Experience

A Few Examples of and Gospel Blues

   Henry Thomas, guitar and quills. (1874-1960s?) was middle aged when he recorded for Vocalion Records between 1927 and 1929. His musical style was so unique that Thomas has continued to be intriguing to modern listeners. Because of his age, his recordings mark an example of forms of nineteenth 19th century African-American music to make it to disk. A blues singer and songster, one of the more impressive facets of his playing was his use of the quills (a form of pan-pipe made from cane). The quill solos along with his backup guitar gave his songs an other-worldly quality.

Thomas was born and raised in the Big Sandy area of Texas. He played the streets of Dallas and various country dances. Interviews with living relatives in later years paint the picture of a hobo and a wanderer who was often able to travel by train as entertainment for the other passengers. Folklorist Mac McCormick quite likely had a chance meeting with Thomas on the streets of Houston in 1949 and described him as a big man, perhaps 6″3″. The spirited feel of Thomas’ music found many fans during the folksong revival and versions of his songs cropped up even with those who may have had very little inkling of the man himself. Thomas’ quill solo in the song “Bull Doze Blues” became the basis for the introduction in the rock group Canned Heat’s “Going Up the Country.” “Fishing Blues” was another song which made it into many repertoires. The 60s group the Lovin’ Spoonful recorded a tribute to him as “Henry Thomas” replacing the quills with a kazoo.

The gospel blues of Blind Willie Johnson (1902?-!949): Johnson, vocal and guitar. Recorded in Dallas, 1927.

Willie Johnson didn’t record any secular songs, but there is much similarity between his relentless guitar rhythms and his harsh, insistent voice and the same fierce intensities of the blues singers, that they complement each other and their time and place. From a farming family, probably of sharecroppers, he lived as a child near Marlin, Texas, about eighty-five miles south of Dallas. .

Motherless children have a hard time 

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