-and forth-rocking of the old-time Pentecostal services. And it was a well-worn euphemism for fucking. (Sister Rosetta could have told you told all about seminal fluids seeping into the sacrament.) But no, these songs are something else. Listening again, even that Barbecue Bob song is disturbing.Labels: alex
posted by Alex
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