Thursday, September 05, 2019

ON MR SLIM'S 112th NATAL ANNIVERSARY




ON MR SLIM'S 112th NATAL ANNIVERSARY - Put “Chicago Blues” into an online Musical Assistant and you get some darn good music. But Sunnyland Slim would caution: “Chicago was never the Blues”. The meaning there is hard to understand. Sunnyland spoke in parable, sometimes a bit garbled. You have to dig in with him and learn the rest of the story to know this is his way of saying that the blues was invented in the South. Listen to this recording of Rollin and Tumblin, which he performs here as a study in the rudiments of the blues. What he might call “Dudlow.” A music to represent conjuring a small town on a rail line where W.C. Handy may have discovered the blues --  that Handy would go on to notate and expand. Sunnnyland came from near Tutwiler, where Handy had his epiphany - where the Southern crossed the Dog. Here. Slim knocks this one out using his Wurlitzer electric piano, a convenience for club dates, from which he obtained an incredible sound, that was seldom to be recorded. But you got it here! In the patter leading up to the music Sunnyland talks with open disdain about “Dixon and them” as the purveyors of the “Chicago as the blues” myth. Dixon was not a favorite, and this complaint, which Sunnyland frequently shared, may have been a save public way to let off steam when Slim may have at times gotten steamed up. - Jack Vaughan, 2019 (A3 Sunnyland Slim / Johnny Shines / Backwards Sam Firk - Rolling And Tumbling...)

Reckon maybe I will change the oil on the car. Dick Tracy around a bit. Go see about my records at the Fish Market. We come back here and get ready to take Sarah to Bango. Old Pope Paul be making some money tonight for sure!


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