Some April Blues Births:
- April 1st.,1927-- Joseph "Amos Milburn" Jr.
- April15th.,1955-- Tommy Castro
- April 30th.,1970-- Wayne Baker Brooks
Answer to the March 2017 Blues Question: the bluesman we were looking for was/is Robert Lee "R.L." Burnside, born November 23rd.,1926, in Harmontown, Mississippi. He played harmonica up until he was around 16, roughly, which is when took up the guitar. He was playing in public by age 22. One of the first people he had heard playing the blues, when he was 7 or 8 years old, was one of his neighbors, Mississippi Fred McDowell, who would, in later years, teach R.L. on the guitar. He moved to Chicago in the mid/late 1940's, where, as I listed in the question, his time there was troubled, to say the least. After that he moved south again and married Alice Mae Taylor, in 1949. He moved several times between Memphis and northern Mississippi, which is where he would eventually settle, mostly, at first, staying in remote areas. Up into the 1980's he only played music part time. His full time or day job was as a sharecropper, farming soy and/or cotton, a truck driver, or as a commercial fisherman, selling "product" door to door. In Holly Springs, R.L. played gigs in local juke joints, bars, at picnics, and at his own house parties. His first recordings were made in 1967, as field recordings, by George Mitchell. He recorded more sides in 1969, 1975, and again in 1979/80, all done stateside. In the late '70's/early '80's, he met and formed a "partnership" with another "Mississippi Hill Country" bluesman-- Junior Kimbrough. Between 1980 and 1986, he recorded almost exclusively in France and the Netherlands, while on tour there, and at least once in New Orleans, Louisiana. Those albums, and a videotape, were only released in Europe. About 10 years later, after R.L. had shut down "Burnside's Palace", he moved next door to "Junior's Place", a juke joint that Kimbrough owned in Chulahoma, which originally was a church. That venue was burned to the ground in an arson fire on April 6, 2000. In 1991 R.L. had signed with Fat Possum Records, with whom he would remain until his passing. He recorded albums in 1992, 1994,and 1996. That '96 album was with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and was credited to R.L., titled "A Ass Pocket of Whiskey". The album won critical acclaim from most, but Living Blues magazine called it "possibly the worst blues album ever made". Later, there were more recordings and also some albums put together using re-mixes of earlier recordings. After a heart attack in 2001, followed by another in 2002, he no longer played guitar but did do guest appearances/performances as a singer up into 2004. He passed away September 1, 2005, in Memphis. There are many c.d.'s and vinyl albums of his recordings available, including a 7-disc set titled "The George Mitchell Collection, Volumes 1-45", which includes the field recordings he made, along with other Mississippi bluesmen being featured.
Blues Question for April 2017: this bluesman, at a very young age, learned some blues chords on guitar. While still a child, he was also taught to play fiddle, piano, and fife. He didn't want to be a professional musician and, for years, he only played on his front porch. He worked mostly as a farmer but he did have other "sidelines". Any idea who this bluesman might be??
Blues Trivia for April 2017 (kinda): This is more for your information rather than straight trivia. When The Sound of Blue was started I had the lofty goal of having in stock every current blues recording that was available at that time, which included tapes, c.d.'s, vinyl (45's and albums), VHS tapes, and DVD’s. At that time there were roughly 6,000 items, with another 4 to 6 thousand available that were duplicates, on other labels or other formats. It didn't take too long to figure out that my initial goal was not to be. It took a little while longer for me to accept it, though. Today, just in the catalogue of one vendor from whom I purchase, there are over 18,000 available. Same problem as before, a lot of them are duplicates on different labels. Same artwork, same appearance, sometimes vastly different prices. There's another problem that pops up also: what or who you're hunting for may not show up in the genre you think it's in. I have found that when a blues fan is trying to find a particular performer/album/song, or hunting it some other way, the info they have is either incomplete or totally wrong. Biggest problem appears to be "genre" listings, as these can be determined by the artist, the record company, whoever manufactures the item, the guy who enters it in the computer at the warehouse level, and sometimes the stock boy who puts it away. When you're hunting for blues, especially today's artists, it may be listed as: blues, psycho-blues, folk, world, jazz, rap, hip-hop, soul, rock, rhythm & blues, rock & roll, oldies, pop, or even big-band. I'll give you one quick example: Chuck Berry. He was the first one I heard playing blues, on a 45: "Deep Feeling" (an instrumental using a lap steel guitar), which was the flip side of "School Day". Since his passing, I was browsing through his catalogue, and there are 93 items with him listed as the main artist and over 1,100 with him or his music/songs available. While going through that list, I found him listed under jazz, soul, rhythm & blues, rock & roll, oldies, Hawaiian, and world. Here's a little bit of trivia: Chuck first started playing in public when he was in high school, Sumner High School in St. Louis, at the school. While still in high school, he was arrested, tried, and convicted of armed robbery, for which he served 3 years, 1944-1947.
Some April Blues Passings:
- April 1st.,1989-- Lemuel Charles "Deacon"/"Lem" Johnson
- April 14th.,1992-- Samuel Blythe "Sammy" Price
- April 29th.,2008-- Michael "Micky" Waller
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