THE ENGLISH COMEDIAN WHO SPARKED THE BLUES

Charles Matthews

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If you’ve read my earlier blogs, you’ll know it was a German who wrote the first African-American-inspired song after hearing slave music in Virginia in 1795; and his English wife who first performed said song in Boston in 1799.

Some 20 years later, another English performer turned up in America and did something that kicked-started the cycle of evolution that ended up as blues. He was the comedian, Charles Matthews, born in London in 1776. Aged 46, Matthews was Britain’s undisputed master of a now forgotten form of theatre known as table entertainment. Such an act consisted of improvisation, comic songs, mimicry, telling stories and jokes, impersonations, quick change acts and recitations. Matthews’ repertoire included making fun of typical British characters and their broad regional accents. And from September 1822 to May 1823, he successfully toured his one-man show to packed theatres across the United States.

To the delight of local audiences, Matthews adapted his act to include caricatures of what he called certain American types and their dialects. These types included the ‘fearless frontiersman’, the ‘clever Yankee’, and the ‘African Tragedian’. The American audiences loved it, even when Matthews was poking fun at their national stereotypes.

To cut a long story short (the longer version’s in my book), Charles Matthews was watching an African-American performance of Shakespeare in New York when the mixed audience started screaming at the lead actor to sing a popular slave song of the era. This he did, and the crowd went mad.

Matthews, noting this, quickly added slave songs to his own act, painting his face black for good measure. Being a master of impersonation, he captured the songs and patois so accurately, his slave music performances became the highlight of his sell-out American tour. When he took the act back to London, a host of American performers filled his shoes to cater for the demand, and a form of entertainment called Ethiopian delineating was born. It was vulgar, it was working class, it appealed to all races and it predated the now despised minstrelsy by 20 years.

Charles Matthews’ performances of 1822 and 1823 must be considered the exact moment that black slave music started the 90-year evolutionary journey that culminated in blues, as a form of music, being captured on paper and specifically named, for the first time, in March 1912.

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Dumb Ways to Die: a short commercial break from blues (sort of)

Watch Dumb Ways To Die on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw
 

Here’s a link to an interesting jingle aimed at saving young lives. Alternatively, it could be viewed as a waste of dosh by an organization with more money then sense. Whatever it is, it's just another example of how Australia is becoming more and more of a 'Nanny State'.  
An animated film for rail safety, the TV commercial link above was apparently the talk of the recent Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity in France, which is advertising’s equivalent of the Oscars.

It comes out of Melbourne, one of the world’s best kept secrets if you haven't been. (What the ad doesn't mention, incidentally, is train surfing, a well known Melbourne pastime for bored teenagers, where they ride atop train carriages, ducking to dodge tunnels, infrastructure, etc.) 
Melbourne's also known for having one of the world’s best live music scenes. AC/DC started their career in the city and even have a lane named after them there. Naturally enough, it’s called AC/DC Lane. Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers hails from Melbourne and other bands who started in the city include Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, the Dirty Three, Men At Work and, more recently, Jet. On the other side of the fence we have Melbourne girl Kylie Minogue, Olivia Newton-John, The Seekers and soft rockers, Little River Band.

Melbourne's Nick Cave with Grinderman. Rock doesn't get much harder.

There are bound to be many more Melbourne ‘artistes’ I’ve forgotten to include, like Dames Edna Everage and Nellie Melba, the world famous opera star from the nineteenth century. Talking about the nineteenth century, have I told you about my book, ‘How Blues Evolved’? It starts before the nineteenth century was a twinkle in the eighteenth century’s eye. Don’t want to commit? Why not have a free read of the first two chapters on the links below.

Available in USA on
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=how+blues+evolved 
  
Available in UK on
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=how+blues+evolved+volume+one

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It's the first boogie woogie hit but is it rock & roll?

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In 1928, the former Ma Rainey and Butterbeans and Susie accompanist, Clarence ‘Pinetop’ Smith, recorded his renowned boogie piano track, Pinetop’s ‘Boogie Woogie’. A 24-year old Alabama comedian and piano player, Pinetop enjoyed one of the first-ever boogie hits with this number, which was hugely responsible for popularising the style we now know as boogie woogie. Take a listen on the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6dPdfXZVI8
The question is, does it qualify as early rock & roll? I've a sneaking suspicion it doesn't but I'd like some feedback regarding my World's First True Rock & Roll Releases list. You be the judge. Please leave comments in the space below or twitter me.
Pinetop Smith, who came up with the song at a house-rent or skiffle party, died in 1929 after being shot in a fight in a Chicago dance hall aged just 25. No photographs of him exist and most pics purporting to be Smith are of CowCow Davenport and Pinetop Perkins.  
The first blues songwriter and singer to incorporate, ‘The girl with the red dress on’, ‘Shake that thing’ and ‘Mess around’ into his lyrics, Smith was a big influence on Ray Charles, amongst others. Tommy Dorsey’s 1938 big-band revival of Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie sparked the boogie woogie craze that took off during the Second World War, along with Albert Ammon's Boogie Woogie Stomp, currently my number one. See archive.

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The most surprisingly brilliant blues guitarist I ever saw

How I remember the Stones

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I’ve been around the block so often, it only cost me 7/6 (about 37p or 50c) to watch the original Rolling Stones play in the local cinema. I say watch because, except for Little Red Rooster, (so it must have been 1964: I was but a boy), you couldn’t hear any songs because of all the screaming girls.

An enduring memory is of Brian Jones, blond bob shimmering in his spotlight, standing as if frozen in time through the entire show. Keith danced about, but Brian didn't move an inch. Jones’ slide guitar playing was immaculate, though, and I think I’m right in claiming he was the first guitarist in Britain to master the technique. Brian and Keith, therefore, were among the first blues guitarists of note I watched in action, with The Stones’ version of Willie Dixon’s Little Red Rooster still the only pure blues to top the British charts.

As for other blues guitarist: John Lee Hooker used to be a regular at the local town hall. I remember Albert King puffing his pipe while producing his searing licks at Leicester; and about ten naked girls dancing on stage with Led Zeppelin at Shepton Mallet, in 1970. That was the first time I ever saw giant video screens and the girls were magnified, in all their hairy glory, thirtyfold. My own band supported a pre-Paranoid Black Sabbath with Tony Iommi pioneering metal riffs, see Brummie Blues in April archive.

Through my work I watched Gerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead play four nights running at the London Lyceum and attended many festivals and gigs I can hardly remember. (You know what’s said about the 60s, which ended, musically, in 1973: if you can remember them, you weren’t there). I picked Santana up at London airport and sat in at the second Uriah Heep recording session. Al Kooper and Jeff Beck regularly dropped into the office, as did Johnny Winter and Gary Moore, then lead guitarist in an unknown Irish hard rock trio called Skid Row.

I was paid 50p by the BBC to sit on a beanbag and watch John McLaughlin, another office regular,

How I remember John McLaughlin. He later played with Mile Davis

perform on The Old Grey Whistle Test; and saw David Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop join Mott the Hoople on stage at a southern English seaside gig to debut live, All The Young Dudes. (But I can’t even remember where.)

I watched Angus Young in an unknown AC/DC support Lou Reed in Melbourne in 1974, little knowing that another regular from my London days, Cliff Williams, would be joining AC/DC on bass. I saw Eric Clapton, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley perform in Australia and Joe Walsh blow the roof off a Melbourne pub.  

So I know my lead guitarists: blues, rock or otherwise. But you’ll never guess who played the purest, most emotional electric guitar blues I ever heard? It’s hard to believe, but it was the blind Porto Rican soft-rock singer-guitar virtuoso, Jose Feliciano. He was performing at a festival in Staffordshire in about 1969. He’s just played his version of The Doors’ Light My Fire, with which he had a massive worldwide hit. Maybe the crowd were getting restless because then Jose launched into a set of electric guitar blues which left everybody spellbound. It was one of those magical moments you just can’t script.
The moral is you can’t judge a book by its cover. Talking about books, have I told you about …

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HOW BLUES EVOLVED Volume One is now available

Sorry to impose a plug for my new book on you here, folks, but it's finally available on the Amazon links below and I can't contain my excitement.
Getting all those old blues photographs and illustrations, many of them quite rare, into Kindle format, has been like trying to stuff an elephant into a mouse hole: virtually impossible. The number of pics, plus all the fascinating (to me anyway) new information I have uncovered, meant the book had to be split into two volumes. 
Having been a blues fan from the days I spent 7/6 to watch the original Rolling Stones (see blog above), I thought I knew a lot about the genre. Only after researching this book did I discover just how much I didn't know. Follow the links below and have a look inside. Hopefully, it will stimulate your interest.
This first book takes us from year dot to the turn of the twentieth century. Volume Two follows soon. 

To read the first two chapters FREE please follow the links below.

Available in USA on
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=how+blues+evolved 
  
Available in UK on
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=how+blues+evolved+volume+one 

Download your free Kindle app for PCs on their eBook site while you're there. (Will find out about Macs.) Or scroll down for a taste of blues' incredible history.

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The Chuck Berry-style guitarist who was six years before Chuck Berry

BLUESMUSE22. TAKE A LISTEN ON THE LINK BELOW
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3FNLnFg6Ck


Chuck Berry (God bless him) is one of the finest lyricists known to rock & roll. Chuck also plays inimitable, dynamic, guitar-driven old-style rhythm & blues. Except Chuck’s style isn’t quite that inimitable. That’s because, in April 1949, sounding very much like the Chuck Berry we all know and love, someone else released a song that was pure Chuck Berry.

Goree Carter preceded Chuck Berry

He was Goree Carter, an 18-year-old black electric guitarist from Houston, Texas, and his record was ‘Rock Awhile’. It was a track that helped, perhaps, change the very nature of rock music. Rock Awhile was written and performed by Carter with his jump blues band, The Hepcats. The song did everything a groundbreaking rhythm & blues record is supposed to do, except chart highly.

 Wrote respected rock author, Robert Palmer, in his 1992 book, Church Of The Cosmic Guitar: “Rock Awhile in April 1949 … has been cited as a strong contender for the title of first rock and roll record and is a much more appropriate candidate than the more frequently cited, ‘Rocket 88’ (1951), by Ike Turner. The intro to Rock Awhile also resembles those in several Chuck Berry records from 1955 onwards.”

Again,Albert Ammons with Boogie Woogie Stomp in 1936 (see archive), would dispute that Rock Awhile was the world's first rock & roll record. But, without doubt, Goree Carter was yet another unsung musical pioneer way ahead of his time. As we all know, the world is, unfortunately, full of such musicians.

 Carter, whose first release was Sweet Ole Woman Blues in 1949, recorded for several labels in the early 1950s, but last recorded in 1954. He continued to play occasional local gigs in Houston with his last live performance being in 1970. Goree Carter died in Houston, aged 59, in 1990.

Rock Awhile, from 1949, goes onto my list of the world's first true rock & roll releases. Whether it's number seven, eight, nine or ten is yet to be determined.

LOOK OUT FOR MY BOOK, 'HOW BLUES EVOLVED VOLUME ONE' NEXT WEEK. DETAILS LATER.

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