Exploration of Harry Smith's Anthology

Mississippi John Hurt insieme a Mabel Hillery e il Rev.Gary Davis con Libba Cotten a suonare insieme in cucina come non li avete mai potuto sentire su disco. E poi una chicca discografica: John Fahey con Bill Barth sotto le mentite spoglie si R.L. Watson & Josiah Jones.

“Poor Boy Blues” is one of those Blues songs/lyrics that are so popular that most Blues players seemed to have a version of it. The poor boy, long ways from home, was more often than not, the rambling Blues musician himself. It was usually a piece played on the guitar out of an open-tuning called Vestapol (open D) and using a slide or bottleneck to play the melody on the high strings. I’ve selected a few versions that I love, mostly from black Blues players but the Kentucky banjo player Buell Kazee and the “American Primitive” guitar player John Fahey make an apparition as well.

“FATAL WRECK – Engineer Casey Jones, of This City, Killed Near Canton, Miss. – DENSE FOG THE DIRECT CAUSE – Of a Rear End Collision on the Illinois Central. – Fireman and Messenger Injured – Passenger Train Crashed Into a Local Freight Partly on the Siding-Several Cars Demolished.” Jackson, Tennessee Sun newspaper, april 30, 1900.

1- AND HOW ABOUT 'THE DOWN SOUTH BLUES?' CAN YOU REMEMBER WHERE YOU HEARD THAT? "Well, I learned that off of a phonograph record. My brother- in-law -- that was when we lived over here at Sutherland working for a while for Wise Coal and Coke Company -- he was a person that bought an awful lot of these phono- graph records at that time when was selling quite a lot of them in through here. Played them on these old- fashioned machines. I guess that he had probably 2 or 3 hundred of them. He had that there "Down South Blues." If I'm not mistaken, he had "Mistreated Mama Blues" on a record. I think it was sang and recorded by Mary Martin, or Sara Martin, or some woman; and it was accompanied by a piano. Anyway, I never did hear it played on a banjo or guitar or nothing else -- any kind of string music -- 'till just I commenced learning it myself, commenced playing it. In fact, I played for years that I never heard a man playa banjo that could play any kind of blues on a banjo -- any kind. I got to playing with some boys, Scott Boatwright and anoLher one, I believe it was Melvin Robenatt. And Scott says, 'I'm going to playa piece of blues, ' and said to me, 'Dock, you can wait till we play this here piece of blues.' I said, 'You think them blues ain't on this banjo neck the same as they're on that guitar? They're just as much on this banjo neck as they are on that guitar or piano or any- where else if you know where to go and get it, and if you learn it and know how to play it. 'Play the blues and see if I don't play them, see if I don't follow you.' And he played a piece of blues and sang them, and I went right along with him very good for the first time, hearing them while he was playing them. I don't remember what that blues was, because I had some blues myself, 3 or 4 different blues that I played then all the time - - I mean all along. " HAD YOU PLAYED 'THE DOWN SOUTH BLUES' THEN? I don't remember whether I was playing "The Down South Blues" then or not. " WHEN DID YOU START WITH THE 'DOWN SOUTH?' "I commenced playing "The Down South Blues - - must have started, oh, must have been 40 years ago, maybe. About 40 years ago, I guess. " ABOUT 1923? "Yes, I have an idea that's about -- no, I must have started before that, because I know I took my banjo and I went to Hemphill -- that's for the Elkhorn Coal Corporation -- and stayed over there a little while, had my banjo over there. I played "The Down South Blues" then, and "John Henry, " and " Poor Ellen Smith, " and "John Hardy, " and different pieces like that, and "Pretty Polly." Then people would gather up out there. We'd get out from a boarding house and sit under a big tree, and I'd have great big bunches of men gather up to hear me play. I was working in the mines loading coal, but I had my banjo over there with me and I played a lot of different pieces at that time. " 2- AND 'THE COAL CREEK MARCH' WAS ONE OF THE FIRST TUNES THAT YOU... ? "That was one of the first chording pieces that I learned. " DO YOU REMEMBER WHO PLAYED THAT? "No, I don't. I didn't learn it off of a phonograph record. I learned it -- I don't know who. I seen them chording, and I knowed the tuning that they had it in, and I just kept on fOOling with it. I seen two men with banjos that really could play "The Coal Creek March." And they had words for the song of "The Coal Creek March." I never learned them. If I had wanted, and insisted, I could have got the words -- they would have given them to me, if they would have cared to at all. Back along about - - just after I made those phonograph records, I guess it may have been in '27, last of '27, i 27 or i 28, that I seen these fellows. They was good on that there "Coal Creek March," the best that ever I heard -- anybody -- 'cause they had the words to it; that's what made it so good. " DO YOU REMEMBER HOW THE WORDS GO? "No, can't remember nary a thing about that... " 4- DOCK, I REMEMBER AFTER YOU PLAYED 'THE COAL CREEK MARCH' FOR ME DOWN IN ASHEVILLE, DID YOU - - IT WAS THEN THAT YOU LEARNED SOME MORE ABOUT IT? "Yes, I found -- my brother-in-law, he's from Tennessee. He was telling me where that song "Coal Creek March" originated from and how it come about. It was made -- they had some labor trouble down in Tennessee. The men had been out on a strike and the state or government or something brought in ... convicts to try to run the mines with convict labor, and the people there tore it all up and turned them all loose. They had the state militia or guards or home guards whatever you call it in there, and they played up and down the road then a song they called" The Coal Creek March, " and it originated from that there strike and labor trouble they had there, what I understand, and there was a song made up about it. I have·never got the words of it. " WHEN YOU SAY THE PEOPLE 'TORE IT UP, 9 YOU MEAN--? "When they brought in this here convict labor, why, they went and turned them loose where they was in stockades, and broke it up. They was going to use the convict labor for to mine the coal and so on. They had on a strike, and the people just wouldn't stand for it. " 5- "They was a doctor in town here, one doctor; M. L. Stallard, Moran Lee Stallard was his name, and that's my name: Moran Lee. We had one doctor in town and he had so many calls he couldn't fill near all of them, but they wasn't many people in Norton at that time and he was out of town. So, my father thought a lot of Doc Stallard, and mother did, too; and so whenever I was born -- whenever I came into the world -- a boy, why, they named me after Moran Lee Stallard. When I was just a little toddler toddling around, why, my dad com- menced calling me Dock, and all my brothers and sisters and everybody called me Dock. And even people, my acqua.intances -- and when I was going to school I didn't even want anybody to even mention the name Moran Lee-- M-o-r-a-n L-double-e. I thought that was awful ugly; I'd rather be called Dock two-to-one. So, after I got older, why, doing my official business and so on I Signed my right name Moran Lee, and when I made phonograph records, why, I decided I'd better have my name put on there the way that everybody knowed me. And nearly everybody knowed me Dock and they didn't know anything about my name being Moran Lee or M. L. Boggs." 6- "When I was -- I started to Atlanta, Georgia, one time I come out from Ashland, Kentucky, and I was alone -- just had my banjo -- and pass off the time I started playing the banjo up through there, and I must have been going through close to where some of this trouble had happened. There's a man reached over and said, 'Buddy, if I's you I wouldn't play that through here. ' He said, 'I love to hear you play, I like to hear you Sing, I love to hear the song, I love to hear you play the banjo, but I wouldn't play that through here, because you know Ws been years and years since that trouble hap- pened, but up here at Prestonburg in the courthouse yard about a month or two ago or something like it a colored fellow playing that "Rowan County Crew, " playing it on the guitar and Singing it sitting under a tree there in the courthouse yard. One of those hotheads, boys -- must have been a distant relative or something to some of these people -- walked up to him, must have been about drunk or.something or other, just pulled out a •45 and shot the whole top of his head off.' And he said, 'It's a fact and I wouldn't play it through here.' I said, 'Mister, I'll not play it through here!' So I just stopped playing it through there. So, I'm down here too far now, I don't guess that there's anybody wants to shoot me for playing it; so I'll play it for you the best I know how. "

1- YOU'D PLAYED FOR A LOT OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF PEOPLE, LIKE SOMETIMES YOU'D PLA YED FOR JUST P ARTIES AND THEN SOMETIMES YOU PLA YED FOR HIGH-PRICED MONEY. "Well, played where we'd collect off each person come in, you know -- pay so much. " WHAT KIND OF... WAS THAT A SHOW YOU PUT ON? "Yeah, it was a show, a musical show, you know. I had other musicians with me then. I had a real good fiddler and two guitar players part of the time, and sometimes I had a girl that played a ukelele -- and she danced, too. They was four in my band one time, they danced. " WHAT WERE THEIR NAMES? "I played with Beulah Boatwright, Scott Boatwright - - both them was very good musicians. " FROM AROUND HERE? " Y es,from Scott County over here. Scott lives over there now.I think Beulah lives back over there. I played with Charlie Powers and (an) old man, his father, was a fiddler, old time fiddler. He made phonograph records, they did, for Victor back years ago, before ever I made any, and Charlie he come stayed with me for about a year and he played the guitar with me. And Scott Boatwright come stayed with me a while, and also Melvin Robnett -- played the fiddle, he's a very good fiddler. We played country theaters, schools, high schools -- schools in the country we'd have plumb full. Lot of times we'd make three, four hundred dollars a week. " ABOUT WHEN WAS THAT? "That was back in '2-- I believe it was '29. " ' AFTER YOUR RECORDS HAD COME OUT? "Yes." DO YOU THINK THAT HELPED YOUR RECORDS, OR THE RECORDS HELPED THAT? "The records helped get the crowds, I'm pretty sure, because a lot of them that had my records had never heard me play in person. They came out to hear us play. " 2- THIS TUNING, KEY, THAT YOU USE HERE IN THE KEY OF D, WHERE YOU PLAY'THE COUNTRY BLUES,' DO YOU REMEMBER WHERE IT WAS YOU EVER FIRST HEARD THAT, OR DID YOU JUST WORK THAT OUT YOURSELF? " No, Homer Crawford played "The Country Blues, " or "Hustling Gamblers, " in that key, and there's so many more pieces I play: "Oh Death, " "Drunkard's Lone Child, " and " Calvary, " and "Prodigal Son" -- play that all in that. DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT TOWN THAT HE WAS FROM? "I don't know what town he was from in Tennessee. He's a photograph man made pictures for people like they used to. Carried a'camera around on his shoulders. Come up through this country and went over through The Pound. Used to stay at my uncle'S over on The Pound through there. Stayed all night with me after I was married, and he could playa fiddle and a banjo both. " HE'D PLAY AS HE CAME ALONG? "Yes, if you had an instrument, why he'd stay all night with you and play some mUSic, you know. Never did pay nothing for his lodging or anything like that. People's glad to have him because he knowed a lot of old songs. Most people liked music and they wasn't so much of it back then. They wasn't but just a few colored fellows you see played guitar then. NOW, anybody you see nearly can pick a guitar. In nearly all the Holiness churches now they have guitars. Women play them a lot. We've got two people in the church, Free Pentecostal Holiness Church of God where I belong, up on Guest's River, plays music. " I WONDER IF THIS HOMER CRAWFORD WOULD STILL BE LIVING? "I don't think he's living yet. He was a great big fleshy fellow and I heard he was dead. I've not seen him for years and I think he's dead. If he was living, he'd be getting awful old, 75 probably. I have an idea he'd be 75, maybe 80 years old now. I think he's dead. " I WONDER HOW I COULD FIND OUT WHAT TOWN HE LIVED IN? "I really haven't got no idea. " SOUNDS LIKE HE TRAVELED A LOT. "Yeah, he did. You can find lots of people knowed him. He made pictures. He had an awful good disposition, turn, every- body liked him, you know. He could Sing good. People liked that, too you know. " 3- "Well, I practiced an awful lot, and I even took a watch and timed myself, 2 minutes and 40 seconds, and if my song wasn't hardly long enough for to go the 2 minutes and 40 seconds, why I'd alternate a verse. Just pick it open and not sing, and then -- or either I'd sing from the start go or maybe I'd alternate one, pick over a piece if I didn't have hardly enough to make a record, 'till I'd make it come out to a 2 minute and 40 second record. We had different records then what we got now. And 2 minutes and 40 seconds is all we had to do it, and we had altogether different technique and way they made the record than the way they do now, I suppose. I made records in New York the first time, in Chicago the second time, but they record them now down in Memphis Tennessee and different places. " ' WHO DID YOU RECORD FOR IN CHICAGO? "For 'The Lonesome Ace -- Without A Yodel.' He's a fellow in- dividual, from up here at Richland, Virginia. W. 'E. Myers. M-y-e-r-s, Myers. W. E. Myers." DID YOU MAKE A COMPLETE LIVING PLAYING MUSIC FOR A WHILE? "Yeah, for a little while they was a few months that I didn't do anything when I was over in Kentucky. " IS THAT WHEN YOU WERE RECORDING, YOU MEAN? "That was just after I'd make those records and I figured on making some more. I was playing in schools and theaters, and I'd play for private dances or anything and make some money off it. I played for old Senator Brock and his family when they was visiting up in Kentucky over there, swimming pool. They paid me pretty good for playing; me and my band played for them. This Combs, this governor of Kentucky, I played some for him over there, too. I think it was Bert Combs. I'm pretty sure it was, can't hardly remember. It was before he was ever elected. " WHAT DID YOU CALL YOUR BAND? "The Cumber- land Mountaineers, Dock Boggs and His Cumberland Mountaineers, I believe. I've got a handbill here, where I had printed with it. Cumberl.and Mountain Entertainers, Dock Boggs and His Cumberland Mountain Entertainers. " DID YOU EVER RECORD FOR THE PARAMOUNT RECORD PEOPLE UP THERE IN, I GUESS IT WAS CHICAGO? "No, I never did make no records for them. " WAS THAT YOUR FIRST TRIP TO NEW YORK WHEN YOU WENT UP THERE? "Oh, I'd never out of these DID YOU MAKE A COMPLETE LIVING PLAYING MUSIC FOR A WHILE? "Yeah, for a little while they was a few months that I didn't do anything when I was over in Kentucky. " IS THAT WHEN YOU WERE RECORDING, YOU MEAN? "That was just after I'd make those records and I figured on making some more. I was playing in schools and theaters, and I'd play for private dances or anything and make some money off it. I played for old Senator Brock and his family when they was visiting up in Kentucky over there, swimming pool. They paid me pretty good for playing; me and my band played for them. This Combs, this governor of Kentucky, I played some for him over there, too. I think it was Bert Combs. I'm pretty sure it was, can't hardly remember. It was before he was ever elected. " WAS THAT YOUR FIRST TRIP TO NEW YORK WHEN YOU WENT UP THERE? "Oh, I'd never out of these hills, this mountain here. I studied - - I didn't know how I was going to do, or how -- I was self- conscious enough and always had thought enough about myself to care about what people thought about me, and wanted to act as near like a human being as I should, as I could. I was afraid I'd make a lot of mistakes, but I come to find out after I went with these other fellows up there, with John Dykes and Hub Mahaffey, and Miss Vermillion. Poor old man Dykes, he was a good friend of mine -- I don't want to say any harm or anything, but he pulled some awful boners. " DO YOU REMEMBER ANY OF THEM? "Yeah, he lost his pocketbook. Got it picked in New York's Central Station in New York going in there, and didn't lose too much money, but the president of the (record) company asked him -- Brophy, I believe his name was -- asked him, 'How much did you have in your pocketbook?' He says, 'Boggs,' he turned around to me, 'Boggs, I've lost my pocketbook.' And he turned around to him and said, 'How much did you have in there, Mr. Dykes?' He said, 'Had about 12 dollars.' Said, 'Well, I wouldn't worry about that if that's all you had, ' he said. 'The worst part about it, ' he said, 'it was your fellows'.' He said, 'Well, don't let that bother you at all.' It was theirs, he give it to him to pay the expenses, you know. And then he called the waiter around while we was in New York eating in a hotel cafe: I wasn't at the table with them at that time. Miss Vermillion was telling me about it; she said she felt like sinking through the floor. He took his finger and wiggled, motioned for a waitress to come over to the table and asked her how much she got a week! "