Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning "Deep Blues"

This is the title of a very good, and accurate, I believe, book by
Robert Palmer, on the origins and branches of Delta blues. Anyone into
blues will most likely get a lot out of it. Here's a section, about a
Howlin Wolf gig, that Palmer saw...
"Suddenly he sprang out onto the stage from the wings. He was a huge
hulk of a man, but he advanced across the stage in sudden bursts of
speed, his head pivoting from side to side, eyes huge and white,
eyeballs rotating wildly. He seemed to be having an epileptic seizure,
but no, he suddenly lunged for the microphone, blew a chorus of raw,
heavily rhythmic harmonica, and began moaning. He had the hugest voice I
have ever heard-it seemed to fill the hall and get right inside your
ears, and when he hummed and moaned in falsetto, every hair on your neck
crackled with electricity. The thirty minute set went by like an express
train, with Wolf switching from harp to guitar (which he played while
rolling around on his back and, at one point, doing somersaults) and
then leaping up to prowl the lip of the stage. He was The Mighty Wolf,
no doubt about it. Finally, an impatient signal from the wings let him
know that his portion of the show was over. Defiantly, Wolf counted off
a bone crushing rocker, began singing rhythmically, feigned an exit, and
suddenly made a flying leap for the curtain at the side of the stage.
Holding the microphone under his beefy right arm and singing into it all
the while, he began climbing up the curtain, going higher and higher
until he was perched far above the stage, the thick curtain threatening
to rip, the audience screaming with delight. Then he loosened his grip
and, in a single easy motion, slid right back down the curtain, hit the
stage, cut off the tune, and stalked away, to the most estatic cheers of
the evening. He was then fifty five years old."
If that ain't microtonal, then I don't know what is...Hstick

🔗monz <joemonz@yahoo.com>

Hi Neil,

_Deep Blues_ is indeed an excellent book about the subject,
and one of the very few that mentions microtonality in the blues.

Palmer didn't go into much detail about it, but he did write a
bit about microtones in that book. According to Johnny Reinhard,
{Palmer was "microtonal friendly" and wrote favorable reviews of
AFMM concerts in the New York Times. (Unfortunately Palmer died
a couple of years ago waiting for a liver transplant.)

One of my favorite stories from _Deep Blues_ is where he talks
about Muddy Waters in his Chicago days, saying something like
"when I stop playing the music changes and it's not me anymore,
and then when I come back in it's me again", meaning essentially
that the big-city boys in the band didn't make use of the microtonal
inflections common among Delta singers and players (i.e., those
who were actually from Mississippi), as I describe in my page
about Robert Johnson.
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/rjohnson/drunken.htm

(I know you're aware of my webpage, Neil... that's for newbies.)

I found it to be an absorbing history of the development of the blues.

-monz

----- Original Message -----
From: Neil Haverstick <STICK@USWEST.NET>
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2001 10:19 PM
Subject: [tuning] "Deep Blues"

> This is the title of a very good, and accurate, I believe, book by
> Robert Palmer, on the origins and branches of Delta blues. Anyone into
> blues will most likely get a lot out of it. Here's a section, about a
> Howlin Wolf gig, that Palmer saw...
> "Suddenly he sprang out onto the stage from the wings. He was a huge
> hulk of a man, but he advanced across the stage in sudden bursts of
> speed, his head pivoting from side to side, eyes huge and white,
> eyeballs rotating wildly. He seemed to be having an epileptic seizure,
> but no, he suddenly lunged for the microphone, blew a chorus of raw,
> heavily rhythmic harmonica, and began moaning. He had the hugest voice I
> have ever heard-it seemed to fill the hall and get right inside your
> ears, and when he hummed and moaned in falsetto, every hair on your neck
> crackled with electricity. The thirty minute set went by like an express
> train, with Wolf switching from harp to guitar (which he played while
> rolling around on his back and, at one point, doing somersaults) and
> then leaping up to prowl the lip of the stage. He was The Mighty Wolf,
> no doubt about it. Finally, an impatient signal from the wings let him
> know that his portion of the show was over. Defiantly, Wolf counted off
> a bone crushing rocker, began singing rhythmically, feigned an exit, and
> suddenly made a flying leap for the curtain at the side of the stage.
> Holding the microphone under his beefy right arm and singing into it all
> the while, he began climbing up the curtain, going higher and higher
> until he was perched far above the stage, the thick curtain threatening
> to rip, the audience screaming with delight. Then he loosened his grip
> and, in a single easy motion, slid right back down the curtain, hit the
> stage, cut off the tune, and stalked away, to the most estatic cheers of
> the evening. He was then fifty five years old."
> If that ain't microtonal, then I don't know what is...Hstick

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🔗David Beardsley <davidbeardsley@biink.com>

----- Original Message -----
From: monz <joemonz@yahoo.com>

> Palmer didn't go into much detail about it, but he did write a
> bit about microtones in that book. According to Johnny Reinhard,
> {Palmer was "microtonal friendly" and wrote favorable reviews of
> AFMM concerts in the New York Times. (Unfortunately Palmer died
> a couple of years ago waiting for a liver transplant.)

Robert Palmer wrote some of the liner notes for La Monte
Young's Forever Bad Blues Band release Just Stompin'.

Deep Blues is a great book.

* David Beardsley
* http://biink.com
* http://mp3.com/davidbeardsley

"Deep Blues"

🔗Neil Haverstick <STICK@USWEST.NET>

🔗monz <joemonz@yahoo.com>

🔗David Beardsley <davidbeardsley@biink.com>

🔗David Beardsley <davidbeardsley@biink.com>

🔗Afmmjr@aol.com