... let's start ...

... one reason why people write songs is the blues ... trouble in mind ... here's one song, recorded by many artists: Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, Lightnin' Hopkins, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash, Hans Theessink and Terry Evans, and many others ... here's the first recorded version ... one of that songs I'm always able listen to ... I'm gonna lay my head on a lonesome railroad line and let the 2:19 train pacify my mind ...

... Trouble in Mind ...

... recorded in Chicago on a probably cold winter's day, Feb. 23, 1926 ... Bertha "Chippie" Hill singing, Louis Armstrong cornet and also the composer of this song: Richard M. Jones on piano ...

... some are singing their crying ... recorded two years after Chippie's Trouble ... the sun's gonna shine in his backdoor again also ... Tommy Johnson ...

... Big Road Bues ...

... cryin', ain't goin' down this big road by myself ... I love this marking bassline ... try it by yourself - tune your e-string to d and then play ... d,d -e,e - f,f - g,g - d,d - e,e - f,f -g,g ... it's not so difficult ...

... one reason why I love songs may be the same reason why he wrote this song ... deep affection and respect for songs and those who sang and still sing them ... one of the very first songs he recorded and many hundreds of beloved recordings later I still love this one - here's to Cisco an' Sonny an' Leadbelly too, an' to all the good people that travelled with you ... here's to you also, Bob Dylan ...

... Song to Woody ... listen on YouTube ... (live-version 1999) [I'm sorry, meanwhile not available any more]

... want to finish this time with B.B. King of course, who presented me with the motto for my site ... here's a song for those could need some comfort ... and who doesn't? ... someone really loves you - guess who ... someone really cares ...

... Guess Who ... watch and listen on YouTube - B.B. King September 23, 2003

…  let’s continue

this time with troubles … maybe it’s true that every cloud has a silver lining … anyway  … none of our cultural acquistions are thinkable without the ability of people to find  some kind of solution for any sort of problem, perhaps it’s possible to say that without the existence of troubles mankind wouldn’t be what it is …

... maybe you’re walking and maybe you feel pity for yourself … but maybe you‘ll make a song about it … Robert Johnson recorded this one  in 1937 … Walking Blues ... listen on YouTube ... I woke up this mornin', feelin' round for my shoes, know by that, I got these old walkin' blues [I'm sorry, meanwhile not available any more]

... the very young Cat Stevens, who didn’t know whether he would outlive his pulmonary disease or not at the time he was admitted in the hospital, wrote this song in those hard times ... Trouble ... watch on YouTube [I'm sorry, meanwhile not available any more] ... trouble, oh trouble set me free ...

... you got to walk that lonesome valley ... there's no one here can walk it for you … Mississippi John Hurt’s gentle voice is so often very far from the content of his songs … You got to walk that lonesome valley … recorded in the c 1966, when he was about 70 … watch on YouTube - (Mississippi John Hurt with Pete Seeger on Rainbow Quest Show, WNDT-TV)

... I hope you'll  forgive me if I  finally want to show you a very different  kind of song. Beyond the  songs you'll  find on this website,  I  also deeply love this,  for example … blute nur, du liebes Herz … bleed on, my dear heart, bleed on … watch on YouTube ...

... whoever … many thanks to Robert, Steven, John, and Johann Sebastian Bach also, for their kind of troubleshooting …

… the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927

was the most destructive river flood in United States history and left 700.000 homeless; but it wasn’t only a debacle because of  the flood itself, it was also a sign for the inhumanity of racial segregation, which also segregated help. This caused many reactions also in the aftermath, especially the beginning of the great migration of Afro-Americans to the North, political, when the failed promiseses of Herbert Hoover helped to shift the allegiance of Black Americans from the Republican party to the Democrats ...

… many songwriters were also inspired by this upheaval, for example Alger "Texas" Alexander’s Levee Camp Moan, Charley Patton’s High Water Everywhere and here you can listen to  Kansas McCoy and Memphis Minnie‘s When the Levee Breaks... June, 1929, Kansas Joe is singing, both they play guitar … ... 1970 that song inspired Led Zeppelin to their big hit ... listen on YouTube ...

… it is said, that Bessie Smith’s Backwater Blues, recorded Feb. 1927, was also inspired by that natural catastrophe, some say that it’s about the flood of the Cumberland River that struck Nashville in December 1926 and that seems logical because oft he early date of recording … however, Jimmy Johnson’s (?) piano expresses the pouring water vividly and accompanies Bessie Smith discreetly … listen on YouTube ... [I'm sorry, meanwhile not available any more]

… and marvelous songs like … John Lee Hooker‘s Tupelo …it happened long time ago, in a little country town, way back in Mississippi … it rained and it rained, it rained both night and day … the people got worried, they began to cry … „Lord have mercy, where can we go now?“ … Tupelo is gone … in spite of or even because of his minimalistic musical expression it’s able to touch you deeply … watch on YouTube

 

... blues fell on me this morning ...

... on November 2, 1928 the guitar duo Stephen Tarter and Harry Gay recorded at State Street in Bristol, Tennessee as Tarter and Gay the following Unknown Blues (Stephen Tarter is singing) ... it was released 1928 on Victor 38017 together with Brownie Blues ... Tarter & Gay never recorded again although they played together in Virginia for over a decade ... Stephen Tarter died 1935 when he was only fourty years old, after that his friend Harry Gay gave up music forever ... he died 1983 ...

 

some blues is somethin' terrible, they do keep you full of pain
some blues is somethin' terrible, they do keep you full of pain
that blues that keeps you worried, that're the blues that you can't explain

the blues fell on me this morning, 'pourin' like the drops of rain
blues fell on me this morning, 'pourin' like the drops of rain
they've given me such a feelin' I wanted to catch a passenger train

change in the ocean, change in the deep blue sea
change in the ocean, change in the deep blue sea
change in my brown - but there ain't no change in me

...

... listen on YouTube ...

 

... thanks to Paul Oliver for his book Barrelhouse Blues and Document Records for having released this gem on Barrelhouse Blues once again ...