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Yazoo Records
Yazoo Records is an American record label founded in the mid-1960s by Nick Perls. It specializes in early American blues, country, jazz, and other rural American genres collectively known as roots music. History The first five releases (L 1001 to L 1005) were issued under the label name of Belzona Records. The label was then renamed Yazoo Records, and the first five releases were reissued under the new name. The Belzona and Yazoo labels featured an Art Deco drawing of a peacock, adapted from the 1927 label of Black Patti Records. For Yazoo Records Perls compiled rare 78-rpm recordings made in the 1920s by musicians such as Charley Patton, Blind Willie McTell, the Memphis Jug Band, Blind Blake, and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Perls founded a second label, Blue Goose Records, in 1970, for which he recorded "rediscovered" black blues artists and younger blues and jazz performers. In 1989 Yazoo was acquired by Shanachie Records. In 2014, Yazoo signed its first current artists, The R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nick Perls
J. Nicholas Perls (4 April 1942 – 22 July 1987)Perls, Nic, Brad Hill, ''Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound'' Volume 1 by Frank W. Hoffmann, Howard Ferstler, p. 820 was an American audio engineer and the founder and owner of Yazoo Records and Blue Goose Records. Early life Perls grew up in a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York City. The family had achieved some wealth operating New York City's Klaus Perls, Perls Gallery. Perls was one of a handful of serious East Coast collectors of 78-Revolutions per minute, rpm country blues, country blues recordings during the 1960s. As a young man, he made two trips through the Deep South, where he knocked on doors seeking to acquire old blues records. He also was ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blind Blake
Arthur Blake (1896 – December 1, 1934), known as Blind Blake, was an American blues and ragtime singer and guitarist. He is known for recordings he made for Paramount Records between 1926 and 1932. Early life Little is known of Blake's life. Promotional materials from Paramount Records indicate he was born blind and give his birthplace as Jacksonville, Florida, and it seems that he lived there during various periods. He may have had relatives in Patterson, Georgia. Some authors have written that in one recording he slipped into a Geechee (Gullah) dialect, suggesting a connection with the Sea Islands. Blind Willie McTell indicated that Blake's real name was Arthur Phelps, but later research has shown this is unlikely to be correct.Balfour, Alan. CD liner notes. ''Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order'', vol. 4, ''August 1929 to June 1932''. DOCD–5027. Document Records, 1991. In 2011, a group of researchers led by Alex van der Tuuk published various documents regardin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blind Uncle Gaspard
Alcide "Blind Uncle" Gaspard was a partially blind vocalist and guitarist from Louisiana who alternated between string-band music (in a band with his brothers) and traditional Cajun balladry on his recordings for Vocalion. Born in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana in 1878 of Acadian descent, he became partially blinded when he was seven. It is unknown how Gaspard became blinded in one eye. Very little is known about Gaspard and his life as a musician; even among big-time Cajun musicians and fans. A brilliant, dexterous guitarist and songwriter, he is often regarded in Cajun and Americana music circles as a very mysterious and unacclaimed figure. His influences remain unknown, although his family is believed to have brought him into music. Gaspard formed his first band with his brothers Victor and Amade. When he began recording in the late 1920s it was mainly as a backing guitarist for fiddler Delma Lachney (1896) also from Avoyelles Parish of French-Canadian descent. It was then that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blind Boy Fuller
Blind Boy Fuller (born Fulton Allen, July 10, 1904February 13, 1941) was an American blues guitarist and singer. Fuller was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists, rural African Americans, along with Blind Blake, Josh White, and Buddy Moss. Life and career Allen was born in Wadesboro, North Carolina, United States, one of ten children of Calvin Allen and Mary Jane Walker. Most sources date his birth to 1907, but the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc indicate 1904. After the death of his mother, he moved with his father to Rockingham, North Carolina. As a boy he learned to play the guitar and also learned from older singers the field hollers, country rags, traditional songs and blues popular in poor rural areas. He married young, to Cora Allen, and worked as a laborer. He began to lose his eyesight when he was in his mid-teens. According to the researcher Bruce Bastin, "While he was living in Rockingham he began to have trouble with his eyes. He we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sleepy John Estes
John Adam Estes (January 25, 1899 or 1900June 5, 1977), known as Sleepy John Estes, was an American guitarist, songwriter and vocalist. His music influenced such artists as , and . Life and career Estes was born in |
Reverend Gary Davis
Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis (born Gary D. Davis, April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972), was a blues and gospel singer who was also proficient on the banjo, guitar and harmonica. Born in Laurens, South Carolina and blind since infancy, Davis first performed professionally in the Piedmont blues scene of Durham, North Carolina in the 1930s, before converting to Christianity and becoming a minister. After relocating to New York in the 1940s, Davis experienced a career rebirth as part of the American folk music revival that peaked during the 1960s. Davis' most notable recordings include "Samson and Delilah" and "Death Don't Have No Mercy". Davis' fingerpicking guitar style influenced many other artists. His students included Stefan Grossman, David Bromberg, Steve Katz, Roy Book Binder, Larry Johnson, Nick Katzman, Dave Van Ronk, Rory Block, Ernie Hawkins, Larry Campbell, Bob Weir, Woody Mann, and Tom Winslow. He also influenced Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Wizz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bo Carter
Armenter (or Armentia) Chatmon (March 21, 1893 or January 1894 – September 21, 1964), known as Bo Carter, was an early American blues musician. He was a member of the Mississippi Sheiks in concerts and on a few of their recordings. He also managed that group, which included his brothers Lonnie Chatmon on fiddle and, occasionally, Sam Chatmon on bass, and their friend Walter Vinson on guitar and lead vocals. Career Since the 1960s, Carter has become best known for his bawdy songs, such as "Let Me Roll Your Lemon", "Banana in Your Fruit Basket", "Pin in Your Cushion", "Your Biscuits Are Big Enough for Me", "Please Warm My Wiener" and "My Pencil Won't Write No More". However, his output was not limited to dirty blues. In 1928, he recorded the original version of "Corrine, Corrina", which later became a hit for Big Joe Turner and has become a standard in various musical genres. Carter and his brothers (including the pianist Harry Chatmon, who also made recordings) first lear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gus Cannon
Gustavus "Gus" Cannon (September 12, 1883 or 1884 – October 15, 1979) was an American blues musician who helped to popularize jug bands (such as his own Cannon's Jug Stompers) in the 1920s and 1930s. There is uncertainty about his birth year; his tombstone gives the date as 1874. Career Born on a plantation in Red Banks, Mississippi, Cannon moved a hundred miles to Clarksdale, then the home of W. C. Handy, at the age of 12. His musical skills came without training; he taught himself to play a banjo that he made from a frying pan and a raccoon skin. He ran away from home at the age of fifteen and began his career entertaining at sawmills and at levee and railroad camps in the Mississippi Delta around the turn of the century. While in Clarksdale, Cannon was influenced by two local musicians, Jim Turner and Alec Lee. Turner's fiddle playing in W. C. Handy's band so impressed Cannon that he decided to learn to play the fiddle himself. Lee, a guitarist, taught Cannon his first fol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy (born Lee Conley Bradley; June 26, 1903 – August 14, 1958) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s, when he played country music to mostly African American audiences. In the 1930s and 1940s, he navigated a change in style to a more urban blues sound popular with working-class black audiences. In the 1950s, a return to his traditional folk-blues roots made him one of the leading figures of the emerging American folk music revival and an international star. His long and varied career marks him as one of the key figures in the development of blues music in the 20th century. Broonzy copyrighted more than 300 songs, including adaptations of traditional folk songs and original blues songs. As a blues composer, he was unique in writing songs that reflected his rural-to-urban experiences.Barlow, William (1989). ''"Looking Up at Down": The Emergence of Blues Culture''. Temple University Press. pp. 301–303. . Life and ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scrapper Blackwell
Francis Hillman "Scrapper" Blackwell (February 21, 1903 – October 7, 1962) was an American blues guitarist and singer, best known as half of the guitar-piano duo he formed with Leroy Carr in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He was an acoustic single-note picker in the Chicago blues and Piedmont blues styles. Career Scrapper Blackwell was born in Syracuse, an unincorporated settlement in Darlington County, South Carolina. He was one of sixteen children of Payton and Elizabeth Blackwell. He grew up in and spent most of his life in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he first relocated to at the age of three. He was given the nickname "Scrapper" by his grandmother, because of his fiery nature. His father played the fiddle, but Blackwell was a self-taught guitarist, building his first guitar out of a cigar box, wood and wire. He also learned to play the piano, occasionally performing professionally. By his teens, Blackwell was a part-time musician, traveling as far as Chicago. He was known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbecue Bob
Robert Hicks, better known as Barbecue Bob (September 11, 1902 – October 21, 1931), was an early American Piedmont blues musician. His nickname was derived from his working as a cook in a barbecue restaurant. One of the three extant photographs of him show him playing a guitar and wearing a full-length white apron and cook's hat. Early life Hicks was born in Walnut Grove, Georgia. His parents, Charlie and Mary Hicks, were farmers. He and his brother, Charlie Hicks, together with Curley Weaver, were taught how to play the guitar by Curley's mother, Savannah "Dip" Weaver.Barlow, William (1989). ''"Looking Up at Down": The Emergence of Blues Culture''. Temple University Press. pp. 195–96. . Bob began playing the 6-string guitar but picked up the 12-string guitar after moving to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1924. He became one of the prominent performers of the newly developing Atlanta blues style. In Atlanta, Hicks worked at various jobs, playing music on the side. While working at Ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band is a three-piece American country blues band from Brown County, Indiana. They have played up to 250 dates per year at venues ranging from bars to festivals since 2006. To date, they have released ten albums and one EP, most of which have charted on the Billboard and iTunes Charts. Members * Reverend Peyton – guitar, lead vocals, and principal songwriter :On stage he plays a rusty 1930 steel-bodied National guitar, a 1934 wood-bodied National Trojan Resonator guitar and a 1994 reproduction of a 1929 Gibson acoustic. He has recently added a three-string cigar box guitar to his stage collection. Peyton uses no outboard gear other than a three input switch box between his guitars and the amplifier. He is a noted proponent of fingerstyle guitar, playing the bass line of songs with his thumb while simultaneously playing the melody, the melody of a different song or a round with his fingers. * "Washboard" Breezy "The Miss Elizabeth of Country Blu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
