[Harp-L] John Cephas R.I.P.



Tom, thanks for the sad news.   John Cephas was as much of a gentleman and all around nice guy as I ever met.  His wonderful music and playing will be sorely missed.   It's yet more motivation to play.  

-Dave Fertig



On Wed, 3/4/09, Tom Ball wrote:
PIEDMONT BLUES GUITARIST AND VOCALIST JOHN CEPHAS, 1930 - 2009

"Wonderfully rich vocals and jaunty acoustic guitar. Plenty of spirit and
soul, humor and sorrow." The Washington Post

"Blues music is truth." John Cephas

Master blues guitarist and vocalist John Cephas died of natural causes on
Wednesday, March 4, 2009. He was 78. Well known as one half of the award-winning
Piedmont blues duo Cephas & Wiggins, John's remarkable and delicate
finger picking and rich, baritone vocals placed him firmly at the forefront of
acoustic blues artists. John received a National Heritage Fellowship Award
(often called the "Living Treasure Award") in 1989. This is the
highest honor the U.S. Government offers a traditional artist. Two weeks ago,
John was honored as one of eight black trailblazers as designated by the Library
of Virginia's African American History Month.

John Cephas, along with his harmonica playing partner Phil Wiggins, performed
thousands of concerts and festivals all over the world. Often under the auspices
of the U.S. State Department, the two spent much of the 1980s abroad, playing
Europe, Africa, Central and South America, China, Australia and New Zealand. In
1988, they were among the first Americans to perform at the Russian Folk
Festival in Moscow. In 1997 Cephas & Wiggins performed for President Bill
Clinton. In addition, John appeared on stage portraying a blind bluesman in the
Kennedy Center production of Blind Man Blues. He also appeared in a production
of Zora Neal Hurston's play, Polk County, in Washington, D.C.

Among his many endeavors, John served on the Executive Committee of the
National Council for the Traditional Arts, and has testified before
Congressional committees. He is also a founder of the Washington, D.C. Blues
Society. "More than anything else," said John, "I would like to
see a revival of country blues by more young people --more people going to
concerts, learning to play the music. That's why I stay in the field of
traditional music. I don't want it to die."

John Cephas was born in Washington, D.C. in 1930 into a deeply religious family
and raised in Bowling Green, Virginia. His first taste of music was gospel, but
blues soon became his calling. After learning to play the alternating thumb and
fingerpicking guitar style that defines Piedmont blues, John began emulating the
records he heard by Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Blake, Rev. Gary Davis and other
early blues artists. Aside from playing blues, John worked early on as a
professional gospel singer, carpenter and Atlantic fisherman. By the 1960s, he
was starting to make a living from his music.

John first met his future partner Phil Wiggins in 1976 at the Smithsonian
National Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. and the two quickly formed a duo.
By the early 1980s, the international blues community recognized this marvelous
acoustic twosome as the leading exponents of traditional Tidewater blues. While
overseas in 1981, they recorded two albums, Living Country Blues and Sweet
Bitter Blues, for the German L&R label. Cephas & Wiggins recorded their
first domestic album, Dog Days Of August (Flying Fish Records), in 1987 in
John's living room, and it quickly won a Blues Music Award for Best
Traditional Blues Album of the Year.

In 1996, Cephas & Wiggins made their Alligator Records debut with Cool
Down. They followed up with Homemade, Somebody Told The Truth and Shoulder To
Shoulder. Their most recent CD, 2009's Richmond Blues, was released on the
Smithsonian Folkways label.


Yeh mon
You were playin da ska riddim 8!)

If you've got one of the more advanced DAW/sequencer software packages like
Ableton Live, Logic, Sonar, maybe Reaper?  you can set up "training"
scenarios. The short story is ... you create a drum pattern made up of only the
'beat' you want to train yourself to play on. In this case, a note
1/16th after the quarter notes of a 4/4 pattern (is that what you meant?)
The output of the drum pattern doesn't play an instrument, it goes to the
sidechain of a gate on an audio track. You play into the audio track (you
don't have to record, just arm and monitor) and if you are on the mark, you
will be heard - if not, silence. When you get the hang of it, add more or less
"Groove" to the pattern to keep you on your toes and avoid robotics.
I used this with a guitarist-friend who had never played except with his own
voice and really needed some help with timing, especially for doing the
multitrack demos he wanted. Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Staggerin' Jim
Listen to Roots Harmonica at http://www.live365.com/stations/staggerinjim
P.S. to listeners - I've been too busy to update the 'show' but
will do so in the next couple of days

----- Original Message ----- From: <jim.alciere@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 10:40 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] reggae


> I've been playing reggae all wrong. I've been playing on the
"and" but I
> should be playing on the first 16th note. Back to the metronome.
> 
> Can anyone offer any advice on how to play behind the beat?
> 
> -- Rainbow Jimmy


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