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Song of the Day: A Hobo, a Baseball Player, a Boxer, a Bluesman

July 30th, 2009 categories: Song of the Day

Song of the Day

"Parchman Farm Blues" by Bukka White

Bukka WhiteLike Son House who somewhat proceeded him, Bukka White also called Parchman Farm his home for a while, and also like other bluesmen who "stayed" there too, one suspects that if they actually did call it home, he did so reluctantly. (He inherited the name "Bukka" because his first record company misspelled his first name, which he didn’t like.)

Influenced by Charlie Patton’s music (he may have only met him once), Bukka had a distinctive voice and guitar style. Given his first guitar on his 9th birthday, probably by his father, a railroad worker and part-time musician, Bukka was a champion of the National Steel Guitar. At about the same time as that famous recording session with Patton, Son House and Willie Brown in Grafton, Wisconsin, Bukka first recorded in Memphis in 1930.

Like all early bluesmen, the great depression affected record sales, ranging from few if any to none. If a bluesman were good enough, and lucky enough, to have made a record, well… they still had to somehow scratch out a living in a dismal time. Bukka "hoboed" around the country, playing parties and dances when he could.  Because of the intensity of  his musical rhythms, Bukka was known as a "breakdown" artist, which meant that folks dancing to him would break down the floors of the shacks where he played.

Throughout the mid ’30′s, Bukka also played simi-pro baseball in the Memphis Negro leagues and boxed professionally as well. He must have been a formidable pugilist, because after a brawl, Bukka was charged with assault, from which he served 2 years at Parchman Farm. If anything  good came out of that, it was a place for a lot of guitar practice, and the inspiration for the song Parchman Farm Blues.

(more below)

Bukka WhiteBooker T. Washington White (b. Nov 12, 1906, Houston or Aberdeen, MS, d. Feb 26, 1977, Memphis, TN)  While in Parchman, Bukka records two songs for Alan Lomax from the Library of Congress. Upon release he records again in Chicago. Thereafter he settles in Memphis, where in the 1940′s he helps his cousin, B.B. King start his music career. Then in the early 1960′s, like so many other early bluesmen, he is "re-discovered" (John Fahey did it again.)

Listen to song of the day here"Parchman Farm Blues" (Lyrics here) Bukka’s percussive style reminded some of playing a guitar like a drum. His melody was rather simple, his rhythm complex. He played slide guitar in open tuning, mostly in open G, but he was also one of the few, along with Skip James, to use a crossnote tuning in E minor.

In 1968 Bukka played at the Olympic Games in Mexico City, and in 1973 he gets to play with his cousin, B.B. King, at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Bonus:
Like almost every important blues standard, there are many recordings, interpretations and various lyrical changes made of it.  Among the many, here’s 3 versions of Parchman Farm Blues.

"Parchman Farm Blues", John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers version
"Parchman Farm Blues", Johnny Winter version
"Parchman Farm Blues", Hot Tuna version

Previous Song of the Day here.

References: (click on ‘em, and click on the book to get one!)
Big Book of the Blues by Bob Santelli Chasin' the Devil's Music by Gayle Dean Wardlow Nancy Meyer
 Deep blues by Robert Palmer Rising Tide by Ed Komara  Peter Aschoff, PhD
Bob Santelli Gayle D. Wardlow Nancy Meyer Robert Palmer John
Barry		 Ed Komara  Peter Aschoff
About this and that:
I know and have worked with most of the folks here, with the exception of Robert Palmer and John Barry. At present Robert Santelli is the Executive Director of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. It is Gayle Dean Wardlow who is particularly associated with research into the lives of Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson. Our friend Nancy Meyer managed Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy, among others, and has distinguished herself in artists royalty recovery for some 30 years. Deep Blues and Rising Tide are must reads to understand the world from which it all sprung. Ed Komara, also a good friend, was curator of the Blues Archive at the University of Mississippi for years, and now Music Librarian at SUNY Potsdam. Peter Aschoff, PhD was my dear friend, mentor, and blues historian, musicologist and cultural anthropologist for whom this work is dedicated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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