Re: [Harp-L] Mystery artist ID (offlist)

["Rick Dempster" <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Some more thoughts on this Stephen. I unintentionally posted the last reply offlist too.  Not being a resident of the USA, there are obviously some shortcomings in my musings on this topic. But I do wonder where one draws the line between, say, Henry Whitter in the '20s playing a 'fox chase' that could just as easily have been recorded by a 'coloured' player, as well as all the 'white blues' from the pre-war days (Frank Huthchison, Charlie Poole etc.) all of  which seem to represent a long tradition of whites assimilating black influence. What makes a guy like Joey Long so different from this? I'm not saying there isn't a difference, just wondering about it.
RD

>>> <spschndr@xxxxxxx> 12/07/2008 5:31 >>>
Rick,

Sorry about the last, didn't see an offlist tag on your message and 
gave an onlist-style reply; the HTML problem on my posts is giving me 
fits today, though it's only messing up the digest.  Look at 
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/LL/flo76.html for 
the ID on this artist, and googling his discography will turn up a 
Finnish site that fills out that picture pretty well.  The biography 
article doesn't mention that he was the biggest single influence on 
both Johnny Winter and Billy Gibbons, and that ZZ Top's signature 
hat/shades/long beard/cowboy boots look is a visual tribute to him, 
which is why I said that everyone knows what he looked like.  He was 
the patriarch of an entire posse of young whites who broke into the 
blues/R&B club scene in the Lou-Tex area from 1960 onward; the Winter 
brothers and Keith Ferguson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds were the 
best-known later.  I think Alan Haynes is the last of his proteges, way 
younger than the "Border Bandits" (as they styled themselves).  Thanks 
for responding, not sure who else is curious about the matter but I am 
wondering just when the white postwar blues harmonica revival got going 
on records and hope to get this guy a bit more of a footnote in 
harmonica history if he deserves it.

Regards,
Stephen


-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Dempster <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: spschndr@xxxxxxx 
Sent: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 9:26 am
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Sound files clarification re-send (ignore if 
garbled)



Stumped, Stephen; but then it's not much to go on, is it?
RD

>>> <spschndr@xxxxxxx> 11/07/08 10:15 PM >>>
This one didn't come out right in the digest, so I hope this version is
clean; there's been enough confusion on this issue already.  I notice
that fjm is bruiting my real name about; files at the Harp-L Google
Groups site Files page (http://groups.google.com/group/harp-l/files/)
that were uploaded by HTownFess are from me.  One can right-click on
sound filenames to save them to your machine for playback if streaming
doesn't work properly for you.  BTW, using recording programs like
Audacity to play back such saved mp3s can sometimes give you
interesting visual correlation of what you are hearing in A/B demos
(amplitude, etc.).

There are a couple of performance clips that I think I mentioned onlist
when I posted them.  8403 is my occasional all-tube jam, trying to
re-create the ca. 1950 soundscape with a 25w tube PA for vocals, Kay
hollowbody electric bass, small vintage guitar amps, etc.
SSBlueMid31608 is me playing Dave Nevling's Meteor Mini-Meat amp with
his Blues Kats band, just an amp demo workout on a LW standard.

MysteryHarp might stump even Winslow Yerxa and Rick Dempster, not that
it's necessarily from an area of their research: it's two snippets from
a 1961 single on an obscure record label, songs trying to cash in on
the popularity of Jimmy Reed's sound.  You may find it interesting that
it's a white guy playing the harmonica, possibly the earliest such
commercially recorded example of the postwar Chicago style; he's also
singing, and plays the lead guitar on the second snippet as well.
Hints: He actually had a single out in 1960 on Chess Records' Argo
subsidiary, he played the guitar on a classic that Rob Paparozzi loves
to cover, and you already know what he looks like.

I have been posting a cycle of sound clips involving impedance matching
that I will explain in separate & hopefully nongarbled posts.  They
start with SuproSupremeFinal, which began as a demo of harp mods to my
brother's 1947 Supro Supreme but wound up being a graphic illustration
of impedance matching issues with vintage mics, and one way to solve
those.  It transcends the category of gear-wonkery by showing how
proper impedance matching can audibly clarify the articulation of your
hand movements if you play in a cupped-mic style, projecting the
expressiveness of your playing better if you happen to use your hands
that way.

All these files will be taken down/moved elsewhere before long, so if
anyone in the future is reading this in the archives, the files in
question may not appear at the Google Groups page.  Boy, it feels weird
to write that.  Meanwhile, I'll wait to see whether this comes out
clean in the digest before posting anything else.

Stephen Schneider
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