Topic: Dance Music - Highlife
Jamaican music reached West Africa early. When freedmen rebelled against their administrative overseers in Sierra Leone in 1800, Britain brought captured Maroon runaways [1] from Jamaica to instill order in Freetown. [2] John Collins suggested they carried knowledge of their gumbay frame drums with them. [3]
The rebels were slaves who had defected to the British during the American Revolutions and were settled as freedmen in Nova Scotia after the war. They had volunteered to escape the cold north for Freetown. [4] In South Carolina, the men who accepted the British offer of freedom were used as soldiers. [5] After the war, they were moved to Jamaica with other troops. [6] The whites were demobilized and given land grants. The Blacks presented a problem, because no planter on any island wanted them. They finally were stationed in the Leeward Islands in 1783. [7]
Over time the West India Regiment was recognized as a usable resource for the same reason slaves from Africa were useful. Tropical diseases like yellow fever, malaria, and cholera led to early deaths among Europeans. The unit was regularized in 1795, during the Napoleonic wars, and its numbers were supplemented with slaves purchased by the army, as they had been during the revolution. [8]
The United Kingdom banned the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807. [9] The next year, it stationed part of its navy in Freetown to enforce the law. Freetown had a large, natural harbor [10] where seamen from many nations mixed with local dock workers in waterfront bars. [11] When British ships returned to port, they released their cargoes of captives in Sierra Leone, [12] which added to cosmopolitan nature of the Crown colony. Shipboard instruments like mandolins, banjos, harmonicas, and concertinas were introduced. Kru sailors spread the guitar from Liberia to every African port where their ships stopped. [13]
The West India regiment was sent to Freetown for the first time in 1826 to recruit new soldiers. [14] Alfred Burdon Ellis said the regiment was always undermanned, so garrisons might only have a few regular troops supplemented by clerks, guards, and other civilians. [15] They were constantly on the move, and recruited men wherever they were stationed. In 1839, there were companies in Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Tobago, Trinidad, and on the northeastern coast of South America. [16]
Palm oil replaced slaves as a trade commodity. It was used as a lubricant, especially by railroads in England. [17] The trade, which depended on contacts with inland producers, gave local merchants and private trading companies an advantage over ones sponsored by the Crown. [18] In 1843, the United Kingdom sent troops from Sierra Leone to help take control of the Gold Coast, now Ghana. Britain’s rationale was local merchants were perpetuating the slave trade. [19]
From then until the regiment was disbanded after World War I, West India companies periodically were sent to the British garrison at Cape Coast Castle, then withdrawn. With the garrison came the spread of fife and drum corps, and then, as suggested in the post for 15 September 2017, brass bands. One was mentioned at Cape Coast Castle in 1830. [20] Collins said there were 200 forts or trading posts [21] along the Gold Coast, and many recruited and trained local musicians. [22]
Musicians who could not afford brass instruments created their own versions of band music with local instruments that replaced the downbeats used by the military with the offbeats of Caribbean music. [23] Collins said they maintained the drill formations for adaha music. [24] Since 1858, the dress uniform of the West India regiment had been modeled on that of the French North African Zouaves. [25]
Wesleyan missionaries followed the army to the coastal settlements on the Gold Coast where they opened schools. [26] Most of the men they educated became merchants. By 1885, they had become a separate class [27] who held its own social functions modeled on the European ones.
The status of the new elite changed in the 1890s. Once scientists identified mosquitoes as the carriers of yellow fever and malaria, colonial administrators began eliminating swamps. The improved sanitation made the climate less deadly for Europeans, and more were willing to spend part of their youth in Africa. [28]
The new men were raised with increasingly prevalent theories promoting a hierarchy of races that placed whites at the top and Negroes at the bottom. Unlike their predecessors, the new company agents were unwilling to work with Africans and established white-only enclaves. [29] Colonial administrators began systematically discouraging the use of educated Africans in their own offices. [30]
Meantime, cocoa was replacing palm oil as the primary product in the southern part of the Gold Coast. Farmers moved there from neighboring Upper Volta, Niger, and Mali [31] to escape French attempts to introduce coerced labor. [32] The Mossi became farm workers. More men moved during World War I to avoid conscription. [33] Many of those went to urban areas where the educated assumed new roles. [34]
The fortunes of the educated African elite changed again during the war. Germans had been customers for many export products, and sales fell when the war started. [35] When demand increased for materials useful to the military, there were few who could do the purchasing after so many British agents also left. [36] Africans with some "education were able to interpose themselves as middlemen between the primary producers and the big European commercial companies." [37]
After the war those with money held dances in local hotels. Yebuah Mensah remembered
"The term ‘highlife’ was created by people who gathered around the dancing clubs to watch and listen to the couples enjoying themselves. Highlife started as a catch-name for the indigenous songs played at these clubs by such early bands as the Jazz Kings, the Cape Coast Sugar Babies, the Sekondi Nanshamang, and later the Accra Orchestra.
"The people outside called it highlife as they did not reach the class of the couples going inside, who not only had to pay high entrance fee of 7s. 6d., but also had to wear full evening dress including top hats." [38]
The term highlife became elastic when it was used to refer to African dance music of the elite, the urban poor, and cocoa farmers.
Merchants began selling phonograph machines. While some manufactures established their own outlets, the German Odeon signed exclusive distribution contracts with local merchants. It offered to send equipment to record local artists as a way of producing records that would generate more equipment sales. Other companies followed their example, while Zonophone decided it was cheaper to take artists by steamship to London. [39]
In 1928, the owners of the Tarquah Trading Company in Kumasi sent local Gold Coast musicians to England. [40] One was Kwame Asare. He had been raised in the south where he learned to play guitar from a Kru. [41] When his father objected to the instrument, he moved to Kumasi. [42] It was the northern railhead for the cocoa farms. [43]
The movements of people within the booming 1920s economy of cocoa country created the kind of cross-fertilization that leads to the creation of new music forms like hip hop in the Bronx [44] and Black gospel music in England. [45] Asare, using the name Jacob Sam, recorded what became "the prototype for a new genre" [46] of working class highlife or palm-wine music.
Sam used wooden sticks to set the rhythm pattern for his recording of "Yaa Amponsah." [47] According to William Matczynski, they were played after the second, third, and fourth beats. He noted this pattern occurred "in almost every 4/4 highlife song" after that. [48]
The acoustic guitars played the same pattern in a phrase that was repeated for the entire record. [49] While the guitars and claves created a simple accompaniment for the singer, Matczynski observed the guitarists played a series of chords that defined the descending melody. Again "Yaa Amponsah" chord progressions were shared by many songs. [50]
Highlife lyrics were meant to be heard, and often carried coded political messages in languages only partly understood by their colonial targets. [51] "Yaa Amponsah" described a woman who taught men to dance with women in the western style. Sam told her he would continue to love her, even though she was leaving. It upset both the traditional elite and the one trained by Methodists and Episcopalians who believed men and women ought to dance separately. [52]
During the dislocations of the depression, men took Ghanaian music to Nigeria. [53] Then, in 1934, the Cape Coast Sugar Babies Light Orchestra toured Nigeria. [54] The Yoruba substituted their "asymmetrical drum rhythms" with "syncopated (displaced-accent) guitar melodies" [55] to create juju music. [56]
The second World War brought more changes. The Gold Coast was the designated place of exile if one were needed by the British government. [57] British and American troops wanted to hear swing music at their dances. Jack Leopard recruited local musicians who could read music. [58] E. T. Mensah remembered the saxophone player "taught us the correct methods of intonation, vibrato, tonguing and breath control." [59]
After the troops withdrew at war’s end, Mensah formed his own group, the Tempos, who played swing-influenced highlife. They toured Nigeria in 1952. "Nigerian radio stations started playing nothing but E.T. Mensah records and Nigerian bands had to start playing Mensah’s numbers to satisfy the dancing public’s boundless appetite for the new Ghanaian sound." The first to imitate him was Bobby Benson. Then Victor Olaiya "started filling his entire sets with nothing but songs by Mensah." [60]
Victor Uwaifo was twelve-years old when Mensah peformed in the Edo city of Benin. [61] He already was interested in music, and spent a little time with the Tempos’ guitarist. [62] Uwaifo’s taste had been formed by his father’s phonograph records. He told Morgan Greenstreet:
"As early as 12 years old, way back in Benin here, I started playing guitar, based on Latin-American Spanish type of music. I grew up in an era where the gramophone was the in thing. Gramophone is a kind of device that you just wind and you release it and it starts playing. I still have one there that I will demonstrate; if you had a gramophone, you are a big man. You had a gas light to go with it, oh, you are extra big! So if the gramophone was playing in my house, my father had many types of records but especially when he played the GV records, those were the ones that appealed to me because they were mostly guitar." [63]
During the depression the English Victor company had begun sending recordings by Cuban and other Latin performers like Xavier Cugat to Africa. [64]
Highlife continued to evolve. In 1956, Louis Armstrong visited Ghana, and played trumpet with Mensah’s band. That same year Harry Belafonte recorded the "Banana Boat Song," and some highlife artists began incorporating his Jamaican rhythms into their music. [65]
When Uwaifo was in secondary school in Lagos between 1957 and 1961, [66] he studied music and formed the school band. He also played with both Benson and Olayia on weekends. [67] Uwaifo remembered it was in those years that musical taste changed again when Elvis Presley’s guitar-based backup group began replacing the brasses used by the highlife bands. [68]
In 1965, Uwaifo formed his own band, the Melody Maestroes [69] and released "Joromi." [70] They returned to the guitar-based highlife of Jacob Sam, but with electric guitars and drummers. The text incorporated elements of Edo folklore.
Nigeria had gained its freedom from the United Kingdom in 1960, and in 1966 the Igbo overthrew the government. [71] When the Biafran civil war began in 1967, may Igbo fled Lagos. They were the primary highlife musicians in the capital city, and Yoruba juju filled the void. [72] Uwaifo remembered his fans turned to soul music. [73]
Peace officially returned in January 1970. [74] Soon after, Uwaifo abandoned the capital for Benin City, [75] where he opened a hotel [76] and nightclub in 1971. [77] His new records used Edo rhythms and generic titles, [78] like "Ekassa 1." [79]
Uwaifo’s recording of "Guitar Boy" [80] was turned to political ends in Ghana in 1966, when a group of dissidents arranged to have the record played on national radio as the signal a coup had begun. [81] After Jerry Rawlings seized control of the government in 1981, [82] he imposed curfews that limited nighttime activities. The "live music scene was virtually wiped out and the music industry as a whole was severely damaged. John Collins describes this period as absolutely devastating. " [83]
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone." Maroons were slaves who escaped plantations and established remote communities on the island. After conflict in 1792, one white broke the peace agreement and shipped Maroons to Nova Scotia, then, in 1800, to Sierra Leone.
2. Wikipedia. "Freetown."
3. John Collins. "The Early History of West African Highlife Music." Popular Music 8:221-230:1989. 221.
4. Wikipedia, Freetown.
5. A. B. Ellis. The History of the First West India Regiment. London: Chapman and Hall, 1885. 27. Ellis was an English officer in the regiment, rising from lieutenant in 1873 to lieutenant-colonel in 1891. (Charles Alexander Harris. "Ellis, Alfred Burdon." 182-183 in Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Leslie Stephan. London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1901 supplement.)
6. Ellis. 49.
7. Ellis. 51.
8. "Slaves in Red Coats: The West India Regiment." National Army Museum, London, website.
9. National Army Museum. The status of slaves in the West India Regiment was changed to that of their free peers.
10. Wikipedia, Freetown.
11. Collins, Highlife. 222.
12. Wikipedia, Freetown.
13. Collins, Highlife. 222.
14. Ellis. 178.
15. Ellis. 24.
16. Ellis. 209.
17. S. O. Aghalino. "British Colonial Policies and the Oil Palm Industry in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, 1900-1960" African Study Monographs, 21:19-33:2000. 19.
18. I. Wallerstein. "Africa and the World-Economy. 23-39 in Africa in the Nineteenth Century until the 1880s. Edited by J. F. Ade Ajayi. Paris: UNESCO, 1989. 31.
19. Ellis. 212.
20. Atta Mensah. "Highlife." 8:550-551 in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Edited by Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan, 1980. 550.
21. The term fort was used by mercantile companies for their trading posts; the ones for the fur trade in the United States and Canada often were built like military forts.
22. Collins, Highlife. 223.
23. Collins, Highlife. 223.
24. Collins, Highlife. 224.
25. National Army Museum.
26. A. A. Boahen. "New Trends and Processes in Africa in the Nineteenth Century." 40-63 in Ajayi. 46. Wesleyans were the English Methodists.
27. Boahen, Trends. 51.
28. J. C. Caldwell. "The Social Repercussions of Colonial Rule: Demographic Aspects." 458-486 in Africa under Colonial Domination 1880-1935. Edited by A. Adu Boahen. Paris: UNESCO, 1985. 478.
29. A. E. Afigbo. "The Social Repercussions of Colonial Rule: the New Social Structures." 487-507 in Boahen, Colonial. 495.
30. R. F. Betts. "Methods and Institutions of European Domination." Revised by M. Asiwaju. 312-331 in Boahen, Colonial. 316.
31. Shashi Kolavalli and Marcella Vigneri. "Cocoa in Ghana: Shaping the Success of an Economy." 201-217 in Yes, Africa Can. Edited by Punam Chuhan-Pole and Manka Angwafo. Washington: World Bank, 2011. 202.
32. C. Coquery-Vidrovitch. "The Colonial Economy of the Former French, Belgian and Portuguese Zones, 1914-35." 351-381 in Boahen, Colonial. 364
33. M . Crowder. "The First World War and its Consequences." 283-311 in Boahen, Colonial. 299.
34. Afigbo. 496.
35. Crowder. 300.
36. Crowder. 302.
37. Afigbo. 498.
38. Yebuah Mensah. Quoted by Uchenna Ikonne. "Highlife in West Africa." Music in Africa website.
39. Paul Vernon. "Special Agents: The Role of Local Agents In Early Recording." Bolingo website.
40. John Collins. "One Hundred Years of Censorship in Ghanaian Popular Music Performance." In Popular Music Censorship in Africa. Edited by Michael Drewett and Martin Cloonan. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2006. No pages in online edition.
41. Collins, Highlife. 223.
42. Kwaa Mensah. Quoted by Collins, Highlife. 223.
43. Kwamina B. Dickson. A Historical Geography of Ghana. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971. 225.
44. The Bronx was mentioned in the post for 3 April 2018. After the changes in the immigration law mentioned in the post for 22 April 2018, people from all the former British Caribbean nations headed for the United States, where they congregated in ethnically-mixed neighborhoods.
45. The Escoffery Sisters pioneered Black gospel music in England. In 1959, before the restrictive immigration law went into effect in the United Kingdom, their father migrated to London from Jamaica. Arthur Torrington remembered the Seventh-day Adventist church the girls attended "was a melting pot of almost every nationality – British, European, African, Mauritian and Caribbean – and it was the first time that such a mix had taken place in its history. That decade saw the Caribbean membership in the UK becoming the majority, and the search for a pastor who reflected it." Obituary for their father. "George Stephenson Escoffery – d. 15 March 2010." [Seventh-day Adventist] Messenger 15:28 May 2010. The sisters were mentioned in the post for 14 March 2018.
46. Ikonne.
47. "Amponsah Part 1 & 2." Kingsway Hall, London. 8 June 1928. Zonophone 1001. (Flemming Harrev. "Zonophone." Afro Disc website. 14 August 2014, latest update 07 April 2015.) The recording has been uploaded to YouTube and re-released on CD compilations.
48. William Matczynski. "Highlife and its Roots: Negotiating the Social, Cultural, and Musical Continuities Between Popular and Traditional Music in Ghana." Honors Paper. Macalester College, 3 May 2011. 22. Ethnomusicologists refer to sticks by their Cuban name, clave or claves.
49. Matczynski. 22. Musicologists call this repetition ostinato.
50. Matczynski. 24-25.
51. Kwesi Owusu. "The Political Significance of Highlife Songs." Accra Dot Alt Radio website. April 2015.
52. Collins, Censorship.
53. Collins, Highlife. 224.
54. Mensah, Atta. 550.
55. "Highlife." Encyclopædia Britannica. 13 May 2016.
56. Collins, Highlife. 224.
57. Collins, Highlife. 225.
58. Collins, Highlife. 225.
59. E. T. Mensah [Emmanuel Tetteh Mensah]. Quoted by Collins, Highlife. 224.
60. Ikonne.
61. Ikonne. Benin City was in southwestern Nigeria. It had been the capitol of the Edo people.
62. John Collins. Musicmakers of West Africa. Washington: Three Continents Press, 1985. 77. The guitarist was Dizzy Acquaye.
63. Victor Uwaifo. Quoted by Morgan Greenstreet. "Sir Victor Uwaifo, Superstar: In His Own Words." Afro Pop website. 20 March 2017.
64. Wikipedia. "G.V. Series." The company was British EMI and the label was His Master’s Voice. In the 1940s, it expanded to include RCA Victor in the United States.
65. Kwesi Owusu. "The Highlife Revolution Part 1." Accra Dot Alt Radio website. April 2015.
66. "Biography." Victor Uwaifo website.
67. "Sir Victor Uwaifo & His Melody Maestros." Munster Records website.
68. Collins, Musicmakers. 77.
69. Collins, Musicmakers. 73.
70. Sir Victor Uwaifo and his Melody Maestroes. "Joromi." Philips PF 383045. Nigeria. 1965. (His website). The recording has been uploaded to YouTube and re-released on CD compilations.
71. Wikipedia. "Nigeria."
72. Ikonne. Also, Karas Lamb. "Highlife Music." Revive Music website. 22 June 2011.
73. Greenstreet.
74. Wikipedia, Nigeria.
75. Collins, Musicmakers. 72.
76. "Biography." Victor Uwaifo website.
77. Greenstreet.
78. Greenstreet.
79. Sir Victor Uwaifo & his Melody Maestroes. "Dododo Ekassa No. 1" Philips PF 6043312. Nigeria. 1970. (His website.) The recording has been uploaded to YouTube and re-released on CD compilations.
80. Sir Victor Uwaifo & his Melody Maestroes. "Guitar Boy & Mamywater." Philips PF 383245. Nigeria. 1966. (His website). The recording has been uploaded to YouTube and re-released on CD compilations.
81. Owusu, Political Significance.
82. Wikipedia. "Jerry Rawlings."
83. Matczynski. 15. He did not give a specific citation for Collins.
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Ryme Minista - Kumbaya
Topic: Dance Music
Dancehall music developed in parallel with hip hop from the same Jamaican roots: the sound systems, chants over drum rhythms, and technological innovations. Around 1980, the DJs who introduced records became independent recording artists. [1]
The emergence of dancehall as a separate genre coincided with political and economic changes that followed the election of Michael Manley in 1972. His attempts to improve the economic condition of much of the population [2] occurred in an extractive economy that deteriorated when aluminum mines closed. [3] The passage of restrictive immigration laws in the United Kingdom in 1962, and more open ones in the United States in 1976, meant the poor had more communication with people living in American cities than they had had before. [4]
Dance halls became places like discotheques where individuals could deny social realities that accompanied a poor economy by assuming exaggerated male and female roles that allowed them to demonstrate wealth with style and accomplishment with dancing. [5] The two became so linked, one artist remarked:
"one could be the best DJ or the smoothest dancer, but if one wears clothing that reflects the economic realities of the majority of the partygoers, one will be ignored." [6]
The accompaniment for Ryme Minista’s 2016 recording of "Kumbaya" was entirely electronic. Both the vocal and instrumental parts stayed within the range of four tones. The synthesizer set the beat when it played a single note four times that began on the base tone, then was repeated on the fourth, third, and second notes in a descending sequence. [7]
During most of the record, when Ryme Minista was chanting, a hollow drum sounded every few measures in a X pause XxX pattern. During the instrumental finale, the machine added hand drum sounds between the strong pulses of the primary drum. They were pitched two tones higher.
The lyrics were in Jamaican Patois, a creole that developed as soon as English and Scots sugar-plantation owners needed to communicate with their Akan-speaking slaves brought from the area that is now Ghana. [8] Akan was a tonal language with three pitches. Phrases either began low or high, and often moved from high to low in what was called tone terracing. [9]
Most of the time, Ryme Minista repeated an entire phrase on the low tone, and repeated it again on the high tone. For variation, he alternated between the low and middle tones; at one point in that section, he dropped to a note lower than his usual low note. That entire section was three notes, but within the context of the entire performance, it expanded the tonal range one note.
Ryme Minista began and ended with a chant that began "um ba ya ya ay um ba ya." I could not understand the rest. Even the pronunciation of English words was influenced by the patois. I assume they were positive. Dancehall, like Gangsta Rap, had a substratum of violence. When Crime Minista wanted to be booked for an important concert,
"Mr. Walker and Mr. Laing told me they were not promoting any crime ting and that I should change my name, and they changed the crime to rhyme and it just shot, everybody love it." [10]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: Ryme Minista
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: synthesizer
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum machine
Credits
Jamaican Mafia Riddim © 2016
Notes on Lyrics
Language: Jamaican Patois
Pronunciation: um BA ya
Verses: his own
Basic Form: opening and closing verse
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: own
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: ABAC where A and B were vocal and C was instrumental
Singing Style: rhythmic chant
Instrumental Style: electronic
Notes on Performance
Video graphic: photograph of Ryme Minster’s face with his forefinger thrust forward
Notes on Performers
Fabian Sawyer grew up in a tough neighborhood of Glendevon in Jamaica’s Montego Bay. He told an interviewer:
"Yes I lost everything, three brothers and my mother to crime and violence but I was not going to let that define me. For a while I had nothing or no one to turn to, then I turned to music and it became my strength. Today I can look back and say I am proud to have made a positive from such harsh realities." [11]
He began singing to beats in high school, but initially worked as a dancer. He told another interviewer:
"When I was in school, mi dance full time and deejay like half ah the time, but mi friends dem say mi can deejay and dance good so I should try deejaying and mi just do it one day." [12]
Following the advice of promoters allowed him to continue recording and having his videos promoted on YouTube. In 2015 he performed in Miami at the Best of the Best concert that celebrated reggae, dancehall, and soca music. [13] The next year, one of the event’s organizers indicated a "number of well-known Jamaican dancehall artists" had their visas cancelled. "Ninety percent of the artists who can’t travel" had performed for Jabba. [14] He added
"‘When an artist has a hot song and a radio station can’t promote it or get a show off that artist, it holds back the music,’ he said. ‘I work on urban radio, and my show used to be a full reggae show. Now it’s half reggae and half hip-hop’." [15]
Availability
Album: Jamaican Mafia Riddim. Darshan Recordz. 2016.
YouTube: uploaded by Akam Entertainment on 7 December 2016.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Dancehall."
2. Wikipedia. "History of Jamaica."
3. Wikipedia. "Jamaica."
4. Dereck W. Cooper. "Migration from Jamaica in the 1970s: Political Protest or Economic Pull?" The International Migration Review 19:728-745:1985. The Immigration and Naturalization Law of 1965, but did not go into effect until 1976. The change contributed to the influx of Jamaican immigrants in the Bronx where Rap and Hip Hop developed. See posts for 3 April 2018 for more details.
5. Norman Stolzoff suggested "through dancehall, ghetto youths attempt to deal with the endemic problems of poverty, racism, and violence, and in this sense the dancehall acts as a communication center, a relay station, a site where black lower-class culture attains its deepest expression." Wake the Town and Tell the People. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. 1 and 7. Paraphrased by Wikipedia, Dancehall.
6. Beenie Man [Anthony Moss Davs]. Quoted by Wikipedia, Dancehall. It paraphrased It’s All About Dancing," a 2006 documentary directed by Jason Williams.
7. The opening brass section of Winston and Rupert’s version of "Come by Here" began with four descending chords, then continued by rising before falling again. See post for 19 April 2018.
8. Wikipedia. "Jamaican Patois."
9. Wikipedia. "Akan Language."
10. Ryme Minista. "Ryme Minista Scores Big with Killas and Killas." Dance Hall Reggae World website. Isaiah Laing was a promoter. Delroy Willis discussed a similar need to separate reggae and dancehall music from its milieu in the post for 29 December 2017.
11. "Hometown Sensation Ryme Minister to Rock Reggae Sumfest." Headline Jamaica website. 1 June 2014.
12. Dance Hall Reggae World.
13. S. Pajot. "Best of the Best’s 2015’s Lineup." Miami New Times website. 2 December 2014.
14. Jacqueline Charles. "Top Reggae Acts Mark Memorial Day with ‘Best of the Best’ Concert." Miami Herald website. 28 May 2016.
15. Jabba [Steven Beckford]. Quoted by Charles. He founded the annual Memorial Day concert with Joey Budafuco.
Dancehall music developed in parallel with hip hop from the same Jamaican roots: the sound systems, chants over drum rhythms, and technological innovations. Around 1980, the DJs who introduced records became independent recording artists. [1]
The emergence of dancehall as a separate genre coincided with political and economic changes that followed the election of Michael Manley in 1972. His attempts to improve the economic condition of much of the population [2] occurred in an extractive economy that deteriorated when aluminum mines closed. [3] The passage of restrictive immigration laws in the United Kingdom in 1962, and more open ones in the United States in 1976, meant the poor had more communication with people living in American cities than they had had before. [4]
Dance halls became places like discotheques where individuals could deny social realities that accompanied a poor economy by assuming exaggerated male and female roles that allowed them to demonstrate wealth with style and accomplishment with dancing. [5] The two became so linked, one artist remarked:
"one could be the best DJ or the smoothest dancer, but if one wears clothing that reflects the economic realities of the majority of the partygoers, one will be ignored." [6]
The accompaniment for Ryme Minista’s 2016 recording of "Kumbaya" was entirely electronic. Both the vocal and instrumental parts stayed within the range of four tones. The synthesizer set the beat when it played a single note four times that began on the base tone, then was repeated on the fourth, third, and second notes in a descending sequence. [7]
During most of the record, when Ryme Minista was chanting, a hollow drum sounded every few measures in a X pause XxX pattern. During the instrumental finale, the machine added hand drum sounds between the strong pulses of the primary drum. They were pitched two tones higher.
The lyrics were in Jamaican Patois, a creole that developed as soon as English and Scots sugar-plantation owners needed to communicate with their Akan-speaking slaves brought from the area that is now Ghana. [8] Akan was a tonal language with three pitches. Phrases either began low or high, and often moved from high to low in what was called tone terracing. [9]
Most of the time, Ryme Minista repeated an entire phrase on the low tone, and repeated it again on the high tone. For variation, he alternated between the low and middle tones; at one point in that section, he dropped to a note lower than his usual low note. That entire section was three notes, but within the context of the entire performance, it expanded the tonal range one note.
Ryme Minista began and ended with a chant that began "um ba ya ya ay um ba ya." I could not understand the rest. Even the pronunciation of English words was influenced by the patois. I assume they were positive. Dancehall, like Gangsta Rap, had a substratum of violence. When Crime Minista wanted to be booked for an important concert,
"Mr. Walker and Mr. Laing told me they were not promoting any crime ting and that I should change my name, and they changed the crime to rhyme and it just shot, everybody love it." [10]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: Ryme Minista
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: synthesizer
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum machine
Credits
Jamaican Mafia Riddim © 2016
Notes on Lyrics
Language: Jamaican Patois
Pronunciation: um BA ya
Verses: his own
Basic Form: opening and closing verse
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: own
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: ABAC where A and B were vocal and C was instrumental
Singing Style: rhythmic chant
Instrumental Style: electronic
Notes on Performance
Video graphic: photograph of Ryme Minster’s face with his forefinger thrust forward
Notes on Performers
Fabian Sawyer grew up in a tough neighborhood of Glendevon in Jamaica’s Montego Bay. He told an interviewer:
"Yes I lost everything, three brothers and my mother to crime and violence but I was not going to let that define me. For a while I had nothing or no one to turn to, then I turned to music and it became my strength. Today I can look back and say I am proud to have made a positive from such harsh realities." [11]
He began singing to beats in high school, but initially worked as a dancer. He told another interviewer:
"When I was in school, mi dance full time and deejay like half ah the time, but mi friends dem say mi can deejay and dance good so I should try deejaying and mi just do it one day." [12]
Following the advice of promoters allowed him to continue recording and having his videos promoted on YouTube. In 2015 he performed in Miami at the Best of the Best concert that celebrated reggae, dancehall, and soca music. [13] The next year, one of the event’s organizers indicated a "number of well-known Jamaican dancehall artists" had their visas cancelled. "Ninety percent of the artists who can’t travel" had performed for Jabba. [14] He added
"‘When an artist has a hot song and a radio station can’t promote it or get a show off that artist, it holds back the music,’ he said. ‘I work on urban radio, and my show used to be a full reggae show. Now it’s half reggae and half hip-hop’." [15]
Availability
Album: Jamaican Mafia Riddim. Darshan Recordz. 2016.
YouTube: uploaded by Akam Entertainment on 7 December 2016.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Dancehall."
2. Wikipedia. "History of Jamaica."
3. Wikipedia. "Jamaica."
4. Dereck W. Cooper. "Migration from Jamaica in the 1970s: Political Protest or Economic Pull?" The International Migration Review 19:728-745:1985. The Immigration and Naturalization Law of 1965, but did not go into effect until 1976. The change contributed to the influx of Jamaican immigrants in the Bronx where Rap and Hip Hop developed. See posts for 3 April 2018 for more details.
5. Norman Stolzoff suggested "through dancehall, ghetto youths attempt to deal with the endemic problems of poverty, racism, and violence, and in this sense the dancehall acts as a communication center, a relay station, a site where black lower-class culture attains its deepest expression." Wake the Town and Tell the People. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. 1 and 7. Paraphrased by Wikipedia, Dancehall.
6. Beenie Man [Anthony Moss Davs]. Quoted by Wikipedia, Dancehall. It paraphrased It’s All About Dancing," a 2006 documentary directed by Jason Williams.
7. The opening brass section of Winston and Rupert’s version of "Come by Here" began with four descending chords, then continued by rising before falling again. See post for 19 April 2018.
8. Wikipedia. "Jamaican Patois."
9. Wikipedia. "Akan Language."
10. Ryme Minista. "Ryme Minista Scores Big with Killas and Killas." Dance Hall Reggae World website. Isaiah Laing was a promoter. Delroy Willis discussed a similar need to separate reggae and dancehall music from its milieu in the post for 29 December 2017.
11. "Hometown Sensation Ryme Minister to Rock Reggae Sumfest." Headline Jamaica website. 1 June 2014.
12. Dance Hall Reggae World.
13. S. Pajot. "Best of the Best’s 2015’s Lineup." Miami New Times website. 2 December 2014.
14. Jacqueline Charles. "Top Reggae Acts Mark Memorial Day with ‘Best of the Best’ Concert." Miami Herald website. 28 May 2016.
15. Jabba [Steven Beckford]. Quoted by Charles. He founded the annual Memorial Day concert with Joey Budafuco.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Winston and Rupert - Come by Here
Topic: Dance Music- Reggae
To many Americans, Jamaican music history went through two periods: the calypso of Harry Belafonte [1] and the reggae of Bob Marley. It doesn’t matter that calypso was the music of Trinidad and mento the music of Jamaica. They had similar texts and served similar social functions, but, according to Roy Black, had different rhythms. [2] To people who only knew the waltz and the march, anything different sounded the same.
Lord Fly, the first mento artist to record in New York, suggested Jamaican musicians had no interest in disabusing Americans of their views so long as they paid the bills. In 1957, he told an interviewer:
"In Jamaica, we call our music ‘mento’ until very recently. Today, calypso is beginning to be used for all kinds of West Indian music. This is because its become so commercialized there. Some people like to think of West Indians as carefree natives who work and sing and play and laugh their lives away. But this isn’t so. Most of the people there are hard working folks, and many of them are smart business men. If the tourists want ‘calypso’, that’s what we sell them." [3]
Mento and calypso originally contained social commentary by griots. [4] After the popularity of Belafonte’s "Banana Boat Song" in 1956, urban musicians played more "carefree" songs. One singer from the 1950s remembered, "people would dance and prance, and be in very high spirits during mento performances". [5] This was the form tourists heard. [6]
Ska originated with rural mento musicians who were exposed to American rhythm and blues. [7] Ben E. King often visited the island, [8] and in 1964 recorded "Jamaica." [9] More important was his 1959 recording of "There Goes My Baby" [10]. Bruno Blum claimed it was the first to "overlay Latin percussion and violins on a rhythm and blues recording." [11]
While Marley was emphasizing the social context of popular music for Jamaican audiences on records made for Coxsone Dodd, [12] Pama records was locating Reggae performers to serve the English market. [13] Johnny Spencer remembered, "from the late 1960s until about c1972" Skinheads "identified with its content and form and adopted it with pride." [14]
Winston and Rupert’s 1970 recording of "Come by Here" for Pama fell into the tradition of Fly’s "carefree" dance music. Its verses consisted of opening couplets telling a woman she was loved, followed by repetitions of "Come on, come and stand by me." The key phrase was taken from the 1961 King recording of "Stand by Me." [15]
The music was a mix of the traditional and popular. Two hand drums alternated between low and high notes, with the higher drum sometimes playing additional beats. The introduction and first verse began with a short drum roll.
The verses were sung by two men using the close harmony one associated with the Everly Brothers. During the instrumental interlude, a trumpet took over the melodic line, possibly with a trombone or other lower-pitched brass. The brass began adding accents at the ends of lines of the second verse, and more elaborate turns in the third, before taking over to conclude the recording.
The first verse began "come by here and stand by me." This wasn’t a chance use of a common expression. The melody for this phrase was the 1-5 popularized by the Hightowers. [16]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: two men
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: trumpet
Rhythm Accompaniment: hand drums, drum set
Credits
Label reproduced on YouTube was not readable
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verses: own
Vocabulary
Pronoun: me
Term for Deity: none
Special Terms: stand by me
Basic Form: verse-chorus
Verse Repetition Pattern: ABB
Ending: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-5
Tempo: upbeat
Basic Structure: alternated instrumental and vocal sections; the vocal parts were essentially strophic while the instrumental ones were varied.
Singing Style: two-part close harmony
Instrumental Style: the interlude sounded like an early New Orleans jazz band, while the trumpeter used jazzier phrasing in the ending.
Vocal-Instrumental Dynamics: only drums accompanied the singing
Audience Perceptions
It clearly was recorded for the English market because it was not sung in the local patois. When Boss Reggae uploaded a version of "Come by Here" to YouTube, he wrote "pre and quite rare skinhead reggae vocal boss." [17]
Notes on Performers
I found nothing about Winston and Rupert on the internet. Discogs listed two 45’s that had the same themes and vocal style, but the 1971 record added a guitar.
1970 "Come by Here" and "Somebody"
1971 "Musically Beat" and "Let Me Tell You Girl." Moodisc Records [18]
A few years before they were active, Winston Rodney and Rupert Willington began working for Dodd in 1969 as Burning Spear. [19] Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton described their first record, "Door Peep," as "a reflective chant delivered in a way that was frighteningly serious." [20]
While they were working for Dodd, Discogs indicated the company released two songs in 1970, and one in 1971 with the titles "Free," "Wala Wala" and "Zion Higher." Rodney didn’t turn to more political material until 1972, when he recorded "Joe Frazier." [21] In 1974, he and his trio changed labels, and in 1977 he became a soloist with a band. [22] Willington returned to internet limbo.
It’s possible Rodney and Willington recorded a few songs for a rival company in 1970 and 1971, when they weren’t making money from Dodd, but the themes of "Come by Here" with its reference to an American Protestant song seems unlikely for someone like Rodney who was a Rastafarian.
Winston wasn’t a particularly unusual name among the generation born during the period when Winston Churchill was in power in the British Commonwealth. Until someone finds evidence Rodney recorded for Pama, the similarity in names has to be left as a pregnant coincidence.
Availability
Single 45: Bullet 425. 1970.
YouTube: uploaded by Rudebhoy-48 on 24 November 2011, Boss Reggae on 28 March 2012, and Reggae Gospel Shared on 28 September 2016.
End Notes
1. Belafonte was born in the Harlem part of New York City. His parents were from Jamaica, and he spent his boyhood with a grandmother in Jamaica. (Wikipedia. "Harry Belafonte.")
2. broyal_2008 [Roy Black]. "Shaping Freedom, Finding Unity - the Power of Music Displayed in Early Mento." Jamaica Gleaner website. 11 August 2013.
3. Lord Fly [Norman Thomas]. Calypso Stars 1957. Quoted by Michael Garnice. "Lord Flea." Mento Music website. Last updated 3 November 2012. Requoted by others including Wikipedia. "Mento."
4. Wikipedia. "Calypso Music" and "Mento."
5. Alerth Bedasse. Quoted by broyal_2008. "Mento Purely Home-Grown." Jamaica Gleaner website. 6 July 2014. He was the lead vocalist with the Chins Calypso Sextet.
6. Bruno Blum. "Jamaica-Mento 1951-1958." Translated by Martin Davis. Frémeaux and Associés website.
7. Blum.
8. broyal_2008. "Talent Pool Makes Ska, Rocksteady Great." Jamaica Gleaner website. 11 September 2016. He mentioned in particular the week King performed with local artists from 10 September to 15 September in 1965.
9. Ben E. King. "Jamaica." Seven Letters ATCO Records SD 33-174. 1964. Written by King.
10. The Drifters. "There Goes My Baby." Recorded by Coastal Recording Company, New York City, 6 March 1959. Released by Atlantic as 45-2025. 24 Apr 1959. (Discogs website for record.) King was then a member of the Drifters.
11. Blum.
12. Kelefa Sannehmay. "Coxsone Dodd, 72, Pioneer of the Jamaican Pop Music Scene." The New York Times. 6 May 2004. Clement Dodd was a Jamaican who began exporting American rhythm and blues records to Jamaica from his Brooklyn, New York, record shop. He soon realized it was more profitable to record music on the island for local buyers. He released Marley’s first hit in 1963.
13. David Katz. Solid Foundation: An Oral History of Reggae. London: Jawbone Press, 2012 edition. No page numbers in online version. The label was founded by the three Palmer brothers, Carl, Harry, and Jeff. They had migrated to London from Jamaica and opened a record store. After it burned in 1966, Harry returned to Jamaica to license songs by unknown artists. When no one would issue their material, they founded Pama in 1967.
14. Johnny Spencer. "Early Reggae / Skinhead." His website.
15. Ben E. King. "Stand By Me." ATCO Records 45-6194. 1961. (Discogs website for record.) "According to King, the title is derived from, and was inspired by, a spiritual written by Sam Cooke and J. W. Alexander called ‘Stand by Me Father,’ recorded by the Soul Stirrers with Johnnie Taylor singing lead." (Wikipedia. "Stand by Me (Ben E. King Song).")
16. For more on the Hightower Brothers’ version of "Come by Here," see the post for 1 September 2017.
17. Boss Reggae. YouTube notes.
18. "Winston & Rupert." Discogs website. "Somebody" was uploaded to YouTube by Sweet Caroline on 27 December 2011 and Boss Reggae on 28 March 2012.
"Musically Beat" was uploaded to YouTube by ivyleague68 on 22 May 2013 and Robin D.Rich on 25 February 2015.
"Let Me Tell You Girl" was uploaded to YouTube by pete tebbutt on 5 February 2011, ivyleague68 on 22 May 2013, and Robin D.Rich on 25 February 2015.
19. Don Snowden. "Burning Spear Aims to Stay True to Roots Reggae." Los Angeles Times. 11 September 1989.
20. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton. Reggae: The Rough Guide. London: The Rough Guides, 1997. 86. Quoted by Lauren Maccuaig. "Burning Spear: African Teacher." 9 April 1998. University of Vermont, Dread Library website.
21. "Burning Spear." Discogs website.
22. Snowden.
To many Americans, Jamaican music history went through two periods: the calypso of Harry Belafonte [1] and the reggae of Bob Marley. It doesn’t matter that calypso was the music of Trinidad and mento the music of Jamaica. They had similar texts and served similar social functions, but, according to Roy Black, had different rhythms. [2] To people who only knew the waltz and the march, anything different sounded the same.
Lord Fly, the first mento artist to record in New York, suggested Jamaican musicians had no interest in disabusing Americans of their views so long as they paid the bills. In 1957, he told an interviewer:
"In Jamaica, we call our music ‘mento’ until very recently. Today, calypso is beginning to be used for all kinds of West Indian music. This is because its become so commercialized there. Some people like to think of West Indians as carefree natives who work and sing and play and laugh their lives away. But this isn’t so. Most of the people there are hard working folks, and many of them are smart business men. If the tourists want ‘calypso’, that’s what we sell them." [3]
Mento and calypso originally contained social commentary by griots. [4] After the popularity of Belafonte’s "Banana Boat Song" in 1956, urban musicians played more "carefree" songs. One singer from the 1950s remembered, "people would dance and prance, and be in very high spirits during mento performances". [5] This was the form tourists heard. [6]
Ska originated with rural mento musicians who were exposed to American rhythm and blues. [7] Ben E. King often visited the island, [8] and in 1964 recorded "Jamaica." [9] More important was his 1959 recording of "There Goes My Baby" [10]. Bruno Blum claimed it was the first to "overlay Latin percussion and violins on a rhythm and blues recording." [11]
While Marley was emphasizing the social context of popular music for Jamaican audiences on records made for Coxsone Dodd, [12] Pama records was locating Reggae performers to serve the English market. [13] Johnny Spencer remembered, "from the late 1960s until about c1972" Skinheads "identified with its content and form and adopted it with pride." [14]
Winston and Rupert’s 1970 recording of "Come by Here" for Pama fell into the tradition of Fly’s "carefree" dance music. Its verses consisted of opening couplets telling a woman she was loved, followed by repetitions of "Come on, come and stand by me." The key phrase was taken from the 1961 King recording of "Stand by Me." [15]
The music was a mix of the traditional and popular. Two hand drums alternated between low and high notes, with the higher drum sometimes playing additional beats. The introduction and first verse began with a short drum roll.
The verses were sung by two men using the close harmony one associated with the Everly Brothers. During the instrumental interlude, a trumpet took over the melodic line, possibly with a trombone or other lower-pitched brass. The brass began adding accents at the ends of lines of the second verse, and more elaborate turns in the third, before taking over to conclude the recording.
The first verse began "come by here and stand by me." This wasn’t a chance use of a common expression. The melody for this phrase was the 1-5 popularized by the Hightowers. [16]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: two men
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: trumpet
Rhythm Accompaniment: hand drums, drum set
Credits
Label reproduced on YouTube was not readable
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verses: own
Vocabulary
Pronoun: me
Term for Deity: none
Special Terms: stand by me
Basic Form: verse-chorus
Verse Repetition Pattern: ABB
Ending: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-5
Tempo: upbeat
Basic Structure: alternated instrumental and vocal sections; the vocal parts were essentially strophic while the instrumental ones were varied.
Singing Style: two-part close harmony
Instrumental Style: the interlude sounded like an early New Orleans jazz band, while the trumpeter used jazzier phrasing in the ending.
Vocal-Instrumental Dynamics: only drums accompanied the singing
Audience Perceptions
It clearly was recorded for the English market because it was not sung in the local patois. When Boss Reggae uploaded a version of "Come by Here" to YouTube, he wrote "pre and quite rare skinhead reggae vocal boss." [17]
Notes on Performers
I found nothing about Winston and Rupert on the internet. Discogs listed two 45’s that had the same themes and vocal style, but the 1971 record added a guitar.
1970 "Come by Here" and "Somebody"
1971 "Musically Beat" and "Let Me Tell You Girl." Moodisc Records [18]
A few years before they were active, Winston Rodney and Rupert Willington began working for Dodd in 1969 as Burning Spear. [19] Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton described their first record, "Door Peep," as "a reflective chant delivered in a way that was frighteningly serious." [20]
While they were working for Dodd, Discogs indicated the company released two songs in 1970, and one in 1971 with the titles "Free," "Wala Wala" and "Zion Higher." Rodney didn’t turn to more political material until 1972, when he recorded "Joe Frazier." [21] In 1974, he and his trio changed labels, and in 1977 he became a soloist with a band. [22] Willington returned to internet limbo.
It’s possible Rodney and Willington recorded a few songs for a rival company in 1970 and 1971, when they weren’t making money from Dodd, but the themes of "Come by Here" with its reference to an American Protestant song seems unlikely for someone like Rodney who was a Rastafarian.
Winston wasn’t a particularly unusual name among the generation born during the period when Winston Churchill was in power in the British Commonwealth. Until someone finds evidence Rodney recorded for Pama, the similarity in names has to be left as a pregnant coincidence.
Availability
Single 45: Bullet 425. 1970.
YouTube: uploaded by Rudebhoy-48 on 24 November 2011, Boss Reggae on 28 March 2012, and Reggae Gospel Shared on 28 September 2016.
End Notes
1. Belafonte was born in the Harlem part of New York City. His parents were from Jamaica, and he spent his boyhood with a grandmother in Jamaica. (Wikipedia. "Harry Belafonte.")
2. broyal_2008 [Roy Black]. "Shaping Freedom, Finding Unity - the Power of Music Displayed in Early Mento." Jamaica Gleaner website. 11 August 2013.
3. Lord Fly [Norman Thomas]. Calypso Stars 1957. Quoted by Michael Garnice. "Lord Flea." Mento Music website. Last updated 3 November 2012. Requoted by others including Wikipedia. "Mento."
4. Wikipedia. "Calypso Music" and "Mento."
5. Alerth Bedasse. Quoted by broyal_2008. "Mento Purely Home-Grown." Jamaica Gleaner website. 6 July 2014. He was the lead vocalist with the Chins Calypso Sextet.
6. Bruno Blum. "Jamaica-Mento 1951-1958." Translated by Martin Davis. Frémeaux and Associés website.
7. Blum.
8. broyal_2008. "Talent Pool Makes Ska, Rocksteady Great." Jamaica Gleaner website. 11 September 2016. He mentioned in particular the week King performed with local artists from 10 September to 15 September in 1965.
9. Ben E. King. "Jamaica." Seven Letters ATCO Records SD 33-174. 1964. Written by King.
10. The Drifters. "There Goes My Baby." Recorded by Coastal Recording Company, New York City, 6 March 1959. Released by Atlantic as 45-2025. 24 Apr 1959. (Discogs website for record.) King was then a member of the Drifters.
11. Blum.
12. Kelefa Sannehmay. "Coxsone Dodd, 72, Pioneer of the Jamaican Pop Music Scene." The New York Times. 6 May 2004. Clement Dodd was a Jamaican who began exporting American rhythm and blues records to Jamaica from his Brooklyn, New York, record shop. He soon realized it was more profitable to record music on the island for local buyers. He released Marley’s first hit in 1963.
13. David Katz. Solid Foundation: An Oral History of Reggae. London: Jawbone Press, 2012 edition. No page numbers in online version. The label was founded by the three Palmer brothers, Carl, Harry, and Jeff. They had migrated to London from Jamaica and opened a record store. After it burned in 1966, Harry returned to Jamaica to license songs by unknown artists. When no one would issue their material, they founded Pama in 1967.
14. Johnny Spencer. "Early Reggae / Skinhead." His website.
15. Ben E. King. "Stand By Me." ATCO Records 45-6194. 1961. (Discogs website for record.) "According to King, the title is derived from, and was inspired by, a spiritual written by Sam Cooke and J. W. Alexander called ‘Stand by Me Father,’ recorded by the Soul Stirrers with Johnnie Taylor singing lead." (Wikipedia. "Stand by Me (Ben E. King Song).")
16. For more on the Hightower Brothers’ version of "Come by Here," see the post for 1 September 2017.
17. Boss Reggae. YouTube notes.
18. "Winston & Rupert." Discogs website. "Somebody" was uploaded to YouTube by Sweet Caroline on 27 December 2011 and Boss Reggae on 28 March 2012.
"Musically Beat" was uploaded to YouTube by ivyleague68 on 22 May 2013 and Robin D.Rich on 25 February 2015.
"Let Me Tell You Girl" was uploaded to YouTube by pete tebbutt on 5 February 2011, ivyleague68 on 22 May 2013, and Robin D.Rich on 25 February 2015.
19. Don Snowden. "Burning Spear Aims to Stay True to Roots Reggae." Los Angeles Times. 11 September 1989.
20. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton. Reggae: The Rough Guide. London: The Rough Guides, 1997. 86. Quoted by Lauren Maccuaig. "Burning Spear: African Teacher." 9 April 1998. University of Vermont, Dread Library website.
21. "Burning Spear." Discogs website.
22. Snowden.
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Joe Kubek and Bnois King - Come By Here
Topic: Dance Music
B.B. King observed that, as he became popular with white audiences "in the sixties they dropped the ‘rhythm’ and I became blues only. [. . .] But I can’t help wondering what happened to my ‘rhythm’? Did I lose it along the way? I think the original label still says it best. I still see myself as a rhythm and blues man." [1] As he said elsewhere, he "always liked two drummers. Still use two today. Can’t have too much rock-steady rhythm." [2]
As Thunderbird Davis’ version of "Come by Here" moved from the integrated Blacktop All Stars, who back him in 1989, [3] to the nearly all-white Joe Kubek band in 1992 to Tony Blew’s white one-man band in 2013, the rhythm became progressively rudimentary and the African-American singing style modified to fit tastes inherited from the Anglo-Scots reformation. [4]
Kubek had worked with Freddie King, whom B.B. described as a "monster player, another man related to me not by kin, by spirit." [5] Freddie died in 1976. Kubek’s band included Phil Campbell, who had play drums for Freddie, [6] and Bnois King, an African-American raised near Monroe, Louisiana. [7] His bass player, Greg Wright, had worked with Joe Ely [8] in Lubbock, Texas. [9]
Rhythm was one of the things Kubek altered. He didn’t eliminate it, but made the drums the only percussive instrument. After all, he and his band had spent years working in Texas bars where people didn’t listen, but as Ely’s manager remembered, "if they like you, they get up and dance." [10]
The Blacktop All Stars’ rhythm had merged the sounds of several men, besides the drummer. Davis contributed his voice as to the rhythmic texture. He lengthened the words that fell on the beats and shortened the others while the saxophone supplemented his singing.
Tony Blew simplified the rhythm even more when he performed Kubek’s version in Ottumwa, Iowa. He used a drum machine, and emphasized his guitar playing. He extended the solos and added some neck runs borrowed from rock. Like Wright, he was a second generation country bar musician. [11]
The other change Bnois made was the enunciation. As mentioned in the post for 15 April 2014, the religious Davis may not have been comfortable with some of the phrases. One time it sounded like he said "I need you in the most asking way." Bnois made that "I need you now in a special way." He probably knew the correct words because Ron Levy, who wrote the song with Davis, was the album’s producer. [12]
In another place, Davis may simply have forgotten the words. I couldn’t understand the first line of the third verse, and the second line was "I’ll clean house clean." Again, Bnois either knew the original text or created a rational one when he sang:
"Now you don’t have to worry
I keep the house real clean"
It didn’t matter if one couldn’t understand everything Davis said. The variations in his vocal tones communicated his message. Bnois didn’t begin singing blues until he was in his forties. He may have had a sanctified grandmother, but the years in he spent in places like Amarillo and Wichita Falls, Texas, [13] probably taught him that many of his fans had, to paraphrase the Presbyterian church, to understand what they were hearing. [14]
Bnois kept his voice in a lower register and only screamed a word once. That was during the repetition of the word "baby" toward the end when no one could miss the meaning. Blew sang, rather than spoke, used a guttural voice on one line, and tended to mumble the words that weren’t accented.
Performers
Kubek
Vocal Soloist: Bnois King
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Soloist: Joe Kubek, electric guitar
Instrumental Accompaniment: Bnois King, rhythm guitar; Greg Wright, electric bass
Rhythm Accompaniment: Phil Campbell, drums
Blew
Vocal Soloist: Tony Blew
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Soloist: Tony Blew, electric guitar
Instrumental Accompaniment: Tony Blew, electric guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum machine
Credits
Kubek
Composers: James "Thunderbird" Davis and Ron Levy [15]
Blew
Original artists- R. Levy and J. Davis
Notes on Lyrics
Kubek
Same as version recorded by Thunderbird Davis with the following exceptions:
1. Bnois reversed the order of second and third verses
2. Bnois altered or corrected words and phrases that were unclear on Davis’ record
Blew
Same as Kubek
Notes on Music
Kubek
Same as version recorded by Thunderbird Davis with the following exceptions:
1. Fewer instruments, so Kubek’s guitar took over the role of the saxophone
2. Rhythm simplified
3. Instrumental break after every verse
Blew
Same as version recorded by Joe Kubek with the following exceptions:
1. Only one instrument, the electric guitar
2. Rhythm reduced to drum machine
3. Guitar solos borrowed virtuoso riffs from rock musicians
Notes on Performance
Kubek
Location: Ardent Studios, Memphis, Tennessee
Blew
Occasion: unidentified concert
Location: the room looked like one in a club or community center. It had dark wainscoting and lace curtains at the windows. A local bartender said the version "sounds just like I recall from nights at the Red Lion Inn." [16]
Microphones: floor mike
Clothing: long-sleeved, dark shirt
Notes on Movement
Blew
Blew sat behind a small table and kept time by lifting his left heel.
Audience Perceptions
Kubek
Brian focused on Kubek’s rhythm on the album he made a year before Chain Smokin’. He wrote on Amazon:
"The rhythm section is superb, with Phil Campbell on drums, who shuffles like a dream, and so lid as a rock bass playing from Greg Wright. Bnois King's vocals surprised me at first - I thought they were pretty ‘un-bluesy’. However, after listening through the album they grew on me, and I now consider his voice to be one of the best I’ve ever heard on a blues album. His rhythm playing though, is what does it for me. Unbelievably tight, and unashamedly repetitive. Repetitiveness though, is what I believe it HAD to be in a 2 guitar situation. Due to the fact that Bnois keeps it simple, and Greg Wright and Phil Campbell just ‘sit’ on the groove, it leaves space for the monster that is.... Smokin’ Joe Kubek. Quite how this man can play the guitar the way he does with guage 13 strings, I’ll never know." [17]
Denis summarized Chain Smokin’ by saying: "It’s a great CD for grillin’ and having some beer and having some driving jams in the background." [18]
Blew
His audience, which could not be seen in the video, applauded at the end.
Notes on Performers
Freddie King mentored Kubek the same way Guitar Slim had Davis. The difference was Slim moved in the world settled before the Civil War where plantations used slave labor to grow sugar cane near the coast, and cotton inland. After World War I, both Houston and Thibodaux, Louisiana, became oil towns. [19]
Freddie played in Dallas and west Texas, which developed after the Civil War with cattle. When irrigation from the aquifer became practical, west Texas began growing cotton. After World War II, the air force located bases in towns like Abilene and Amarillo. Lubbock used Mexicans to pick its crops. [20]
Kubek was born in Grove City, Pennsylvania, [21] an industrial town in the coal country north of Pittsburgh. [22] His family moved to Irving, Texas, between Dallas and Fort Worth, when he was a child. [23] He told Don Brown he was impressed by the Beatles appearance on Ed Sullivan, [24] and began watching any guitar player on television. He was influenced by B.B. King, before he began working with Freddie [25] when he was nineteen. [26]
After Freddie died, Kubek played with other musicians, including Al Bragg, who had worked as a songwriter for Peacock Records. Kubek worked with him recording demos for Bobby Bland. [27]
He met Bnois King in 1989 in a Dallas club, and they started playing small bars in the area, then began playing more in west Texas. Bnois’s grandmother had sent him to the local Roman Catholic school, but moved away about the time he began playing guitar. [28]
Blew’s family lived in Iowa for generations. [29] As a teenager, he was singing for weddings with his brother in the local Roman Catholic church. [30] His first jobs were playing country music, and then he recorded jingles. He eventually became known in Ottumwa as a blues musician. [31]
Availability
Kubek
Album: Chain Smokin’ Texas Style. Bullseye Blues BB 9524. 1992.
Blew
YouTube: uploaded by tonyblew50 on 13 December 2013.
End Notes
1. B.B. King [Riley B. King]. Blues All Around Be. With David Ritz. New York: Avon Books, 1996. 231.
2. King. 171. The use of two drummers may explain why the individuals quoted in the post for 13 April 2018 weren’t sure who played drums on his recording of "Come by Here." It’s also possible King recorded with a different instrumental configuration than he used in live performances because studios and clubs have different acoustic requirements.
3. James "Thunderbird" Davis recording of "Come by Here" was described in the post for 15 April 2018.
4. For more on the influence of the Anglo-Scots Reformation, see the post for 23 August 2017.
5. King. 252.
6. Robert Baird. "Long Live the King. Smokin’ Joe Kubek Keeps His Mentor’s Flame Alive." Phoenix New Times website. 23 October 1991.
7. Don O. [Don Ottensman]. "Bnois King Interview." Blues and Rhythm 122:1997. Reprinted by Alan B. Govenar. Texas Blues. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008. 147-152.
8. Joe Ely was then a country-rock performer. He was born in Amarillo, Texas, and moved to Lubbock when he was twelve-years-old. (William Ruhlmann. "Joe Ely." All Music website.)
9. Joe Ely. Quoted by "Gotta Lubbock." Texas Monthly. May 2000.
10. Johnny Hughes. Quoted by Texas Monthly.
11. Ely remembered, "When I got the first version of my band together, with Lloyd [Maines] and Jesse [Taylor], Steve Keeton and Gregg Wright and Rick Hulett, we were all talking, setting up at the Cotton Club. Everybody knew that everybody else’s daddy, except for mine, had played in bands, but they started talking, and by the end of the conversation, they realized that at one time, their daddies all played in the same band together." (Texas Monthly)
Tony Blew’s father "played guitar in many bands throughout his career including the Ponderosa Playboys which was an area backup band for Nashville stars and the Don Blew Trio and Don Blew Quartet with his two sons." Ottumwa was a regular stop on concert schedules for Nashville artists. (Obituary for Don Blew. Ottumwa Courier. 2 September 2013.)
12. All Music entry for album.
13. Don O.
14. During the English Civil War, Parliament instructed Scots to sing the psalms "with understanding." This emphasis on knowing what was being sung was part of the reaction against the Latin mass and the part singing that followed. (Scotland. Act of Parliament to establish The Directory for The Publick Worship of God. Edinburgh, 6 February 1645. Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics website.)
15. All Music, Chain Smokin’.
16. Mike W. Comment posted to YouTube. November 2017.
17. Brian. Comment posted 25 August 2000. Amazon page for Kubek’s Steppin’ Out Texas Style.
18. Denis. Comment posted 19 June 2010. Amazon page for Kubek’s Chain Smokin’.
19. Hannusch.
20. Texas Monthly.
21. Robert Philpot. "Smokin’ Joe Kubek, DFW Bluesman, Dies at 58." [Fort Worth] Star-Telegram. 12 October 2015.
22. "Grove City, PA History." Grove City Country Club website.
23. "Smokin’ Joe Kubek, Dallas Blues Guitar Great, Has Died at 58." Guitar Player website. 12 October 2015.
24. David Mac. "Joe Kubek (November 30, 1956 – October 11, 2015)." Blues Junction Productions website.
25. Don Brown Sr. "Blues Interview with Smokin’ Joe Kubek." Jazz Internet website.
26. Mac.
27. Mac. Bland was mentioned in the post for 15 April 2018.
28. Don O.
29. Entries for Tony Blew’s parents, grandparents and great-grandparents on Find a Grave website.
30. Item. Ottumwa Courier. 4 November 1974. 5.
31. "Tony Blew." Iowa Blues Hall of Fame website.
B.B. King observed that, as he became popular with white audiences "in the sixties they dropped the ‘rhythm’ and I became blues only. [. . .] But I can’t help wondering what happened to my ‘rhythm’? Did I lose it along the way? I think the original label still says it best. I still see myself as a rhythm and blues man." [1] As he said elsewhere, he "always liked two drummers. Still use two today. Can’t have too much rock-steady rhythm." [2]
As Thunderbird Davis’ version of "Come by Here" moved from the integrated Blacktop All Stars, who back him in 1989, [3] to the nearly all-white Joe Kubek band in 1992 to Tony Blew’s white one-man band in 2013, the rhythm became progressively rudimentary and the African-American singing style modified to fit tastes inherited from the Anglo-Scots reformation. [4]
Kubek had worked with Freddie King, whom B.B. described as a "monster player, another man related to me not by kin, by spirit." [5] Freddie died in 1976. Kubek’s band included Phil Campbell, who had play drums for Freddie, [6] and Bnois King, an African-American raised near Monroe, Louisiana. [7] His bass player, Greg Wright, had worked with Joe Ely [8] in Lubbock, Texas. [9]
Rhythm was one of the things Kubek altered. He didn’t eliminate it, but made the drums the only percussive instrument. After all, he and his band had spent years working in Texas bars where people didn’t listen, but as Ely’s manager remembered, "if they like you, they get up and dance." [10]
The Blacktop All Stars’ rhythm had merged the sounds of several men, besides the drummer. Davis contributed his voice as to the rhythmic texture. He lengthened the words that fell on the beats and shortened the others while the saxophone supplemented his singing.
Tony Blew simplified the rhythm even more when he performed Kubek’s version in Ottumwa, Iowa. He used a drum machine, and emphasized his guitar playing. He extended the solos and added some neck runs borrowed from rock. Like Wright, he was a second generation country bar musician. [11]
The other change Bnois made was the enunciation. As mentioned in the post for 15 April 2014, the religious Davis may not have been comfortable with some of the phrases. One time it sounded like he said "I need you in the most asking way." Bnois made that "I need you now in a special way." He probably knew the correct words because Ron Levy, who wrote the song with Davis, was the album’s producer. [12]
In another place, Davis may simply have forgotten the words. I couldn’t understand the first line of the third verse, and the second line was "I’ll clean house clean." Again, Bnois either knew the original text or created a rational one when he sang:
"Now you don’t have to worry
I keep the house real clean"
It didn’t matter if one couldn’t understand everything Davis said. The variations in his vocal tones communicated his message. Bnois didn’t begin singing blues until he was in his forties. He may have had a sanctified grandmother, but the years in he spent in places like Amarillo and Wichita Falls, Texas, [13] probably taught him that many of his fans had, to paraphrase the Presbyterian church, to understand what they were hearing. [14]
Bnois kept his voice in a lower register and only screamed a word once. That was during the repetition of the word "baby" toward the end when no one could miss the meaning. Blew sang, rather than spoke, used a guttural voice on one line, and tended to mumble the words that weren’t accented.
Performers
Kubek
Vocal Soloist: Bnois King
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Soloist: Joe Kubek, electric guitar
Instrumental Accompaniment: Bnois King, rhythm guitar; Greg Wright, electric bass
Rhythm Accompaniment: Phil Campbell, drums
Blew
Vocal Soloist: Tony Blew
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Soloist: Tony Blew, electric guitar
Instrumental Accompaniment: Tony Blew, electric guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum machine
Credits
Kubek
Composers: James "Thunderbird" Davis and Ron Levy [15]
Blew
Original artists- R. Levy and J. Davis
Notes on Lyrics
Kubek
Same as version recorded by Thunderbird Davis with the following exceptions:
1. Bnois reversed the order of second and third verses
2. Bnois altered or corrected words and phrases that were unclear on Davis’ record
Blew
Same as Kubek
Notes on Music
Kubek
Same as version recorded by Thunderbird Davis with the following exceptions:
1. Fewer instruments, so Kubek’s guitar took over the role of the saxophone
2. Rhythm simplified
3. Instrumental break after every verse
Blew
Same as version recorded by Joe Kubek with the following exceptions:
1. Only one instrument, the electric guitar
2. Rhythm reduced to drum machine
3. Guitar solos borrowed virtuoso riffs from rock musicians
Notes on Performance
Kubek
Location: Ardent Studios, Memphis, Tennessee
Blew
Occasion: unidentified concert
Location: the room looked like one in a club or community center. It had dark wainscoting and lace curtains at the windows. A local bartender said the version "sounds just like I recall from nights at the Red Lion Inn." [16]
Microphones: floor mike
Clothing: long-sleeved, dark shirt
Notes on Movement
Blew
Blew sat behind a small table and kept time by lifting his left heel.
Audience Perceptions
Kubek
Brian focused on Kubek’s rhythm on the album he made a year before Chain Smokin’. He wrote on Amazon:
"The rhythm section is superb, with Phil Campbell on drums, who shuffles like a dream, and so lid as a rock bass playing from Greg Wright. Bnois King's vocals surprised me at first - I thought they were pretty ‘un-bluesy’. However, after listening through the album they grew on me, and I now consider his voice to be one of the best I’ve ever heard on a blues album. His rhythm playing though, is what does it for me. Unbelievably tight, and unashamedly repetitive. Repetitiveness though, is what I believe it HAD to be in a 2 guitar situation. Due to the fact that Bnois keeps it simple, and Greg Wright and Phil Campbell just ‘sit’ on the groove, it leaves space for the monster that is.... Smokin’ Joe Kubek. Quite how this man can play the guitar the way he does with guage 13 strings, I’ll never know." [17]
Denis summarized Chain Smokin’ by saying: "It’s a great CD for grillin’ and having some beer and having some driving jams in the background." [18]
Blew
His audience, which could not be seen in the video, applauded at the end.
Notes on Performers
Freddie King mentored Kubek the same way Guitar Slim had Davis. The difference was Slim moved in the world settled before the Civil War where plantations used slave labor to grow sugar cane near the coast, and cotton inland. After World War I, both Houston and Thibodaux, Louisiana, became oil towns. [19]
Freddie played in Dallas and west Texas, which developed after the Civil War with cattle. When irrigation from the aquifer became practical, west Texas began growing cotton. After World War II, the air force located bases in towns like Abilene and Amarillo. Lubbock used Mexicans to pick its crops. [20]
Kubek was born in Grove City, Pennsylvania, [21] an industrial town in the coal country north of Pittsburgh. [22] His family moved to Irving, Texas, between Dallas and Fort Worth, when he was a child. [23] He told Don Brown he was impressed by the Beatles appearance on Ed Sullivan, [24] and began watching any guitar player on television. He was influenced by B.B. King, before he began working with Freddie [25] when he was nineteen. [26]
After Freddie died, Kubek played with other musicians, including Al Bragg, who had worked as a songwriter for Peacock Records. Kubek worked with him recording demos for Bobby Bland. [27]
He met Bnois King in 1989 in a Dallas club, and they started playing small bars in the area, then began playing more in west Texas. Bnois’s grandmother had sent him to the local Roman Catholic school, but moved away about the time he began playing guitar. [28]
Blew’s family lived in Iowa for generations. [29] As a teenager, he was singing for weddings with his brother in the local Roman Catholic church. [30] His first jobs were playing country music, and then he recorded jingles. He eventually became known in Ottumwa as a blues musician. [31]
Availability
Kubek
Album: Chain Smokin’ Texas Style. Bullseye Blues BB 9524. 1992.
Blew
YouTube: uploaded by tonyblew50 on 13 December 2013.
End Notes
1. B.B. King [Riley B. King]. Blues All Around Be. With David Ritz. New York: Avon Books, 1996. 231.
2. King. 171. The use of two drummers may explain why the individuals quoted in the post for 13 April 2018 weren’t sure who played drums on his recording of "Come by Here." It’s also possible King recorded with a different instrumental configuration than he used in live performances because studios and clubs have different acoustic requirements.
3. James "Thunderbird" Davis recording of "Come by Here" was described in the post for 15 April 2018.
4. For more on the influence of the Anglo-Scots Reformation, see the post for 23 August 2017.
5. King. 252.
6. Robert Baird. "Long Live the King. Smokin’ Joe Kubek Keeps His Mentor’s Flame Alive." Phoenix New Times website. 23 October 1991.
7. Don O. [Don Ottensman]. "Bnois King Interview." Blues and Rhythm 122:1997. Reprinted by Alan B. Govenar. Texas Blues. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008. 147-152.
8. Joe Ely was then a country-rock performer. He was born in Amarillo, Texas, and moved to Lubbock when he was twelve-years-old. (William Ruhlmann. "Joe Ely." All Music website.)
9. Joe Ely. Quoted by "Gotta Lubbock." Texas Monthly. May 2000.
10. Johnny Hughes. Quoted by Texas Monthly.
11. Ely remembered, "When I got the first version of my band together, with Lloyd [Maines] and Jesse [Taylor], Steve Keeton and Gregg Wright and Rick Hulett, we were all talking, setting up at the Cotton Club. Everybody knew that everybody else’s daddy, except for mine, had played in bands, but they started talking, and by the end of the conversation, they realized that at one time, their daddies all played in the same band together." (Texas Monthly)
Tony Blew’s father "played guitar in many bands throughout his career including the Ponderosa Playboys which was an area backup band for Nashville stars and the Don Blew Trio and Don Blew Quartet with his two sons." Ottumwa was a regular stop on concert schedules for Nashville artists. (Obituary for Don Blew. Ottumwa Courier. 2 September 2013.)
12. All Music entry for album.
13. Don O.
14. During the English Civil War, Parliament instructed Scots to sing the psalms "with understanding." This emphasis on knowing what was being sung was part of the reaction against the Latin mass and the part singing that followed. (Scotland. Act of Parliament to establish The Directory for The Publick Worship of God. Edinburgh, 6 February 1645. Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics website.)
15. All Music, Chain Smokin’.
16. Mike W. Comment posted to YouTube. November 2017.
17. Brian. Comment posted 25 August 2000. Amazon page for Kubek’s Steppin’ Out Texas Style.
18. Denis. Comment posted 19 June 2010. Amazon page for Kubek’s Chain Smokin’.
19. Hannusch.
20. Texas Monthly.
21. Robert Philpot. "Smokin’ Joe Kubek, DFW Bluesman, Dies at 58." [Fort Worth] Star-Telegram. 12 October 2015.
22. "Grove City, PA History." Grove City Country Club website.
23. "Smokin’ Joe Kubek, Dallas Blues Guitar Great, Has Died at 58." Guitar Player website. 12 October 2015.
24. David Mac. "Joe Kubek (November 30, 1956 – October 11, 2015)." Blues Junction Productions website.
25. Don Brown Sr. "Blues Interview with Smokin’ Joe Kubek." Jazz Internet website.
26. Mac.
27. Mac. Bland was mentioned in the post for 15 April 2018.
28. Don O.
29. Entries for Tony Blew’s parents, grandparents and great-grandparents on Find a Grave website.
30. Item. Ottumwa Courier. 4 November 1974. 5.
31. "Tony Blew." Iowa Blues Hall of Fame website.
Sunday, April 15, 2018
James “Thunderbird” Davis - Come By Here
Topic: Dance Music
In the 1960s, rock replaced rock ’n’ roll. Young musicians came of age who had listened to records by urban bluesmen in much the same way B.B. King had heard recordings by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson as a child. [1] Niche artists like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band were searching out bluesmen in Chicago while the better known Rolling Stones were proclaiming their debt to King. [2]
Still, King was despondent. His marriage was disintegrating [3] and his new record company was treating him with less respect than the Bihari brothers [4] had done. In one session, the producer hired another guitarist to replay his solos. [5] King had become friendly with his manager’s accountant, and in 1968 asked Sidney Seidenberg to take over as manager. [6]
Seidenberg believed King should take his music to the audience cultivated by blues-influenced white musicians. On 26 February 1967, he booked King into the mecca of San Francisco rock, Bill Graham’s Fillmore West. King remembered:
"By the time I strapped on Lucille, every single person in the place was standing up and cheering like crazy. For the first time in my career, I got a standing ovation before I played. Couldn’t help but cry." [7]
The interest in blues spread from men like King to lesser known artists who were rediscovered by independent record companies. In1989, Blacktop Records recorded James "Thunderbird" Davis’ version of "Come by Here" with a group of musicians who previously had worked with performers like Little Richard, Sam Cook, and Bobby "Blue" Bland. [8]
Clarence Hollimon’s electric guitar solos were ones King could have done. Gandy Gaines could have played saxophone on King’s 1958 recording of "Come by Here." The piano player, Ron Levy, actually had worked for King in the 1970s. [9] Davis sometimes had been his opening act. [10]
The lyrics were different. The verses asked a woman to come visit the singer while his kids were in school and his wife was at her mother’s house. The chorus pled his case:
"Yeah baby, won’t you come by here
Well I’m all alone
And I swear the coast is clear."
Both Davis and Levy were credited with authorship of the song. It seems unlikely Levy, who was a Jew born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, learned the original "Come by Here" as a child. [11] Davis was raised by a religious family in a town near Mobile, Alabama, in 1938, and began as a gospel singer. After he retired in the 1970s, he worked as a laborer around Thibodaux, Louisiana, and sang in church. [12]
Both men could have known King’s version of "Come by Here," Davis from working with him in the 1960s, and Levy from the record. [13] The question was which man was more likely or more comfortable with changing the context from King’s promise of marriage to an admission of infidelity. That transformation may have been basis for their collaboration. [14]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: James Davis, baritone [15]
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Soloist: Clarence Hollimon, electric guitar [16]
Instrumental Accompaniment: Grady Gaines, saxophone; [17] Ron Levy, piano; Lloyd Lambert, bass; Tony Klatka, trumpet [18]
Rhythm Accompaniment: David Lee, drum set [19]
Credits
Composers: James "Thunderbird" Davis and Ron Levy [20]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: strongly XxXx
Verses: own
Vocabulary
Pronoun: I
Term for Deity: none
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: three-verse song with choruses
Verse Length: two long lines, broken into phrases of irregular length
Rhyme pattern: end rhyme
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Line Meter: generally iambic, but some feet had more and less than two syllables
Ending: repetitions of "baby
Unique Features: chorus alludes to AAB pattern of traditional blues
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: own
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: mixed vocal sections with instrumental ones
Singing Style: Davis used melisma in places, and was able to bridge the rhythmic irregularities in the text. His timbre varied, but Davis usually used a rasping voice and shouted in places. One fan wrote on Amazon:
"Davis was not an instrumentalist, so he put everything he had into his singing. There’s a lot of wisdom and soul in his gravelly voice [. . .] James still has that empathy in his vocals, laced with smoldering fire at times and with blazing fire at other times, that tells you that he will get through these circumstances." [21]
Instrumental Style: urban blues
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: Davis introduced the solos, much like Bob Wills [22] and Ernest Tubb [23] had done in country music performances. They both were from Texas, and may have shared the same tradition Davis inherited when he worked in Houston. [24]
Notes on Performance
Occasion: It might be too much to subtitle this album "six musicians in search of a singer," but that may have been what happened when studio musicians who had worked for Peacock Records in the 1950s were reassembled by Blacktop. The bass player, Lloyd Lambert, went looking for the retired Davis. The album was part reunion and part rediscovery of a blues singer.
Location: Southlake Recording Studios, Metairie, Los Angeles in February and March 1988. [25]
Notes on Performers
Blacktop Records was founded by Nauman Scott and his brother, Hammond Scott. The white boys had been raised in Alexandria, Louisiana, where they listened to bluesmen like John Lee Hooker and James Brown on radio. They established their blues revival company in New Orleans in 1981. [26]
Davis worked with Guitar Slim, [27] who, like King, was an early innovator on the electric guitar. Slim had begun performing in New Orleans with Frank Painia at the Dew Drop Inn. When Painia began having problems, he sent Eddie Jones to Hosea Hill in Thibodaux, an oil and sugar town southwest of New Orleans. There Slim worked with Hill’s band at the Sugar Bowl. [28]
Lambert was from Thibodaux, where he had played trumpet for Hill’s house band, the Serenaders. Lambert’s father was jazz guitarist in New Orleans. In the early 1950s, Lloyd switched to bass as local African-American tastes changed from big bands to rhythm and blues. When the New Orleans musicians’ union told Hill a musician needed to lead his Serenaders, he turned the band over to Lambert. [29]
After Slim moved to Thibodaux and began recording for Specialty Records, the Lloyd Lambert Orchestra began touring with him. The group also began backing other musicians on Specialty sessions, including Little Richard. [30] Penniman’s touring band, the Upsetters, included Grady Gaines on saxophone. [31] The two had met when Penniman was recording for Peacock Records in Houston. [32]
Davis came to Lambert’s attention when he asked Slim to listen to him sing before a performance in Mobile. Slim and Lambert hired him to appear before Slim as an opening act, and Davis followed Slim to Thibodaux. [33] When Slim died in 1959, Davis moved to Houston to work for Peacock Records where he made records demonstrating songs for Bland. It was there that Davis worked with Holliman. Peacock’s owner, Don Robey, was a difficult man, [34] and Davis left in 1966. [35]
Holliman was from Houston and had gone to work for Robey as a session musician in 1957. He accompanied Bland and gospel groups like the Dixie Hummingbirds. [36]
Availability
Album: Check Out Time. Blacktop Records BT-1043. 1989.
YouTube: uploaded by Ron Levy on 31 July 2012.
End Notes
1. For more on B.B. King, see the post for 13 April 2018.
2. B.B. King [Riley B. King]. Blues All Around Be. With David Ritz. New York: Avon Books, 1996. 229-230. King specifically mentioned Mike Bloomfield with Butterfield and Keith Richards with the Stones.
3. King. 229.
4. For more on the Bihari brothers, see the post for 13 April 2018.
5. King. 232.
6. King. 235.
7. King. 240. Lucille was his guitar.
8. Bobby Bland was a Memphis-based blues singer. King credited Charles Keil for bringing him and Bland to the attention of white academics. (King. 230). Keil structured Urban Blues around the contrasting styles of the two men. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966).
9. Steve Huey. "Ron Levy." All Music website.
10. "Thunderbird Davis, A Blues Singer, 53." Obituary published by The New York Times. 27 January 1992.
11. Huey.
12. "James Thunderbird Davis." Mobile Bay Wiki website. Davis was from Prichard, Alabama, which began as freedman’s town, but grew when whites working for the Mobile shipyards moved there. (Wikipedia. "Prichard, Alabama.")
13. It seemed unlikely King kept "Come by Here" in his repertoire after Fillmore, but copies were available to afficionados.
14. Levy was a songwriter, not simply a company employee seeking to enhance his income. He remembered, Davis "had a wonderful personality, enthusiastically sang some of my compositions, and we even wrote a few together." (Levy. Tales of a Road Dog: The Lowdown Along the Blues Highway. Pennsauken, New Jersey: BookBaby, 2013. No page numbers in on-line edition.)
15. Mobile Bay Wiki.
16. Identified by Levy in YouTube notes. Davis introduced the solo by saying what sounded like "come on Grant." Holloway was known as Gristle by his friends. (Roger Wood. "Hollimon, Milton Howard Clarence." Handbook of Texas Online. Uploaded 15 June 2010; last updated 9 March 2017.)
17. Identified by Levy in YouTube notes. Davis introduced the solo by calling him Honey Gaines.
18. Discogs entry for the album include more saxophone players and another guitarist.
19. Discogs.
20. Levy, YouTube.
21. Blue Ox. Comment posted 4 December 2011. Amazon website for Checking Out.
22. Bob Wills was a western swing musician from Groesbeck, Texas. He made comments during his Texas Playboys instrumentals, and often introduced the soloists. He first became popular in the 1930s.
23. Ernest Tubb was a country singer from Crisp, Texas. He would always say "take it away Leon" before Leon Rhodes played a solo with the Texas Troubadours. His first hits were in the 1940s.
24. Wills said his comments didn’t come from medicine shows, but "came directly from playing and living close to Negroes, and that he never did it necessarily as show, but more as a way to express his feelings." (Quoted by Charles R. Townsend. San Antonio Rose. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1976. 46. Cited by Wikipedia. "Bob Wills.")
25. All Music website posting for album.
26. Anthony Clark and Keith Spera. "Hammond and Nauman Scott: The Blues Brothers." Off Beat website. 1 January 1992.
27. Guitar Slim was born Eddie Jones in Greenwood, Mississippi. He was a flamboyant performer before artists like Little Richard and Chuck Berry became popular. He anticipated later rock artists by exploiting distorted overtones in his guitar playing. (Wikipedia. "Guitar Slim.")
28. Jeff Hannusch. "Thibodaux’s Sugar Bowl." Off Beat website. 1 May 1999.
29. German Wikipedia. "Lloyd Lambert."
30. Wikipedia, Lambert.
31. Wikipedia. "Little Richard."
32. Wikipedia. "Grady Gaines."
33. Mobile Bay Wiki.
34. Wikipedia. "Don Robey."
35. Mobile Bay Wiki.
36. Wood.
In the 1960s, rock replaced rock ’n’ roll. Young musicians came of age who had listened to records by urban bluesmen in much the same way B.B. King had heard recordings by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson as a child. [1] Niche artists like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band were searching out bluesmen in Chicago while the better known Rolling Stones were proclaiming their debt to King. [2]
Still, King was despondent. His marriage was disintegrating [3] and his new record company was treating him with less respect than the Bihari brothers [4] had done. In one session, the producer hired another guitarist to replay his solos. [5] King had become friendly with his manager’s accountant, and in 1968 asked Sidney Seidenberg to take over as manager. [6]
Seidenberg believed King should take his music to the audience cultivated by blues-influenced white musicians. On 26 February 1967, he booked King into the mecca of San Francisco rock, Bill Graham’s Fillmore West. King remembered:
"By the time I strapped on Lucille, every single person in the place was standing up and cheering like crazy. For the first time in my career, I got a standing ovation before I played. Couldn’t help but cry." [7]
The interest in blues spread from men like King to lesser known artists who were rediscovered by independent record companies. In1989, Blacktop Records recorded James "Thunderbird" Davis’ version of "Come by Here" with a group of musicians who previously had worked with performers like Little Richard, Sam Cook, and Bobby "Blue" Bland. [8]
Clarence Hollimon’s electric guitar solos were ones King could have done. Gandy Gaines could have played saxophone on King’s 1958 recording of "Come by Here." The piano player, Ron Levy, actually had worked for King in the 1970s. [9] Davis sometimes had been his opening act. [10]
The lyrics were different. The verses asked a woman to come visit the singer while his kids were in school and his wife was at her mother’s house. The chorus pled his case:
"Yeah baby, won’t you come by here
Well I’m all alone
And I swear the coast is clear."
Both Davis and Levy were credited with authorship of the song. It seems unlikely Levy, who was a Jew born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, learned the original "Come by Here" as a child. [11] Davis was raised by a religious family in a town near Mobile, Alabama, in 1938, and began as a gospel singer. After he retired in the 1970s, he worked as a laborer around Thibodaux, Louisiana, and sang in church. [12]
Both men could have known King’s version of "Come by Here," Davis from working with him in the 1960s, and Levy from the record. [13] The question was which man was more likely or more comfortable with changing the context from King’s promise of marriage to an admission of infidelity. That transformation may have been basis for their collaboration. [14]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: James Davis, baritone [15]
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Soloist: Clarence Hollimon, electric guitar [16]
Instrumental Accompaniment: Grady Gaines, saxophone; [17] Ron Levy, piano; Lloyd Lambert, bass; Tony Klatka, trumpet [18]
Rhythm Accompaniment: David Lee, drum set [19]
Credits
Composers: James "Thunderbird" Davis and Ron Levy [20]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: strongly XxXx
Verses: own
Vocabulary
Pronoun: I
Term for Deity: none
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: three-verse song with choruses
Verse Length: two long lines, broken into phrases of irregular length
Rhyme pattern: end rhyme
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Line Meter: generally iambic, but some feet had more and less than two syllables
Ending: repetitions of "baby
Unique Features: chorus alludes to AAB pattern of traditional blues
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: own
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: mixed vocal sections with instrumental ones
Singing Style: Davis used melisma in places, and was able to bridge the rhythmic irregularities in the text. His timbre varied, but Davis usually used a rasping voice and shouted in places. One fan wrote on Amazon:
"Davis was not an instrumentalist, so he put everything he had into his singing. There’s a lot of wisdom and soul in his gravelly voice [. . .] James still has that empathy in his vocals, laced with smoldering fire at times and with blazing fire at other times, that tells you that he will get through these circumstances." [21]
Instrumental Style: urban blues
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: Davis introduced the solos, much like Bob Wills [22] and Ernest Tubb [23] had done in country music performances. They both were from Texas, and may have shared the same tradition Davis inherited when he worked in Houston. [24]
Notes on Performance
Occasion: It might be too much to subtitle this album "six musicians in search of a singer," but that may have been what happened when studio musicians who had worked for Peacock Records in the 1950s were reassembled by Blacktop. The bass player, Lloyd Lambert, went looking for the retired Davis. The album was part reunion and part rediscovery of a blues singer.
Location: Southlake Recording Studios, Metairie, Los Angeles in February and March 1988. [25]
Notes on Performers
Blacktop Records was founded by Nauman Scott and his brother, Hammond Scott. The white boys had been raised in Alexandria, Louisiana, where they listened to bluesmen like John Lee Hooker and James Brown on radio. They established their blues revival company in New Orleans in 1981. [26]
Davis worked with Guitar Slim, [27] who, like King, was an early innovator on the electric guitar. Slim had begun performing in New Orleans with Frank Painia at the Dew Drop Inn. When Painia began having problems, he sent Eddie Jones to Hosea Hill in Thibodaux, an oil and sugar town southwest of New Orleans. There Slim worked with Hill’s band at the Sugar Bowl. [28]
Lambert was from Thibodaux, where he had played trumpet for Hill’s house band, the Serenaders. Lambert’s father was jazz guitarist in New Orleans. In the early 1950s, Lloyd switched to bass as local African-American tastes changed from big bands to rhythm and blues. When the New Orleans musicians’ union told Hill a musician needed to lead his Serenaders, he turned the band over to Lambert. [29]
After Slim moved to Thibodaux and began recording for Specialty Records, the Lloyd Lambert Orchestra began touring with him. The group also began backing other musicians on Specialty sessions, including Little Richard. [30] Penniman’s touring band, the Upsetters, included Grady Gaines on saxophone. [31] The two had met when Penniman was recording for Peacock Records in Houston. [32]
Davis came to Lambert’s attention when he asked Slim to listen to him sing before a performance in Mobile. Slim and Lambert hired him to appear before Slim as an opening act, and Davis followed Slim to Thibodaux. [33] When Slim died in 1959, Davis moved to Houston to work for Peacock Records where he made records demonstrating songs for Bland. It was there that Davis worked with Holliman. Peacock’s owner, Don Robey, was a difficult man, [34] and Davis left in 1966. [35]
Holliman was from Houston and had gone to work for Robey as a session musician in 1957. He accompanied Bland and gospel groups like the Dixie Hummingbirds. [36]
Availability
Album: Check Out Time. Blacktop Records BT-1043. 1989.
YouTube: uploaded by Ron Levy on 31 July 2012.
End Notes
1. For more on B.B. King, see the post for 13 April 2018.
2. B.B. King [Riley B. King]. Blues All Around Be. With David Ritz. New York: Avon Books, 1996. 229-230. King specifically mentioned Mike Bloomfield with Butterfield and Keith Richards with the Stones.
3. King. 229.
4. For more on the Bihari brothers, see the post for 13 April 2018.
5. King. 232.
6. King. 235.
7. King. 240. Lucille was his guitar.
8. Bobby Bland was a Memphis-based blues singer. King credited Charles Keil for bringing him and Bland to the attention of white academics. (King. 230). Keil structured Urban Blues around the contrasting styles of the two men. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966).
9. Steve Huey. "Ron Levy." All Music website.
10. "Thunderbird Davis, A Blues Singer, 53." Obituary published by The New York Times. 27 January 1992.
11. Huey.
12. "James Thunderbird Davis." Mobile Bay Wiki website. Davis was from Prichard, Alabama, which began as freedman’s town, but grew when whites working for the Mobile shipyards moved there. (Wikipedia. "Prichard, Alabama.")
13. It seemed unlikely King kept "Come by Here" in his repertoire after Fillmore, but copies were available to afficionados.
14. Levy was a songwriter, not simply a company employee seeking to enhance his income. He remembered, Davis "had a wonderful personality, enthusiastically sang some of my compositions, and we even wrote a few together." (Levy. Tales of a Road Dog: The Lowdown Along the Blues Highway. Pennsauken, New Jersey: BookBaby, 2013. No page numbers in on-line edition.)
15. Mobile Bay Wiki.
16. Identified by Levy in YouTube notes. Davis introduced the solo by saying what sounded like "come on Grant." Holloway was known as Gristle by his friends. (Roger Wood. "Hollimon, Milton Howard Clarence." Handbook of Texas Online. Uploaded 15 June 2010; last updated 9 March 2017.)
17. Identified by Levy in YouTube notes. Davis introduced the solo by calling him Honey Gaines.
18. Discogs entry for the album include more saxophone players and another guitarist.
19. Discogs.
20. Levy, YouTube.
21. Blue Ox. Comment posted 4 December 2011. Amazon website for Checking Out.
22. Bob Wills was a western swing musician from Groesbeck, Texas. He made comments during his Texas Playboys instrumentals, and often introduced the soloists. He first became popular in the 1930s.
23. Ernest Tubb was a country singer from Crisp, Texas. He would always say "take it away Leon" before Leon Rhodes played a solo with the Texas Troubadours. His first hits were in the 1940s.
24. Wills said his comments didn’t come from medicine shows, but "came directly from playing and living close to Negroes, and that he never did it necessarily as show, but more as a way to express his feelings." (Quoted by Charles R. Townsend. San Antonio Rose. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1976. 46. Cited by Wikipedia. "Bob Wills.")
25. All Music website posting for album.
26. Anthony Clark and Keith Spera. "Hammond and Nauman Scott: The Blues Brothers." Off Beat website. 1 January 1992.
27. Guitar Slim was born Eddie Jones in Greenwood, Mississippi. He was a flamboyant performer before artists like Little Richard and Chuck Berry became popular. He anticipated later rock artists by exploiting distorted overtones in his guitar playing. (Wikipedia. "Guitar Slim.")
28. Jeff Hannusch. "Thibodaux’s Sugar Bowl." Off Beat website. 1 May 1999.
29. German Wikipedia. "Lloyd Lambert."
30. Wikipedia, Lambert.
31. Wikipedia. "Little Richard."
32. Wikipedia. "Grady Gaines."
33. Mobile Bay Wiki.
34. Wikipedia. "Don Robey."
35. Mobile Bay Wiki.
36. Wood.
Friday, April 13, 2018
B.B. King - Come by Here
Topic: Dance Music
B.B. King recorded the first commercial dance version of "Come by Here" in 1958. The simple substitution of "baby" for "oh Lord" changed the import of the lyrics without altering the AAAB form. The verses used incremental repetition to advance a narrative that went from "I love you" and "I want you" to "we’ll get married" and "raise a family."
At the time he made this recording, King "had a beefed-up sax and brass section," [1] and that’s all I could hear. If King was playing guitar, he was drowned out by them.
Even though it wasn’t the instrumentation one expected on a B.B. King record, the same kind of interaction existed between it and the human voice. The brass set a refrain pattern in the opening measures. Thereafter, every time King sang a line, it answered.
The record was made in the period when rock ’n’ roll had replaced rhythm and blues, and his audience was shrinking. [2] He told David Ritz, he didn’t know if "it was the financial difficulties I was facing, or the fact that my career felt stalled. Maybe it was the monotony of the road" that made him want to marry and settle down. [3]
That may be one reason he wrote the words he did. However, he also told Ritz that Memphis, Tennessee, had felt less like home after his father had moved to California [4]. He added
"My mother stayed in the memory of my heart as a missing link [. . .] I wish that the pain in my heart that came from missing my mother would subside. But it didn’t, and it doesn’t, and her lost love remains forever lost." [5]
He may have learned the song in the local Church of God in Christ church [16] before she died when he was ten-years-old. [7] He remembered:
"As a kid, I was a regular churchgoer. I felt the spirit of God in gospel music and dreamt of being a gospel man myself." [8]
After she died, he was
"still tied to the church and didn’t quite give up the notion of preaching or at least singing the gospel. I was a strong voice in the choir and was learning to use my guitar to accompany spiritual songs." [9]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: B.B. King
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: brass, reeds [10]
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set
Credits
King-Taub [11]
BMI Mod Music Pub.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: Come by HERE (short-shorter-long)
Verses: his own
Vocabulary
Pronoun: we
Term for Deity: none
Special Terms: baby
Basic Form: six-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Line Repetition Pattern: AAAB
Line Form: statement-refrain
Literary Devices: incremental repetition
Ending: none
Unique Features: secularization of a religious song
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3 family
Tempo: moderate
Rhythm: syncopated
Basic Structure: repetition in different keys; modulation occurred after every two verses
Singing Style: one syllable to one note
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: King sang a complete line and instrumental group repeated its refrain
Notes on Performers
King was one of the most important musicians in the creation of electrified urban blues after World War II. He was raised by his grandmother to be a sharecropper in Mississippi, but his grandmother’s sister had a phonograph and records by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson. [12] His great-aunt’s son was a Delta bluesman, Bukka White. [13]
He learned his first guitar chords from the local COGIC preacher when he was seven-years-old. [14] King remembered Archie Fair’s
"sermon is like music and his music—both the song from his mouth and the sound of his guitar—thrills me until I wanna get up and dance. He says one thing and the congregation says it back, back and forth, back and forth, until we’re rocking together in rhythm that won’t stop. His voice is low and rough and his guitar is high and sweet; they seem to sing to each other, conversing in some heavenly language I need to learn. The choir joins in, and the congregation joins the choir, and I’m right in the middle of a universe of music filled with nothing but pure spirit. There’s an old piano and tambourines, hand clapping and foot-stomping and shouting that starts in your toe and goes through the top of your head. The beat is steady and strong as the beat in your heart. No room for fear in here; no room for doubt; it’s a celebration of love that gets even better when, after services, Mama says Reverend and his wife are coming over to visit." [15]
King first heard the blues that was emerging in the Mississippi delta on a Memphis area radio station in 1941. He moved there in 1948 where he had his own radio program. Once he started touring, he never had a settled home, while his music became associated with both Memphis and Chicago. [16]
Availability
Single: Kent 319. 1959. Uploaded to YouTube by Miguel A Garcia on 15 July 2014.
Album: B. B. King Wails. Crown Records 5115. 1958. [17] Uploaded to YouTube by Universal Music Group North America on 25 January 2017. (It had a more mellow sound than Garcia’s version.)
Reissue: Twist With B. B. King. Crown Records CLP 5248. 1962. [18]
Reissue: Let Me Love You. Kent KST 513. 1964. [19]
Reissue: "Come by Here" has been included in several reissues and compilations, especially after King died on 14 May 2015. One was uploaded to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises on 18 February 2016.
End Notes
1. B.B. King [Riley B. King]. Blues All Around Me. With David Ritz. New York: Avon Books, 1996. 188.
2. King. 186.
3. King. 195.
4. King. 195.
5. King. 195.
6. King. 16. Charles Harrison Mason and the Church of God in Christ were discussed in the post for 23 December 2017.
7. King. 34.
8. King. 193.
9. King. 42.
10. Two people have posted the names of people they thought played on this recording: Blues Fan, "B.B. King," his Japanese website, and Anita Pravits, "B.B. King," Keep on Living website. Blues Fan said the trumpets were played by Kenneth Sands and Henry Boozier. Praivts believed the men were Sands, Boozier, or Hobart Dotson. Pravits suggested Pluma Davis played trombone, but Blues Fan did not mention the instrument.
Blues Fan said King used an alto (Lawrence Burdine), tenor (Johnny Board) and baritone (Barry Hubert or Herman Green) saxophone. Pravits listed Burdine, Board, and Hubert. They both mentioned Marshall York on bass, but Blues Fan said Lloyd Green played piano while Pravits wrote it was Milliard Lee. Blue Fan said Ted Curry was on drums, but Pravits thought it was Curry or Sonny Freeman.
Wikipedia indicated King’s first band included Burdin, Curry, Millard Lee, and Sands. ("B.B. King."). King’s autobiography included an undated photograph of the band that included the same men, Burdine, Curry, Lee, and Sands. (King, opposite page 178).
11. King’s recording company was owned by the Bihari Brothers. Jules Bihari took part of King’s royalties by claiming he, Taub, was one of the composers. (Wikipedia. "Bihari Brothers.")
12. King. 20-23.
13. King. 24.
14. King. 18.
15. King. 16-17.
16. Wikipedia, King.
17. Discogs entry for album.
18. Discogs entry for album.
19. Discogs entry for album.
B.B. King recorded the first commercial dance version of "Come by Here" in 1958. The simple substitution of "baby" for "oh Lord" changed the import of the lyrics without altering the AAAB form. The verses used incremental repetition to advance a narrative that went from "I love you" and "I want you" to "we’ll get married" and "raise a family."
At the time he made this recording, King "had a beefed-up sax and brass section," [1] and that’s all I could hear. If King was playing guitar, he was drowned out by them.
Even though it wasn’t the instrumentation one expected on a B.B. King record, the same kind of interaction existed between it and the human voice. The brass set a refrain pattern in the opening measures. Thereafter, every time King sang a line, it answered.
The record was made in the period when rock ’n’ roll had replaced rhythm and blues, and his audience was shrinking. [2] He told David Ritz, he didn’t know if "it was the financial difficulties I was facing, or the fact that my career felt stalled. Maybe it was the monotony of the road" that made him want to marry and settle down. [3]
That may be one reason he wrote the words he did. However, he also told Ritz that Memphis, Tennessee, had felt less like home after his father had moved to California [4]. He added
"My mother stayed in the memory of my heart as a missing link [. . .] I wish that the pain in my heart that came from missing my mother would subside. But it didn’t, and it doesn’t, and her lost love remains forever lost." [5]
He may have learned the song in the local Church of God in Christ church [16] before she died when he was ten-years-old. [7] He remembered:
"As a kid, I was a regular churchgoer. I felt the spirit of God in gospel music and dreamt of being a gospel man myself." [8]
After she died, he was
"still tied to the church and didn’t quite give up the notion of preaching or at least singing the gospel. I was a strong voice in the choir and was learning to use my guitar to accompany spiritual songs." [9]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: B.B. King
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: brass, reeds [10]
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set
Credits
King-Taub [11]
BMI Mod Music Pub.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: Come by HERE (short-shorter-long)
Verses: his own
Vocabulary
Pronoun: we
Term for Deity: none
Special Terms: baby
Basic Form: six-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Line Repetition Pattern: AAAB
Line Form: statement-refrain
Literary Devices: incremental repetition
Ending: none
Unique Features: secularization of a religious song
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3 family
Tempo: moderate
Rhythm: syncopated
Basic Structure: repetition in different keys; modulation occurred after every two verses
Singing Style: one syllable to one note
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: King sang a complete line and instrumental group repeated its refrain
Notes on Performers
King was one of the most important musicians in the creation of electrified urban blues after World War II. He was raised by his grandmother to be a sharecropper in Mississippi, but his grandmother’s sister had a phonograph and records by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson. [12] His great-aunt’s son was a Delta bluesman, Bukka White. [13]
He learned his first guitar chords from the local COGIC preacher when he was seven-years-old. [14] King remembered Archie Fair’s
"sermon is like music and his music—both the song from his mouth and the sound of his guitar—thrills me until I wanna get up and dance. He says one thing and the congregation says it back, back and forth, back and forth, until we’re rocking together in rhythm that won’t stop. His voice is low and rough and his guitar is high and sweet; they seem to sing to each other, conversing in some heavenly language I need to learn. The choir joins in, and the congregation joins the choir, and I’m right in the middle of a universe of music filled with nothing but pure spirit. There’s an old piano and tambourines, hand clapping and foot-stomping and shouting that starts in your toe and goes through the top of your head. The beat is steady and strong as the beat in your heart. No room for fear in here; no room for doubt; it’s a celebration of love that gets even better when, after services, Mama says Reverend and his wife are coming over to visit." [15]
King first heard the blues that was emerging in the Mississippi delta on a Memphis area radio station in 1941. He moved there in 1948 where he had his own radio program. Once he started touring, he never had a settled home, while his music became associated with both Memphis and Chicago. [16]
Availability
Single: Kent 319. 1959. Uploaded to YouTube by Miguel A Garcia on 15 July 2014.
Album: B. B. King Wails. Crown Records 5115. 1958. [17] Uploaded to YouTube by Universal Music Group North America on 25 January 2017. (It had a more mellow sound than Garcia’s version.)
Reissue: Twist With B. B. King. Crown Records CLP 5248. 1962. [18]
Reissue: Let Me Love You. Kent KST 513. 1964. [19]
Reissue: "Come by Here" has been included in several reissues and compilations, especially after King died on 14 May 2015. One was uploaded to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises on 18 February 2016.
End Notes
1. B.B. King [Riley B. King]. Blues All Around Me. With David Ritz. New York: Avon Books, 1996. 188.
2. King. 186.
3. King. 195.
4. King. 195.
5. King. 195.
6. King. 16. Charles Harrison Mason and the Church of God in Christ were discussed in the post for 23 December 2017.
7. King. 34.
8. King. 193.
9. King. 42.
10. Two people have posted the names of people they thought played on this recording: Blues Fan, "B.B. King," his Japanese website, and Anita Pravits, "B.B. King," Keep on Living website. Blues Fan said the trumpets were played by Kenneth Sands and Henry Boozier. Praivts believed the men were Sands, Boozier, or Hobart Dotson. Pravits suggested Pluma Davis played trombone, but Blues Fan did not mention the instrument.
Blues Fan said King used an alto (Lawrence Burdine), tenor (Johnny Board) and baritone (Barry Hubert or Herman Green) saxophone. Pravits listed Burdine, Board, and Hubert. They both mentioned Marshall York on bass, but Blues Fan said Lloyd Green played piano while Pravits wrote it was Milliard Lee. Blue Fan said Ted Curry was on drums, but Pravits thought it was Curry or Sonny Freeman.
Wikipedia indicated King’s first band included Burdin, Curry, Millard Lee, and Sands. ("B.B. King."). King’s autobiography included an undated photograph of the band that included the same men, Burdine, Curry, Lee, and Sands. (King, opposite page 178).
11. King’s recording company was owned by the Bihari Brothers. Jules Bihari took part of King’s royalties by claiming he, Taub, was one of the composers. (Wikipedia. "Bihari Brothers.")
12. King. 20-23.
13. King. 24.
14. King. 18.
15. King. 16-17.
16. Wikipedia, King.
17. Discogs entry for album.
18. Discogs entry for album.
19. Discogs entry for album.
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
DJ Vanchester - Kumba Ya My Lord
Topic: Dance Music - Electronica
Modern club music relies on electronic instrumentations that distort the senses with high speed and mechanical effects. A version of "Kumbaya" attributed to DJ Vanchester took the melody from the last part of each line, the part that part began "Lord, kumbaya," and played each note rapidly four times on a synthesizer. Each tone was struck with digital reverberations, so each sound was still broadening as the next note was played.
The truncated lines were repeated four times in thirty seconds with a simple 4/4 drum beat. After a brief pause, filled with video game sounds, it repeated the section with a bass and cymbals added to the drum machine.
Next the tape alternated two notes each played quickly four times. This motif was repeated over a drum for 15 seconds, and over a drum and shaker for 25 seconds. Instead of an expanding echo, these lower notes had the sucking sound of someone walking through thick mud.
The tape then introduced a woman who sang the kumbaya verse once with some echoing, before it repeated the opening minute of synthesizer and drum machine. She was accompanied by strings and no drums.
The video was posted in mid-December and labeled a Christmas song, but also was tagged "trance" and "Eurodance." A couple years later, another video was posted on Christmas eve that began with the woman singing, then played the entire 2010 tape. This was labeled "trance & dance."
Performers
Vocal Soloist: unidentified woman
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: synthesizer
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum machine
Credits
None given
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom by yah with a long short longer duration pattern
Verses: kumbaya
Vocabulary
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: one-verse
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Last part of 1-3-5 melodic lines
Tempo: Fast
Basic Structure: A1A2-B1B2-C-A1A2
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final Lord
Notes on Performers
Dance music was spread in Europe by pirate radio stations, [1] and it remains an underground form. Cities have been reluctant to license clubs where they suspected drugs like ecstacy were used openly. Thus, the general public only hears about dance clubs when there’s a fire like the one in Rhode Island in 2003 [2] or violence like the shooting in Orlando in 2016. [3]
The published provenance of this version of "Kumbaya" probably was bogus. While the name DJ Vanchester appeared on a couple albums published in their entirety on YouTube, it appeared no where else on the internet.
The art work displayed with the tape included a reference to ZonaGospel21 and LuckyMann21. The website for ZonaGospel, without the 21, indicated it was a Christian internet station directed toward youth based in Veracruz. With support from Radio Dunamis it began "transmitting 24 hours a day with a pay server located in Vancouver Canada, hearing aids, a small 4 Channel console and Behringer condenser microphone" from a single laptop in 2012. [4]
Dunamis was Greek for power, and appeared in a number of places in the New Testament. The King James Bible translated Luke 1:17 as "he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias." [5] It apparently became a common term for radio. Most of the references I found on the internet tracked back to Africa, especially to Nigeria.
I don’t know if ZonaGospel21 was an adult channel used by the Veracruz station, or an appropriated identity. I do know pirate radio no longer requires mooring a ship in international waters and transmitting perhaps censored content over government-controlled air waves. Today, unlicensed broadcasts are made over the internet. [6]
The longer version of "Kumbaya" identified it with speedlinefmTV. Its Facebook page was in Portuguese [7] and gave a URL that ended with the country code for Portugal. That website not only did not exist in 2018, but my computer’s security system came up with warning that it could not "be displayed in a frame."
Some of the comments for its YouTube version were in English and some were in German.
Availability
DJ Vanchester
YouTube: "Kumba Ya My Lord (Radio Version)." Merry X-Mas Mix 2010. Uploaded by ChristmasMusicYUTV21 on 14 December 2010. 2.47 minutes.
speedlinefmTV
YouTube: "Kumba Ya My Lord (Radio Version)." Clubbing Christmas. Uploaded by speedlinefmTV on 24 December 2012. 3.26 minutes.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Electronic Dance Music."
2. The fire was in the Station nightclub, West Warwick, Rhode Island, on 20 February 2013. (Wikipedia. "The Station Nightclub Fire.")
3. The shooting was in a gay nightclub, the Pulse, on 12 June 2016. (Wikipedia. "Orlando Nightclub Shooting.")
4. "¿Quiénes Somos?" Zona Gospel website.
5. Bible Hub website entries for "dunamis" and "Luke 1:17."
6. Wikipedia. "Pirate Radio."
7. "SpeedlineFM." Facebook page.
Modern club music relies on electronic instrumentations that distort the senses with high speed and mechanical effects. A version of "Kumbaya" attributed to DJ Vanchester took the melody from the last part of each line, the part that part began "Lord, kumbaya," and played each note rapidly four times on a synthesizer. Each tone was struck with digital reverberations, so each sound was still broadening as the next note was played.
The truncated lines were repeated four times in thirty seconds with a simple 4/4 drum beat. After a brief pause, filled with video game sounds, it repeated the section with a bass and cymbals added to the drum machine.
Next the tape alternated two notes each played quickly four times. This motif was repeated over a drum for 15 seconds, and over a drum and shaker for 25 seconds. Instead of an expanding echo, these lower notes had the sucking sound of someone walking through thick mud.
The tape then introduced a woman who sang the kumbaya verse once with some echoing, before it repeated the opening minute of synthesizer and drum machine. She was accompanied by strings and no drums.
The video was posted in mid-December and labeled a Christmas song, but also was tagged "trance" and "Eurodance." A couple years later, another video was posted on Christmas eve that began with the woman singing, then played the entire 2010 tape. This was labeled "trance & dance."
Performers
Vocal Soloist: unidentified woman
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: synthesizer
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum machine
Credits
None given
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom by yah with a long short longer duration pattern
Verses: kumbaya
Vocabulary
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: one-verse
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: Last part of 1-3-5 melodic lines
Tempo: Fast
Basic Structure: A1A2-B1B2-C-A1A2
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final Lord
Notes on Performers
Dance music was spread in Europe by pirate radio stations, [1] and it remains an underground form. Cities have been reluctant to license clubs where they suspected drugs like ecstacy were used openly. Thus, the general public only hears about dance clubs when there’s a fire like the one in Rhode Island in 2003 [2] or violence like the shooting in Orlando in 2016. [3]
The published provenance of this version of "Kumbaya" probably was bogus. While the name DJ Vanchester appeared on a couple albums published in their entirety on YouTube, it appeared no where else on the internet.
The art work displayed with the tape included a reference to ZonaGospel21 and LuckyMann21. The website for ZonaGospel, without the 21, indicated it was a Christian internet station directed toward youth based in Veracruz. With support from Radio Dunamis it began "transmitting 24 hours a day with a pay server located in Vancouver Canada, hearing aids, a small 4 Channel console and Behringer condenser microphone" from a single laptop in 2012. [4]
Dunamis was Greek for power, and appeared in a number of places in the New Testament. The King James Bible translated Luke 1:17 as "he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias." [5] It apparently became a common term for radio. Most of the references I found on the internet tracked back to Africa, especially to Nigeria.
I don’t know if ZonaGospel21 was an adult channel used by the Veracruz station, or an appropriated identity. I do know pirate radio no longer requires mooring a ship in international waters and transmitting perhaps censored content over government-controlled air waves. Today, unlicensed broadcasts are made over the internet. [6]
The longer version of "Kumbaya" identified it with speedlinefmTV. Its Facebook page was in Portuguese [7] and gave a URL that ended with the country code for Portugal. That website not only did not exist in 2018, but my computer’s security system came up with warning that it could not "be displayed in a frame."
Some of the comments for its YouTube version were in English and some were in German.
Availability
DJ Vanchester
YouTube: "Kumba Ya My Lord (Radio Version)." Merry X-Mas Mix 2010. Uploaded by ChristmasMusicYUTV21 on 14 December 2010. 2.47 minutes.
speedlinefmTV
YouTube: "Kumba Ya My Lord (Radio Version)." Clubbing Christmas. Uploaded by speedlinefmTV on 24 December 2012. 3.26 minutes.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Electronic Dance Music."
2. The fire was in the Station nightclub, West Warwick, Rhode Island, on 20 February 2013. (Wikipedia. "The Station Nightclub Fire.")
3. The shooting was in a gay nightclub, the Pulse, on 12 June 2016. (Wikipedia. "Orlando Nightclub Shooting.")
4. "¿Quiénes Somos?" Zona Gospel website.
5. Bible Hub website entries for "dunamis" and "Luke 1:17."
6. Wikipedia. "Pirate Radio."
7. "SpeedlineFM." Facebook page.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)