Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society
Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society
Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society
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`<br />
<br />
<br />
-<br />
blues gui<br />
- <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
play <strong>the</strong> same thing identical to what he was playing, note for note. I was still in my teens<br />
<br />
guitar! So we were both standing onstage playing our guitars behind our heads. But <strong>the</strong>n<br />
<br />
going down slow, doing <strong>the</strong> splits. Now that was painful just for me to watch. I told him,<br />
149<br />
<br />
Experiences like this helped turn Williams into <strong>the</strong> top-notch session player who played<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
onstage at a different club in Chica<br />
<br />
D E L T A<br />
D<br />
<br />
-hundred-mile triangle <strong>of</strong> rich<br />
black soil that was flooded each spring by <strong>the</strong> Mississippi River before man intervened.<br />
The land is completely flat from Memphis, Tennessee to Vicksburg, Mississippi, and is<br />
bounded by <strong>the</strong> Tallahatchie and Yazoo Rivers to <strong>the</strong> east, and <strong>the</strong> Mississippi River to<br />
<strong>the</strong> west. The Delta is covered with cotton and soybean fields, and dotted with<br />
little towns.<br />
This river-rich soil was once covered with dense forests and canebrakes, through which<br />
sluggish bayous meandered. Cotton farmers first began <strong>the</strong> hard, slow work <strong>of</strong> clearing<br />
<strong>the</strong> land in 1835, but made little progress. Determined to get back on <strong>the</strong>ir feet after <strong>the</strong><br />
Civil War ended in 1865, <strong>the</strong> farmers used cheap labor to redouble <strong>the</strong>ir efforts to clear<br />
<br />
<br />
wages and civil rights which had been lost in o<strong>the</strong>r part<br />
wrote in <strong>Blues</strong> from <strong>the</strong> Delta. 150<br />
Thousands <strong>of</strong> Irish immigrants went to <strong>the</strong> Delta to find work, as well. Many were<br />
forcibly conscripted to work on <strong>the</strong> levee and <strong>the</strong> land-clearing crews. Irish immigrants<br />
were sometimes referr<br />
151<br />
<br />
In <strong>the</strong> Delta, haunting Irish folksongs <strong>of</strong> pain and<br />
woe influenced <strong>the</strong> developing blues.<br />
79