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Motherless Children
"Mother's Children Have a Hard Time", also known as "Motherless Children", is a gospel blues song recorded by Blind Willie Johnson in 1927. It is a solo performance, with Johnson singing and playing an acoustic slide guitar. Johnson recorded the song during his first session for Columbia in Dallas, Texas, on December 3, 1927. The lyrics are autobiographical, since Johnson's mother died when he was young. His father remarried soon after her death, and later, the stepmother allegedly threw a caustic solution, which blinded the boy: "Motherless children have a hard time, mother's dead, Well don't have anywhere to go, Wandering 'round from door to door". Blues researcher Samuel Charters describes Johnson's slide guitar playing as having "a nuance and delicacy that extended and clarified the emotion of his singing", which is supported by his rhythmic fingerpicked bass line. Columbia issued the song on a 78 rpm record with the title "Mother's Children Have a Hard Time". Charters no ...
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Blind Willie Johnson
Blind Willie Johnson (January 25, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was an American gospel blues singer, guitarist and evangelist. His landmark recordings completed between 1927 and 1930—thirty songs in total—display a combination of powerful "chest voice" singing, slide guitar skills, and originality that has influenced generations of musicians. Even though Johnson's records sold well, as a street performer and preacher, he had little wealth in his lifetime. His life was poorly documented, but over time, music historians such as Samuel Charters have uncovered more about Johnson and his five recording sessions. A revival of interest in Johnson's music began in the 1960s, following his inclusion on Harry Smith's ''Anthology of American Folk Music'', and by the efforts of the blues guitarist Reverend Gary Davis. Along with Davis, he has since been considered the dominant player of " holy blues" music, which conveyed religious themes in a blues idiom and often with the genre's styl ...
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Gospel Blues
Gospel blues (or holy blues) is a form of blues-based gospel music that has been around since the inception of blues music. It combines evangelistic lyrics with blues instrumentation, often blues guitar accompaniment. According to musician and historian Stefan Grossman, "holy blues" was coined to originally describe Reverend Gary Davis's style of traditional blues playing with lyrics conveying a religious message. Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are considered the genre's two dominant performers, according to Dick Weissman. Other notable gospel-blues performers include Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Washington Phillips. Blues musicians who became devout, or even practicing clergy, include Reverend Robert Wilkins and Ishman Bracey.Wardlow, G., and Komara, E. M. (1998). ''Chasin' That Devil Music: Searching for the Blues''. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. pp. 43, 45. . Bluesmen such as Boyd Rivers, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, Sam Collins, Josh White, Blind Boy Fu ...
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Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1991, its recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, alongside former longtime rival RCA Records, as well as Arista Records and Epic Records. Artists who have recorded for Columbia include AC/DC, Adele, Aerosmith, Julie Andrews, Louis Armstrong, Gene Autry, Count Basie, Tony Bennett, Leonard Bernstein, Beyoncé, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Blue Öyster Cult, David ...
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Broadcast Music, Inc
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) is a performance rights organization in the United States. It collects blanket license fees from businesses that use music, entitling those businesses to play or sync any songs from BMI's repertoire of over 20.6 million musical works. On a quarterly basis, BMI distributes the money to songwriters, composers, and music publishers as royalties to those members whose works have been performed. In FY 2022, BMI collected $1.573 billion in revenues and distributed $1.471 billion in royalties. BMI's repertoire includes over 1.3 million songwriters and 20.6 million compositions. BMI is the biggest performing rights organization in the United States and is one of the largest such organizations in the world. BMI songwriters create music in virtually every genre. BMI represents artists such as Patti LaBelle, Selena, Miley Cyrus, Lil Wayne, Lil Nas X, Birdman, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Eminem, Rihanna, Shakira, Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallion, Ed Sheer ...
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Gospel Blues
Gospel blues (or holy blues) is a form of blues-based gospel music that has been around since the inception of blues music. It combines evangelistic lyrics with blues instrumentation, often blues guitar accompaniment. According to musician and historian Stefan Grossman, "holy blues" was coined to originally describe Reverend Gary Davis's style of traditional blues playing with lyrics conveying a religious message. Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are considered the genre's two dominant performers, according to Dick Weissman. Other notable gospel-blues performers include Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Washington Phillips. Blues musicians who became devout, or even practicing clergy, include Reverend Robert Wilkins and Ishman Bracey.Wardlow, G., and Komara, E. M. (1998). ''Chasin' That Devil Music: Searching for the Blues''. San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books. pp. 43, 45. . Bluesmen such as Boyd Rivers, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, Sam Collins, Josh White, Blind Boy Fu ...
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Slide Guitar
Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos that reflect characteristics of the human singing voice. It typically involves playing the guitar in the traditional position (flat against the body) with the use of a slide fitted on one of the guitarist's fingers. The slide may be a metal or glass tube, such as the neck of a bottle. The term bottleneck was historically used to describe this type of playing. The strings are typically plucked (not strummed) while the slide is moved over the strings to change the pitch. The guitar may also be placed on the player's lap and played with a hand-held bar ( lap steel guitar). Creating music with a slide of some type has been traced back to African stringed instruments and also to the origin of the steel guitar in Hawaii. Near the beginning of ...
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AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Gui ...
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Samuel Charters
Samuel Barclay Charters IV (August 1, 1929 – March 18, 2015) was an American music historian, writer, record producer, musician, and poet. He was a widely published author on the subjects of blues and jazz. He also wrote fiction. Overview Charters was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, into an upper-middle-class family that was interested in listening to and playing music of all sorts. "I grew up in a world of band rehearsals, blues records, and a whole consciousness of jazz. . . . The family also played ragtime, also played Debussy, also was involved in hearing Bartok's new music. It was a general musical cultural interest in which jazz was central" (Ismail, 2011, p. 232). Charters first became enamored of blues music in 1937, after hearing Bessie Smith's version of Jimmy Cox's song, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" (Charters 2004). He moved with his family to Sacramento, California, at the age of 15. Charters says that he was "playing clarinet, playing jazz s ...
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78 Rpm Record
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. At first, the discs were commonly made from shellac, with earlier records having a fine abrasive filler mixed in. Starting in the 1940s polyvinyl chloride became common, hence the name vinyl. The phonograph record was the primary medium used for music reproduction throughout the 20th century. It had co-existed with the phonograph cylinder from the late 1880s and had effectively superseded it by around 1912. Records retained the largest market share even when new formats such as the compact cassette were mass-marketed. By the 1980s, digital media, in the form of the compact disc, had gained a larger market share, and the record left the mainstream in 1991. Since the 1990s, records c ...
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The Complete Blind Willie Johnson (album)
''The Complete Blind Willie Johnson'' is a compilation album of all the known recordings by American gospel blues singer-guitarist Blind Willie Johnson. As part of the Roots N' Blues series, it was released jointly by Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings, on April 27, 1993. All of the tracks on the two-compact disc set were originally issued by Columbia on the then-standard two-sided 78 rpm record format. Over the years, many of the songs were included on other compilations, such as ''Blind Willie Johnson – His Story'' (1957) and ''Praise God, I'm Satisfied'' (1977); however, this album marks the first time all of Johnson's recordings were compiled on one set. In 2013, Columbia reissued the album as ''The Essential Blind Willie Johnson''. Background The tracks on the album originate from five recording dates between December 3, 1927 and April 20, 1930. Johnson, who provided lead vocals and guitar accompiment, was sometimes backed by female vocalists, most commonly his ...
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Legacy Recordings
Legacy Recordings is an American record label that is a division of Sony Music. Formed in 1990 after Sony's acquisition of CBS Records, Legacy originally handled the archives of Sony Music-owned labels Columbia Records and Epic Records. In 2004, under the Sony BMG joint venture, the label began to manage the archives of RCA Records, J Records, Windham Hill Records, Arista, LaFace, Jive, and Buddah Records. Legacy Recordings also distributes Philadelphia International Records and the catalog of recordings produced by Phil Spector. It is not related to the defunct British independent label Legacy Records. Reissues The ''Essential'' series are one- or two-disc compilations of an artist's extensive catalog. On occasion, certain albums in this series would include a limited edition third disc (labeled ''Essential'' ''3.0''), or be revised to include an artist's newer work (for example '' The Essential Bob Dylan).'' , several volumes in the ''Essential'' series are available o ...
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University Of Illinois Press
The University of Illinois Press (UIP) is an American university press and is part of the University of Illinois system. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, plus 33 scholarly journals, and several electronic projects. Strengths include ethnic and multicultural studies, Lincoln and Illinois history, and the large and diverse series ''Music in American Life.'' See also * Journals published by University of Illinois Presssee thfull Journals list as published in the University of Illinois Press website References External links * 1918 establishments in Illinois Book publishing companies based in Illinois Publishing companies established in 1918 Press Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...
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