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Underground > Radio & Music >

Ragtime Blues

14:33 / 18.02.06

I've recently started listening to a fair amount of ragtime/acoustic/pre-war/gospel/whateveryoucallit blues.

As far as I can tell the music I like is dated from late 1800's to early 1930's. This is normally finger plucked, sometimes slide and normally (for obvious reasons) non electric (although it does sound pretty fantastic when played using electric).

Examples of what I like, as from the summary are; Washington Phillips, Tampa Red, Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Memphis Minnie, Leadbelly.

My interest in this genre (Blues) does not extend to your later, more typical perhaps, post war blues like Muddy Waters, which I find a bit grating on the ears.

Anyway my questions for anybody in the know:
Is there a more common name for this music?
Can you recommend anything similar? Not necessarily blues.
Are there any contemporary artists playing/creating anything like this?

I know this is google-able, but there seems to be so much out there, and some of it leads to suggestions for postwar blues, so I would prefer some more human derived answers.

What I really need, I suppose is to be pointed in the right direction.

Cheers

12:42 / 19.02.06

I'm no expert myself, so can't really answer most of your questions, but I'd suggest checking out Revenant Records, a label founded by the late, great John Fahey. I have the first of their American Primitive compliations and it really is awesome, wailing and hollering, crackly old blues/gospel. I don't know why I like it so much, but I do. Part of it is the evocative nature of such old music, it's like listening to something out of a time capsule ...

I also have Joe Bussard's Down in the Basement compilation which is amazing. Absolutely stonking collection of pre-war blues, jazz , gospel and ragtime. Well worth checking out. This ciompilation is particulary interestings because he makes clear distinctions between the various genres, and really has the history of the music down, the hows and whys of the recording and the music biz at the time. Fascinating stuff...Joe Bussard also makes customised tapes, available through his site.

I suspect the guy you really want to check out is Robert Johnson but I'll let someone more knowledgable deal with that one.

19:38 / 19.02.06

Thank you Illmatic,

those are excellent links, just had a quick skim, but I think, exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for.
And thank you for reminding me of Robert Johnson. On two occasions in the past two weeks, I've had two of my friends suggest I check his stuff out, no sooner had I decided to commit his name to heart, had I forgotten it. Probably something to do with me being slightly inebriated at the time of these recommendations.

I agree with your comment on the time capsule quality of this music, probably one of the reasons why I've grown to like this music so much. That and the great tunes they were creating. I mean gems like Blind Blake's "Diddie Wa Diddie" & "Righteous Blues", Washington Phillips "Denomination Blues", Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Black Horse Blues"... just amazingly catchy.

08:16 / 20.02.06

Well the most visible sourcebook for this sort of thing is the gigantic 6 disc "Anthology of American Folk Music" compiled by Harry Smith. It's been deleted for ages but was re-released last year. Still havent got round to picking up a copy for myself yet though, as it retails for about £80.

Other things you might want to listen to include: the Carter Family, Doc Boggs, Mississipi John Hurt, Blind Willie Johnson, etc..

08:42 / 20.02.06

Glad you liked the links.

Revenant have actually re-issued part of the Harry Smith thing, see their releases page.

16:07 / 20.02.06

Another artist (or specific album) to check out is Chris Thomas King's Roots: the Soul of Chris Thomas King (or something like that, i forget the full title, but the beginning is "roots"). Most of his stuff would probably grate on you, being a kind of blues/hip-hop fusion, but this album is pretty much all acoustic covers of classics. If you're looking for the crackly, nostalgic sound, it isn't here in terms of the sound quality, but there are some good covers (hard time killing floor, a good but short acoustic cover of Midnight Special) and some good originals (my favorite track is "john law burned down the liquor store"). Don't know if its exactly what you're looking for, but thought I'd bring it up.

20:33 / 20.02.06

I think technically what you're listening to would be called "country blues" or maybe "delta blues" (although the delta tag got thrown around so damn much it doesn't mean anything any more).

I don't know if Big Bill Broonzy would count, exactly -- he plays a similar style, acoustic guitar, kinda stretchy/informal song patterns, but more recent and higher fidelity recordings. But I like him. You might, too.

at the scarwash

22:26 / 23.02.06

You also might enjoy the very different sounds of Mississippi John Hurt. His take on the blues was quite different from a lot of his contemporaries, tending to be in major keys rather than minor a lot of the times. Also, Scots/Irish and English folk structures seem to have influenced him a lot.