Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society

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Foreword
John Lee Hooker, and barrelhouse blues. Each set added its own language to the blues.
A lot of bucket-of-blood joints, for instance, catered to the junkies and the pimps and the
hos. The street set would hang at them joints when the bands they liked would be there,
-for-them music. The juke joint was a different kind of
set. It was more sophisticated than a bucket-of-
shankings in a juke joint as you will in a bucket of blood. You d
blood for nothing.
under his armpit with an oyster knife! There was a big pile of blood, right where
-of-blood kinda lyric. I was
always listening for stuff like that. When I first would write songs I would bring them to
all these guys in the different record companies in New Orleans back then, and they
always would turn me down. So one day I talked to Earl King and Huey Smith, and Huey
Smith did a real beneficial thing- he gave me a book for kids called How and Why. It had
thes
- like what girls sing when they jump rope
Tales From The
Crypt
was to listen to what people said on
the street.
once upon a time it me
general public was on to that, so they reversed it and Stevie Wonder had a hit record,
The street language in New Orleans that inspired me was not on just any streets in New
Orleans; it was the lower Ninth Ward. New Orleans has got twenty different languages
floating through it, but the lower Ninth Ward is the root. I used to hear all kinds of
sayings down there. Like, if you want to get a chick, or a chick wants to give a guy head,
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