Re: [Harp-L] Real "blues" has few native tunes (and perhaps two dozen decent riffs)

[philharpn@xxxxxxx]

I have the last Little Walter box set on my iPod and I recently re-read the Little Walter biography Blues With a Feeling (ebook & paperback) and was surprised to find that the box set contained many of the same songs recorded by Little Walter under different titles. I wouldn't call them "limitless capacity for fresh invention" as much repetition with little variation. I was listening to recordings on my iPod -- not playing CDs and reading liner notes -- I thought my damn iPod was playing the same song over (and if was, basically). Some may call it creativity but others may say he couldn't play the same song twice the same way. 


(The box set is only available as a MP3 download ($56-)- unless you can find a collectible. ($869-- eight hundred) I own a Little Walter CD box set from several years ago (import?bootleg) which is safely filed away in my archive somewhere -- which is why I purchased the download. I remember one of the quotes from the liner notes by Larry Adler who said that Little Walter really could have been great had he ever bothered to learn to read music!


Which doesn't diminish his contribution and arrangement ability. After Sonny Boy I (John Lee Williamson) who really put the harp in front of the band, Little Walter was the greatest.




Blues With a Feeling was first recorded in 1947 by Rabon Tarrant with Jack McVea and His All Stars. The book makes it clear that Little Walter recorded (covered) many songs first recorded or popularized by others.


So in a sense, Little Walter followed directly in the trail opened by Robert Johnson -- virtually every song Johnson recorded was based on or rewritten from some body else's recording.


Which puts them in the class of people whose recorded arrangements and performances surpassed and outsold (outperformed) continued by people like Elvis and James Taylor.


The problem, if it is one, rests partly from blues songs like Sittin on Top of the World that have shared its lyrics and melody with hundreds of other "original" songs.  Robert Johnson's recordings easily can be traced to the sheet music book and CD The Roots of Robert Johnson -- and so can many other popular blues. The fact that so many sound the same is that they are the same. 


My Babe (written by Willie Dixon, performed Little Walter) was based on This Train first recorded in 1925 but became a gospel hit in the late 1930s for Sister Rosetta Tharpe who played her electric guitar and sang gospel songs in night clubs.


The 44 Blues (aka Vicksburg Blues) is one of my favorite. Often it is difficult to determine which came first because the later version became more popular (cf: Guitar Rag and Steel Guitar Rag). One thing I can say for certain, is that if you are looking for a recording or sheet music of a particular song, it is helpful to know all its names. One guy spent a long time looking without success for Danny Boy but found it fast under its classic (underlying tune) Londonderry Air. Of course, Londonderry Air (1855) wasn't its original name  either, but that's another story.


Hound Dog was written by Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller and originally recorded by Big Mama Thornton but made popular by Elvis. I, like most of my generation, first heard Elvis's version and still prefer it to Thornton's. 


And everybody knows there are more than two dozen decent riffs -- I can think of at least three dozen off the top of my head!


There are maybe a half-dozen Little Walter songbooks in and out of print but I would like to see a serious analysis of his work. Each of the songbooks has a few songs. Blues With a Feeling describes the recording process but contains little musical analysis and no music notation. 


Basically, it's a matter of price: it costs too much for the rights to reprint or transcribe Little Walter's recordings -- even if the owners can be located. And there will always be some holdouts. The Joplin ragtime book that came out in the 1970s lacked three tunes because they were still under copyright. So if you wanted a "complete set" you had to buy the three tunes separately. Probably everything Little Walter recorded is still under copyright and each owner is convinced his song is the most valuable ever recorded. 


Hope this clears everything up,
Phil






-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Eyers <tony@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Mon, Jun 2, 2014 10:38 pm
Subject: [Harp-L] Real "blues" has few native tunes (and perhaps two dozen decent riffs)


A recent post contained the following "Real "blues" has few native tunes 
(and perhaps two dozen decent riffs)"

Ahem. Where do we start...

Perhaps with Little Walter and "The Complete Chess Masters" The 
alternate takes in particular show his limitless capacity for fresh 
invention.

Tony Eyers
Australia
www.HarmonicaAcademy.com
...everyone plays