I was 17 years old when I met, and heard, for the first time, a traditional blues singer, and a great one: Will Shade, head of the Memphis Jug Band, which had recorded extensively during the 1920s and 1930s. During our Christmas vacation, Roger Brown, a high school buddy of mine, and I drove to Memphis to try to locate and meet him. We spent the night at my aunts, and next morning, not knowing where to find Shade, we drove down to Beale Street, which, at that time, was like it had always been, the black center of Memphis. We went into a drug store and asked the pharmacist if he knew Shade. He did not, and told us to ask Charlie, who had lived in the neighborhood for many years. Charlie referred us to a man named Whiskey, who was standing nearby. Whiskey did know, and we followed him up a nearby alley and into a terribly rundown old apartment building of the type that I had never been in. As we were walking up some dingy stairs (see picture below), we heard some music somewhere in the building. At a door near the top of the stairs, from behind which the music was coming,Whiskey knocked and yelled, Son Brimmer! Someone to see you. The door opened and there stood a shirtless man much older than Roger or I. He smiled, stuck out his hand, and said, Shades my name. He invited us in and said to another man sitting there holding a four-string tenor guitar (Charlie Burse, a long-time member of the Memphis Jug Band), Theyre from Atlanta, Charlie, lets play them Kansas City Blues. And with Will blowing the harmonica, his main instrument, they did—and, man, were they great! (They chose Kansas City to play for us because the Memphis Jug Band had recorded it in Atlanta.) We had not brought a tape recorder with us, but we returned in 1962 and recorded the two of them doing the same song, and they sounded much like they did the first time. So here it is: (For more information on our trips to Memphis, Read BLUES DISCOVERY, by Matthew Ismail, available on Amazon. This recording, and all others that I will be posting, are on many CDs on Fat Possum, available from them or from Amazon.) https://youtube/watch?v=Eu7cAmBX6FE&index=9&list=PLlDywQjYSdTrU5uot7DXAGAjzDk3nkT70
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 23:20:32 +0000
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