Re: [Harp-L] Re: Juke

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

I remember reading a long interview with Muddy Waters guitarist Jimmy Rogers in Living Blues, circa 1974. Rogers stated that when he first met Walter, Walter was a brilliant but wild kid with no proper sense of time (beats in a bar, bars on a blues verse) and that Rogers and Waters taught him to play in time.

Lacking a strict sense of meter or form was not uncommon in the rural south, especially among musicians who played without accompaniment. It could be that at certain moments in Juke, Walter was simply reverting to old habits.

I'm not where I can check, but it seems to me that there is one other place in Juke where the time departs from the norm. It's a few verses in, during the part of the tune where the chord has returned from the IV chord to the I chord, just before going to the the V chord. Walter adds 2 beats to the last measure of I just before playing the lick that launches the V chord.

Anyone else notice this?

Winslow

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Fri, 1/23/09, Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Re: Juke
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Friday, January 23, 2009, 2:40 PM

  
billrossoll@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
The  story I have heard/read about Juke is that it was simply a jam that 
<the  band used as a break lead-in. Little Walter originally called it 
<something  like "Your Cat Will Play". He reportedly got the theme
from 
<something that  Sunnyland Slim was doing. The rhythm
"irregularities" are 
<simply  mistakes.

I heard that Walter heard Junior Wells play the tune in a club one night, and
made sure to record it as soon as possible after.  But whatever.   

Walter came out of the rural blues tradition, and changes to the meter of a bar
or the structure of a 12-bar chorus weren't unusual in that tradition. 
Apparently what mattered most was a strong pulse, not the number of bars in a
chorus.  Listen to the live recording of pianist Champion Jack Dupree at the
Montreaux jazz festival--his sidemen, great musicians all, are constantly
surprised by what he's doing to the form.

We hear that stuff as a rhythmic irregularity or a mistake.  I'm sure that
to Walter and his bandmates in late forties/early fifties Chicago, it was just
the way the music was played.  

Regards, Richard Hunter
latest mp3s and harmonica blog at http://myspace.com/richardhunterharp

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