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



I don't think I said Joey Long was so different from that--what I was
trying to draw attention to is what seems like a nearly twenty-year
hiatus (1940-1960) between the artists you mention and Joey Long's
first singles.  I think you're right that Long is squarely in the
tradition of those earlier artists, just brings that up to date for
1961, but why is Long alone as a harmonica player in his age group?
Possibly he was alone in getting onto records.  I'm pretty sure I've
seen Steve Miller say something in an interview to the effect that
when he got to Chicago ca. 1964, "people thought Paul Butterfield's
band was a big deal, but that stuff had been going on in the South for
years, white bands with great singers and harmonica players."  Might
be exaggeration on Miller's part, but there were Delbert McClinton and
James Harman for sure, and in the 1950s there was that "cat music"
scene in the South of whites who were into listening to blues and
R&B.  But it's odd that it's not on records, when as you say there
were a number of between-wars artists recording the earlier styles of
blues harp.

Really, I was deconstructing the dominant narrative where Cyril
Davies, Paul Butterfield, Charlie Musselwhite, Delbert McClinton,
Brian Jones et al come along and help revive blues harmonica.  Joey
Long was doing it all along, though he had a lot more impact as a
guitarist (Johnny Winter, Billy Gibbons and Alan Haynes were all
proteges to different degrees), and playing guitar on Clarence
"Frogman" Henry's "I Ain't Got No Home" and Link Davis' "Big Mamou" is
how most people have heard him.  I don't know whether that would be a
major difference from the between-wars harmonicists, the degree to
which Long worked in black bands--my impression is that the
1920s-1930s musical canon was integrated, but the bands weren't
reverse-integrated.  That seems like a sociological difference instead
of a musical one.  A remarkable story there, Long's right up there as
far as shadowy legendary blues figures go.

Stephen Schneider

On Jul 13, 8:56 pm, "Rick Dempster" <rick.demps...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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.




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