Michael Addison Stewart (September 18, 1943 – October 11, 2007), who performed and recorded as Backwards Sam Firk, was an American
country blues
Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in t ...
singer,
fingerstyle guitar
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with a single plect ...
ist, songwriter, and record collector.
Less well known than such contemporaries as
Alan Wilson of
Canned Heat
Canned Heat is an American band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1965. The group is noted for its efforts to promote interest in blues music and its original artists and rock music. It was founded by two blues enthusiasts Alan Wilson and Bob ...
and
John Fahey, Backwards Sam Firk spent much of his music-based existence working with and supporting older blues artists.
According to his friend Stephan Michelson, "He was, simply put, masterful. More than technique, he had taste. And more than technique and taste, he had originality. From his mentors and from records he did not so much copy notes as learn sounds and how to make them. He played old-time blues as if he was living in the 1930s, as if this was the music of his day. For him, it was."
Life and career
Stewart was born in
Asheville, North Carolina.
His alias Backwards Sam Firk was an homage to the musician
John Fahey, who had used the pseudonym Blind Thomas for some of his recordings.
Stewart also explained that "My dad used to call me Backwards Sam because my initials are MAS."
His first recordings, under his stage name, were made for
Joe Bussard's Fonotone Records in the early 1960s. He later collaborated on recordings with Fahey, when they were jointly billed as the Mississippi Swampers.
His debut solo recording was the album ''The True Blues and Gospel'', which was mainly a collection of
cover version
In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...
s of older blues numbers. It was released by
Adelphi Records
Adelphi Records is an American independent record label founded in 1968 and incorporated in 1970 by Gene Rosenthal.
History
The label name was crafted by Rosenthal to suggest a combination of the Greek oracle, nearby Adelphi, Maryland, as well ...
, an independent blues label based in
Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ce ...
, partly owned by his then-wife.
Adelphi conducted field trips, usually attended by Firk, in search of largely forgotten blues musicians from an earlier generation. Firk thus met and befriended the guitarist
Richard "Hacksaw" Harney
Richard "Hacksaw" Harney (July 16, 1902 – December 25, 1973) was an American Delta blues guitarist and pianist. He first entered a recording studio with his brother Maylon in 1928, to wax guitar work backing for separate tracks by Pearl Dicks ...
,
Johnny Shines
John Ned Shines (April 26, 1915 – April 20, 1992) was an American blues singer and guitarist.
Biography
Shines was born in the community of Frayser, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was taught to play the guitar by his mother and spent most of h ...
,
Sunnyland Slim
Albert Luandrew (September 5, 1906March 17, 1995), "Blues pianist and singer Sunnyland Slim was born Albert Luandrew in Vance, Mississippi, September 5, 1906 (most sources say 1907, but the Social Security Death Index and 1920 census data give t ...
,
David "Honeyboy" Edwards
David "Honeyboy" Edwards (June 28, 1915 – August 29, 2011) was a Delta blues guitarist and singer from Mississippi.
Biography
Edwards was born in Shaw, Mississippi. , and
Big Joe Williams. In
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, he also met and played with the pianist Henry Brown and
Henry Townsend Henry Townsend may refer to:
* Henry Townsend (Norwich) (1626–1695), early American colonist born in Norwich, Norfolk, England
* Henry Townsend (Oyster Bay) (1649–1703), American colonist born in Oyster Bay
* Henry Townsend (missionary) (1815†...
.
Most notably, he backed
Yank Rachell
Yank Rachell (born James A. Rachel; March 16, 1903 or 1910 – April 9, 1997) was an American country blues musician who has been called an "elder statesman of the blues". His career as a performer spanned nearly seventy years, from the late 19 ...
on a session for
Blue Goose Records. His work with Townsend resulted in their joint album, ''Henry T. Music Man'' (1973).
Stewart again used the pseudonym Backwards Sam Firk for a couple of duet albums he made with the guitarist Stephan Michelson, alias Delta X.
Firk gained an entry in the
dirty blues
Dirty blues encompasses forms of blues music that deal with socially taboo and obscene subjects, often referring to sexual acts and drug use. Due to the sometimes graphic subject matter, such music was often banned from radio and only available on ...
category, by recording tracks such as "Cigarette" and "West Side Blues".
By the mid-1970s, Firk stopped recording and started to earn a living dealing in rare blues, folk and country records. He assembled one of the most important collections of vintage recordings ever held by one individual.
He owned and operated his own record label, Green River Records, which issued compilation albums from his collection of old recordings.
Following a divorce from his first wife, Carol Rosenthal, he returned to North Carolina in 1991 and settled in
Mill Spring. He later remarried.
He died of a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...
at his home on October 11, 2007, aged 64.
Discography
Albums
See also
*
List of country blues musicians
The following is a list of country blues musicians.
A
*Alger "Texas" Alexander (September 12, 1900, Jewett, Texas – April 16, 1954). Singer, a forebear of Texas blues. He did not play a musical instrument but was backed by such artists as ...
*
List of blues musicians
Blues musicians are musical artists who are primarily recognized as writing, performing, and recording blues music. They come from different eras and include styles such as ragtime-vaudeville, Delta and country blues, and urban styles from Chic ...
References
External links
Discogs entryYouTube footage of "Cigarette" by Backwards Sam Firk
{{DEFAULTSORT:Firk, Backwards Sam
1943 births
2007 deaths
20th-century American singers
American blues singers
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
Country blues musicians
Dirty blues musicians
Fingerstyle guitarists
Songwriters from North Carolina
American folk-song collectors
Record collectors
Musicians from Asheville, North Carolina
20th-century American guitarists
Guitarists from North Carolina
20th-century American male musicians
American male songwriters