*whispers* the blues kinda suck...?!

[Malcolm Kindnes]

I more or less agree with Robin, it's all about the story. I have seen both Roy Bookbinder and Steve James live and they told stories all night.
He has changed now, but in his early days Stefan Grossman did the same.

[SongwriterFan]

I don't remember if I saw this here, or on Facebook, or somewhere else. But it hit close to the truth for me:

If you're ever listening to music, and after four or five songs, it all starts to sound the same to you, ask yourself just one question: is it fast, or is it slow?

If it's fast, it's bluegrass. If it's slow, it's the blues.

[Glennwillow]

I find blues or for that matter, Bluegrass, too, interesting for a while, but because of the rather basic nature of the structure for either of these forms, which makes the music predictable, I get saturated after a while.

Some players are so good, they can make blues, in particular, much more appealing. Tommy Emmanuel playing blues makes it interesting. Stevie Ray Vaughan, to me, was super good. Still, I get saturated and start to lose enthusiasm after about 15 minutes of intense listening.

- Glenn

[Brent Hahn]

Some genres of music aren't made for intense listening.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

Some genres of music aren't made for intense listening.

True.

There is ambient music, muzak, and other kinds designed for background listening. I.e. "hearing", rather than actually "listening".

All other kinds of music benefit from giving them your full attention, but that might mean "dancing", or "marching, or at least moving in some way, rather than passively "listening".

None of that has any bearing on whether we like or dislike the music in question.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

But did he really?
20 years ago Natalie Merchant released a similar version of this song on her album House Carpenters daughter, where did she get it from?
I've heard several people in English folk clubs sing that song but never with quite that melody or those words.
I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't one of those folk songs like Raggle Taggle Gypsies which travelled to America with early immigrants and morphed into Black Jack Davy so maybe by the time Phelps and Merchant heard the song it had already been 'Americanised' somewhere in the Appalachian mountains?

That's not my point. You're right about the evolution of the song - https://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/son...emonlover.html - but it doesn't matter where he got it from.
What I was getting at is what he did with it, and the intensity of his performance. He made it his own, in the same way that Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker made old blues songs their own - and highlighted the intimate connection between British traditional music and the blues by using slide.

Then again, he wasn't the first American to add blues slide to an English folk song -

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by JonPR

That's not my point. You're right about the evolution of the song - https://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/son...emonlover.html - but it doesn't matter where he got it from.
What I was getting at is what he did with it, and the intensity of his performance. He made it his own, in the same way that Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker made old blues songs their own - and highlighted the intimate connection between British traditional music and the blues by using slide.
[/YOUTUBE]

I don't agree, I think it matters a lot where he got it from, it's 100s of years of social history behind that song.
That doesn't sound like an English folk song anymore it sounds like a song that's had a couple hundred years of being sung to a banjo accompaniment which has forced a very different kind of phrasing and changed the melody.
English folk songs come from a tradition of un accompanied singing that American version almost sounds like a dance tune.
I've just ordered the Doc Watson Family CD referenced in your link to see what their Appalachian traditional version sounds like.
If your interested in links between European history and the blues that whole meeting the devil at the crossroads thing is supposed to go back to Nordic and Saxon myth, when the Romans left here the Saxons interpreted their straight roads as mystical Ley lines across the landscape and crossing Ley lines were places of dark power.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

I don't agree, I think it matters a lot where he got it from, it's 100s of years of social history behind that song.

You're still missing my point. I was only talking about how he played the song!

That's what I mean by saying the history "doesn't matter". It's irrelevant to the point I was making, which was simply an opinion about his performance and his arrangement. I'm sure he knew as much of the history as you and I do, but his recording is not a history lesson. You don't have to know anything about where the song came from to appreciate that he did with it.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by JonPR

You're still missing my point. I was only talking about how he played the song!

That's what I mean by saying the history "doesn't matter". It's irrelevant to the point I was making, which was simply an opinion about his performance and his arrangement. I'm sure he knew as much of the history as you and I do, but his recording is not a history lesson. You don't have to know anything about where the song came from to appreciate that he did with it.

Yes you do because the history and tradition of the song is still alive, you need to know what Kelly Jo Phelps had heard before he came up with his version.
If all he had heard was Jaqui McShee's Pentagle recording then his arrangement would have been revolutionary but from the sound of it that's not likely or doesn't seem so to me.
If you consider that there was already a pre existing tradition of English folk songs, previously sung in the unaccompanied tradition migrating to the USA , being heard by black farm workers working alongside European immigrants and getting banjo-fied then accompanied by slide guitar then Kelly Jo Phelps version doesn't sound so revolutionary any more because maybe it wasn't such a great departure from the totality of his influences?
It's a bit like listening to Elvis Pressley's recording of Hound Dog and thinking wow! That's different without ever having heard Big Mamma Thornton's original version.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

Yes you do because the history and tradition of the song is still alive, you need to know what Kelly Jo Phelps had heard before he came up with his version.

Well, maybe, if you're interested in why he played it that way. You don't have to be curious about that to appreciate what he did.
You could just assume he'd heard some version - any version - and decided it would sound cool to accompany it with slide guitar. Unless he had already heard a version accompanied by slide guitar.... (I don't know of any, but I wouldn't rule it out.)

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

If all he had heard was Jaqui McShee's Pentagle recording then his arrangement would have been revolutionary but from the sound of it that's not likely or doesn't seem so to me.

What makes you say that? Have you heard previous versions treated as blues songs?

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

If you consider that there was already a pre existing tradition of English folk songs, previously sung in the unaccompanied tradition migrating to the USA , being heard by black farm workers working alongside European immigrants and getting banjo-fied then accompanied by slide guitar then Kelly Jo Phelps version doesn't sound so revolutionary any more because maybe it wasn't such a great departure from the totality of his influences?

Absolutely!
I agree that the song - or variations of it - would be well known by American traditional singers, and Phelps probably had heard several other versions. But had he heard any which used slide guitar?
Again, I'm not ruling that out - after all there's the example of Tom Rush and Barb'ry Allen: maybe he was inspired literally by that track!

But all I was really saying to begin with was how perfect his arrangement sounds; how much he seems to inhabit the music. That's where his recording is a level different from Tom Rush. Rush's performance is moving, largely because the tale itself is; but he sounds like a normal kind of folk performer just delivering the song; doing it well and professionally. It doesn't have the intensity and subtlety of Phelps's track, where he is weaving the guitar in and out of the melody in the way Robert Johnson used to. I.e., he is marrying the two traditions much more closely than Rush did.

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

It's a bit like listening to Elvis Pressley's recording of Hound Dog and thinking wow! That's different without ever having heard Big Mamma Thornton's original version.

I don't think it's quite the same. Phelps wasn't covering any earlier version that I'm aware of.

I.e., Elvis was excited by Big Mama Thornton's version, but did it his way instinctively. Likewise all those other Sun covers of his.

Again, these are all interesting points you're bringing up, but they're all peripheral to the initial claim I was making. Obviously that claim was contentious, a matter of opinion. You don't have to feel it sounded that unusual or impressive at all!

But can you point to an earlier version of the House Carpenter where the musician(s) were treating it like a blues, and not like a traditional folk song (American or English)? That would definitely weaken my argument!

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by JonPR

But can you point to an earlier version of the House Carpenter where the musician(s) were treating it like a blues, and not like a traditional folk song (American or English)? That would definitely weaken my argument!

No but I do know that there's a lot of assumptions made about the kind of music that black folks played , like it was all blues and jazz .I mean there were bands of black musicians playing Irish dance music professionally and there was a lot of crossover going on that was part of the history of American folk music.
I think you would need to have access to Kelly Jo Phelps record collection to know his influences. White Appalachian musicians picked up the blues style from those they worked with and in the Southern States there were white share croppers picking cotton alongside African Americans.
Jazz tap dancing led on to break dancing and that competitive approach to dancing where protagonists are judged by a crowd of onlookers originated when black people watched Irish immigrants and European sailors dancing Hornpipes in impromptu competitions, that's the level of cross influence between cultures that was going on in America .
Your default assumption is that Kelly Jo Phelps blues arrangement popped into his head out of no where. I just don't think that's the most likely scenario. I think it's more likely that he was influenced by hearing American folk songs being sung and accompanied by non white musicians or white musicians who had themselves been influenced by black musicians .
It's not necessary that he had to hear a blues slide arrangement of that particular song and copy it to be influenced by a pre-existing stylistic tradition.
Obviously he wasn't influenced by English folk music at all.

[Farlsborough]

Holy 4 pages, Batman! Thanks to everyone for such varied/interesting responses.

To whoever said I was exaggerating to make my point - guilty - doesn't everyone?! And to whoever said "thank goodness we don't all think/like the same" - absolutely

I'm not sure I agree about pentatonic noodling. There's a cliched assumption if you spend any time on guitar fora/YouTube "we all want to break out of the pentatonic box, don't we?! Pentatonic is so boring!"

Well - yes and no. Knopfler very rarely played "outside" notes, but his phrasing and melodies reliably hook me in. Someone with real talent and musicality can write something from the pentatonic scale that is captivating; an emotive cadence from the major scale can be so powerful. And plenty of jazz noodling with all sorts of outside notes can leave me cold. There's just something about the sort of resolutions in blues that don't do it for me, but I'm very glad they so clearly do it for many of you!

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

No but I do know that there's a lot of assumptions made about the kind of music that black folks played , like it was all blues and jazz .I mean there were bands of black musicians playing Irish dance music professionally and there was a lot of crossover going on that was part of the history of American folk music.

Sure, I know that. Black musicians were entertainers, they played whatever their audiences wanted. Mostly their audiences would also be black, of course, but they picked up all kinds of white inflluence - and certainly enjoyed sending up white dance culture....

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

I think you would need to have access to Kelly Jo Phelps record collection to know his influences.

Sure. As well as the musicians he would have seen live.

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

Your default assumption is that Kelly Jo Phelps blues arrangement popped into his head out of no where.

That's not my assumption at all!
Obviously he was well acquainted with blues slide guitar, he had all those techniques down. And he heard this song somewhere (who knows where) and decided it might sound cool with slide accompaniment.

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

I just don't think that's the most likely scenario. I think it's more likely that he was influenced by hearing American folk songs being sung and accompanied by non white musicians or white musicians who had themselves been influenced by black musicians .

I agree. (We're not disagreeing as much as you seem to think. )

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

It's not necessary that he had to hear a blues slide arrangement of that particular song and copy it to be influenced by a pre-existing stylistic tradition.

Sure. My feelings exactly.

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

Obviously he wasn't influenced by English folk music at all.

That's not "obvious" at all! Musicians are influenced by all the music they hear - some more than others, obviously, but it all goes in. To have not been influenced by English folk music "at all", would have to mean he had never heard any! Highly unlikely....

It may be well be that when he heard The House Carpenter, it was an American version. It's possible he didn't realise it was originally an English song, but I'd be surprised if that was the case. He seems to have been an intelligent and knowledgeable guy.

In short, as I say, we are pretty much in agreement, just misunderstanding one another on the emphasis and the details...

[Andyrondack]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017khr

[JonPR]

Thanks.

Nothing there I didn't know, but always good to get other perspectives and details. (There's a great clip in episode 2, around 6:30, of an African banjo tune collected in Jamaica in the 1680s - clearly sounding like modern African kora or ngoni.)