Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society

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` No matter what odd device the player decides to slide along the guitar strings, the idea behind all slide playing is very simple: instead of fretting a string to create a pitch, the when playing slide, as pitch intonation depends on touching the string in exactly the right place. The guitarist has to play more like a violinist, acutely conscious of pitch. To make a bottleneck slide, start by measuring the length of the finger that will wear the slide. Most players use their pinkie so they can use the other three fingers to form chords behind the slide, but some prefer the greater control obtained by wearing the slide on the ring finger. Take a glasscutter and scratch a line around the neck of the bottle so that the distance from the top of the bottle to the scratched line equals the length of your finger. Set aside a bowl of ice water. Heat the bottle in boiling water and then plunge it into the ice water. Take it out after fifteen seconds or so and you should be able to crack the neck right off. Sand the cut edge smooth with some fine sandpaper. And please, before you go to all this trouble, make sure your slide finger fits into the bottle. Song: - Big Joe Williams (Joe Lee Williams) BU F F E T F L A T From the early 1900s to the 1930s, speakeasies and houses of ill repute in African because they offered a buffet of sex shows, marijuana, and other illegal diversions, typically in a privately owned apartment or a house that had been divided up into apartments (flats). The Chicago Tribune reported on January 24, 1911, that y-second Street south in Michigan Avenue, Wabash Avenue, State Street, and the cross streets as far south as Thirty-first Street is a rich district of the so-called buffet flats. There, too, can be found hundreds of handbooks, gaming houses, and all night saloons of the most vicious 86 10,000 buffet flats operating in Manhattan and Brooklyn. 87 Bessie Smith, The Complete Recordings, Vol. 5 (Sony 1996), the buffet flats also served as banks - the Pullman train 48
` porters. The porters made better money than most African Americans at the time, but they were constantly traveling and unable to safely deposit their earnings in a bank. During layovers in cities like New York and Detroit, therefore, the porters banked (and Bessie Smith was a heavy-set, dark-skinned woman with mischievous eyes and a face like a full moon. Early in her career she was rejected by Irvin C. Miller, the powerful African American show producer, because her dark complexion conflicted with his motto nearly 800,000 copies in six months and made her a star who sold out whites-only theaters as quickly as she did black venues. take her after a show- to a buffet flat. The buffet flat was also a safe place for the drag queens who fo -hours joint: She give a dance last Friday night that was to end at one But when the time was almost up, the fun had just begun Smith stops short of describing exactly what went on at the flat, beyond singing: The pianist is using the soft pedal on the piano, as the lady of the house- afraid of being busted for keeping a party going after-hours- Ruby, who traveled on tour with Bessie, held nothing back in a recorded interview called Buffet means everything goes on. They had a faggot that was so great that people used to by the time he got to the front of that guy he was shaking like a leaf. People would pay good just to see him do his 88 49
Page 2 and 3: ` Ebook published February 1, 2012
Page 4 and 5: ` Winner of the 2007 ASC AP Deems T
Page 6 and 7: ` Foreword John Lee Hooker, and
Page 8 and 9: ` To Son Seals, for inspiration vii
Page 10 and 11: ` Savannah Syncopators African Rhy
Page 12 and 13: ` English by Joseph Holloway and Wi
Page 14 and 15: ` nicked words and phrases from the
Page 16 and 17: ` List of Entries Please note that
Page 18 and 19: ` A L C O RUB A The drink of last r
Page 20 and 21: ` Tommy Johnson in his only known p
Page 22 and 23: ` Bad Axe (Alligator Records) befo
Page 24 and 25: ` some people do think that, but if
Page 26 and 27: ` Blues musicians also used bailing
Page 28 and 29: ` Songs: - Bessie Smith/H.Webman
Page 30 and 31: ` Songs: - Lovie Austin, performed
Page 32 and 33: ` Grab hold of a black cat, she tol
Page 34 and 35: ` Armstrong did for the trumpet. Wi
Page 36 and 37: ` exier the drunker the dancers b
Page 38 and 39: ` The singing and drumming of the n
Page 40 and 41: ` griots, who keep tribal historie
Page 42 and 43: ` Songs: - Big Bill Broonzy (Willi
Page 44 and 45: ` Williams explained. 77 deer hun
Page 46 and 47: ` The modern guitar is a direct des
Page 50 and 51: ` Bessie Smith beaming in a publici
Page 52 and 53: ` dates back even further, to the C
Page 54 and 55: ` The wardens at country prison far
Page 56 and 57: ` C H I C K The Wolof word jigen de
Page 58 and 59: ` The word chitterling comes from O
Page 60 and 61: ` cock. It 104 Muddy Waters, a.k.
Page 62 and 63: ` Bob M argolin and M uddy Waters,
Page 64 and 65: ` Songs: - Bukka White (Booker
Page 66 and 67: ` C O NJUR E To conjure is to cast
Page 68 and 69: ` 119 the force that character Ult
Page 70 and 71: ` always had this sly smile going
Page 72 and 73: ` C R OSS N O T E Tuning the guitar
Page 74 and 75: ` Johnson was believed by some to h
Page 76 and 77: ` 144 Robert Lockwood became know
Page 78 and 79: ` Songs: - Will Day - Robert John
Page 80 and 81: ` Charlie Patton began recording fo
Page 82 and 83: ` good came out of leaving the pla
Page 84 and 85: ` In blues songs, a person who has
Page 86 and 87: ` Memphis M innie flashes her gold
Page 88 and 89: ` touch the dust and the dust begin
Page 90 and 91: ` which he declared: Songs: Big
Page 92 and 93: ` toenail clippings, or skin from
Page 94 and 95: ` around- brothers were called Wid
Page 96 and 97: ` she went out one morning and foun
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` men feared losing their women to
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` When the Europeans came, when the
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` Songs: Gris- - Dr. John (Mac Rebe
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` H E L L H O UND (see also B L A C
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` H O B O C O C K T A I L When you
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` New Orleans boogie- Songs: -
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` for Jewish. He noted that there a
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` Songs: - Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbe
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` Songs: I drink so much of Jake,
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` Bluebird Records in 1941], I star
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` he flame of a black candle, or p
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` African American charms made with
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` In From Juba to Jive: A Dictionar
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` He said he had friends still in A
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` les my den Although harmless to
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` acres of rich farmland that would
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` , Elmore performances in Chicag
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` Ace set the template that Elvis
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` Three factors determine what a mo
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` produced today in Appalachia, mos
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` The connection between prostitute
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` own. The first state lottery was
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` Meanwhile, thousands of hoe-boys
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` back in the early 1900s, Simmons
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` unregulated entertainment, such a
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` 320 Texas stuff and some Chicago
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` Songs: - Bukka White (Booker T.
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` to play on metal or a box with t
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` Shankings, or stabbings, were fai
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` Some plantation owners were fair,
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` SH I M M Y The shimmy is a dance
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` SH U F F L E The famous blues shu
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` 350 The African American tales
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` to many songs that Dixon wrote ex
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` Songs: Mmm, where my Third Street
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` the far more popular blues artist
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` Songs: - Peetie Wheatstraw - Ha
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` Blues players sometimes also call
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` Songs in Vestapol: Many fine exam
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` True vibrato requires significant
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` On August 22, 1791, Haitian slave
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` W H O OPI E, W H O OPIN G phemis
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` Songs: - Blind Boy Fuller (Fulto
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` Zombie horror imagery figured pro
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` 39 The Life and Selected Writings
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` 131 132 Chernoff, p. 143. 133 A
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` 225 -jungle.html. 226 The Dictio
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` 315 Louisiana Folklore Miscellan
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` Selected Bibliography Charters, S
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Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society

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