R.I.P. Davy Graham - Brit guitar virtuoso

It's a sad day for guitarists and guitar fans around the world!
R.I.P. Davy Graham (1940-2008)



For those who are not familiar with Davy Graham (born in Leicester to a Scottish mother)
he wrote a famous little guitar instrumental named "Anji" (sometimes spelled "Angi")
(not to be confused with Mick Jagger's song "Angie")
Graham was a pioneering young virtuoso guitarist who was equally adept at playing
English Folk songs, Beatles, American Blues, modern Jazz, and even Indian music on his guitar.
I recommend the album "Folk , Blues and Beyond" as a starting point that represents his best work
[ Folk Blues and Beyond on AMG ]

His Blues and Jazz interpretations were particularly fresh and innovative in the early 60's when most acoustic players were still deep in the Folk traditions, and I guess that is my attraction to Graham's music - his take on the Charles Mingus tune "Better Get It In Your Soul" for example, which echoed the John Renbourn/Bert Jansch take on Mingus's "Goodbye Porkpie Hat" from the same period. They were all part of the same scene of what I would term "Acoustic Avant Garde Guitar", pushing the boundaries of what one could play on an acoustic guitar at the time.
Graham was to me the most mysterious of the group because he was much less accessible than the rest - his recordings were very hard to find until recently when the digital download age resulted in an explosion of reissues of many of Graham's albums from the 60's (many of those are uneven or not up to the same standard as "Folk Blues and Beyond" and "3/4 A.D.", so you must preview each album before buying).

The song Anji was named after Graham's big love at the time (early 1960's)
and was recorded by Paul Simon on the album "Sounds of Silence" (1966)
Paul Simon also used the tune as the basis for his song "Somewhere They Can't Find Me"
Fellow Scotsman and friend of Graham's - Bert Jansch recorded the definitive version of Anji on his album "Lucky 13" (1966)
and continues playing Anji to this day in his regular repertoire on stage.

And of course, there is the Israeli connection to this story - a man named Sidney Katzenel (another Scotsman)
who was a friend of both Bert Jansch and Davy Graham, and lived in Israel from the late 60's onward
(Sidney lived in Nahariya, where he was a high school teacher and a musician),
Sidney claimed that he had a direct hand in the composition of the song Anji.

And more Israeli connections - the namesake of the song, Anji herself, apparently migrated to
Israel sometime in the late 60's, and was living in Rosh Pina.
I don't know if she is still alive or her whereabouts,
but some people in the Israel folk community have told me they once knew her...

Rest in peace Davy Graham...

In memory - Robert Lucas

A YouTube clip dedicated to the memory of recently departed Blues great Robert Lucas


see this entry I wrote about him: Robert Lucas R.I.P.

Odetta Gordon - another legend has left us

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/blog/2008/12/odetta_19302008.html


Holy crap!!!
that was my immediate reaction as I just heard from a friend about the passing on of Odetta Gordon.
Another legendary artist gone.

I heard in the Blues circles recently that Odetta was in hospital and that
she was expected to get back on her feet in a few weeks.
- I was hoping to send her a copy of my book while she was recovering...
- She was very much hoping to sing at the Obama inauguration in January...

I met Odetta in 1980 at the Toronto Folk Festival,
I was asked to accompany her from the artist's tent to the stage (where I was a stage hand),
she put her arm under mine and let me lead her across the festival grounds.
I was a bit nervous, I mean this is a person I had known as a legend since my early childhood, and here I was arm in arm, walking her through the festival grounds.
She was very dignified, had great poise and posture, was colorfully well dressed, but also smelled strongly of perfume and booze at the same time!
The minute she got on stage, there was no doubt who was the greatest singer at that festival...



Rest in peace great lady.

R.I.P. Robert Lucas - an extraordinary Bluesman

I discovered Robert Lucas sometime in the mid-1990's when Audioquest records put out his recordings. With his rough whiskey voice, solid harmonica riffs, and powerful guitar playing, both electric and acoustic slide guitars, he had a very distinctive Blues style - as if he had been playing the Blues for 40 years or more. I had no idea that he was so young at the time, apparently he was in his late twenties at the time, but the album photos made him look much older. In recent years, after not hearing anything about him for a good while, I learned that he had joined the Canned Heat band as lead singer, a position he filled off and on up to very recently.
This week, as news of his passing due to drug overdose came over the internet, I was shocked to find out that he was only 46 years old. Some of his playing/singing at times was pretty dark stuff, I don't know what kinds of demons haunted him to make him turn to the drugs that led to his demise, but I hope he can rest in peace now, and that we can remember him for his contribution to the Blues.

I recommend exploring these two albums on Audioquest for starters (click on the links for a description):




Robert Lucas - Layaway Plan



















*************** ^^^^^^ ********************
"Former Canned Heat frontman Robert Lucas, R.I.P.
By Reverend Keith A. Gordon, About.com: Blues

Former Canned Heat frontman Robert Lucas, a skilled slide-guitarist and harp player, died on Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 from an apparent drug overdose, according to his manager Skip Taylor. The Long Beach, California native was just 46 years old.
Lucas first became known to blues fans as a member of guitarist Bernie Pearl's late-1970s band, originally playing harmonica behind artists like Big Joe Turner, Lowell Fulson, Percy Mayfield and other West Coast blues and R&B singers. Lucas worked on his skills for years before launching his own band, Luke & the Locomotives, in 1986.
It was with the 1990 release of his self-produced cassette tape, Across The River, that Lucas began to make a name for himself as a solo artist. After receiving a complimentary newspaper review, Lucas came to the attention of the L.A.-based AudioQuest Records label, which signed the young blues prodigy to a deal.
The label quickly released an acoustic-blues collection, Usin' Man Blues, a mix of original songs and classics from Robert Johnson, Son House, and Sonny Boy Williamson, in late-1990. Lucas would go on to release seven solo albums throughout his career.
Lucas hooked up with boogie-rock kings Canned Heat in 1994 as singer, guitarist and harp player, and would first appear on the band's 1996 Blues Band album, the last featuring founding member and guitarist Henry Vestine.
Between 1994 and 2008, Lucas served two stints as the band's frontman, touring the world in front of the band and contributing songs, instrumentation and vocals to recordings like 1999's Boogie 2000 and the band's 2007 Christmas album.
Lucas recently left Canned Heat to pursue his solo career, and for a relatively young blues artist, he had endless possibilities in front of him. In a statement to the press, Taylor said of Lucas that "his unequaled fury and stage presence, together with his earth-shattering vocal delivery, gave him the ability to channel many of the blues masters through his words, songs and musical ability.
Continuing, Taylor says, "He [Lucas] has been recognized by blues fans and critics worldwide as one of the most inspired singer, player and songwriter talents of the past decade."











Robert Lucas - Built For Comfort

Shake Hands with a Brother

A few months before going to Canada for our summer vacation, I realized that I could actually manage to attend some major concerts and see some of my idols for the fists time. One such concert was the beginning of the Allman Brothers Band summer tour of 2007, which was kicking off in Canada.
I went online to buy tickets as soon as I knew that I would be in Toronto at the right time, bought 2 tickets for the ABB show at Casino Rama which is a few hours north of Toronto, made sure I had booked a room at the Casino/Hotel, arranged the car rental, and we were all set, I was finally going to see not only the Allman Brothers, but Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks as well, since they are in the band in the last few years.

I remember the summer of 1973, the Brothers and Sisters album had just come out at the end of the summer vacation, I was in high school in the Boston area, and the local radio played music from that album all through the fall. That was my introduction to the Allman Brothers, and I have always loved their music, which is primarily based on Blues, it only took another 34 years before I could hear and see them live!

After checking in to the Casino Rama hotel, we were heading for the elevators to reach our room, and who should come out of the elevator but Gregg Allman!!!
Now, I don't like to be rude, or impose on celebrities, but before I knew what had happened, I heard myself blurt out "Hey Gregg!"
he turned around, I shook his hand and may have mumbled something like "It's a great honor to meet you", a half second of dead silence may have passed, and he turned back around and kept on walking. I later found out from the discussion group that he does this all the time, that he is just plain like that, not one to stand and talk with fans or strangers, and it's nothing personal...but I was star-struck nonetheless.

Anyway, the wife and I had a great time at the concert, Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks were nothing short of amazing, and the rest of the band was certainly what I expected too - classic Allman Brothers at the height of their game.

The Blues as Zen

This is an article that I wrote for a local magazine back in 1998,
I made some minor updates and corrections, and here it is:


The Blues As Zen

By Eli Marcus

What is the essence of Blues? I see the Blues as a kind of Zen. Like Zen the Blues at face value looks simple, easy. Actually the Blues is simple in its essence, however, as with Zen, a deep understanding of the Blues requires the student/disciple to travel along a path of gradual enlightenment. Brownie McGhee said: "Blues is life", i.e. the Blues is a way of life. It can also be understood that the Blues, like life, has complexity on the one hand, with levels and layers, changing and evolving in time but at the core - its essence is constant.

Willie Dixon said: "I am the Blues", expressing a level of Zen awareness about his life as a Bluesman. The origins of the Blues are quite diverse: not necessarily just musical, they are to a great extent a social/cultural expression of the enslaved and oppressed Black populations of America. Musically we find African melodies and particularly rhythms, intermixed with European musical forms, both folk and classical.

One of the inborn paradoxes of the Blues is that pain and frustration are expressed side by side with joy and spiritual elation, sometimes in the same song. This is a sort of Zen duality. The Afro Americans ("Blacks") arrived in America a few hundred years ago as slaves who were kidnapped out of Africa. With them came the famous "Talking Drums", which was both a form of percussion and an actual method of communication (like the telegraph).

White plantation owners soon understood that the drum-communication was a direct threat to their subjugating authority and a widespread ban of drums and drumming was enforced by the 1830’s. The result was apparently a strengthening of the singing rhythms as well as an emphasis on guitar (European origin) and banjo (African origin) as rhythmical instruments, a trend that has remained in the Blues to this day.

In the same token that rhythm was internalized or went "underground’, so did the Black slave's spirituality. The Black man brought with him from Africa a myriad of religious practices and beliefs which were quite foreign and strange to the Christian/European sensibilities of the White man. This included kinds of tribal witchcraft, Hoodoo and Voodoo.

The clash with Christianity, followed by a ban of Hoodoo and other ritual practices, caused the Blacks to hide these beliefs deep down inside themselves (much like the Maronites in Portugal - Jews who were forced to conceal their religious practices from public view and "officially" converted to Christianity). Again a duality arose with the Black man publicly embracing Christianity (producing Gospel music by the early 1900’s).

Many Blacks continued in secret the practices of Hoodoo and other pagan traditions, some of which are even witnessed in the Blues today. Muddy Waters was well known for the song "Hootchie Cootchie Man" (written by Willie Dixon) and also for "Got My Mojo Working", with lines such as:

"I got a black cat bone, ‘got a Mojo too,
I got a John the Conqueror root, I’m gonna mess with you...."
or -
"I’m goin’ down in Louisiana ‘gonna get me a Mojo Hand,
gonna’ have all you ladies right here under my command".

These ancient pagan religious references in the Blues may be the reason that "righteous" Blacks who were loyal to the church called the Blues "the Devil’s Music" and frowned on it or banned it outright in their homes and the community at large.
Gospel music, though really another musical form of the Blues, was strictly Christian and "White" in textual content, while the Blues have all the rest of the social and cultural content of the Black experience.

Much in the same way that Zen and Blues can be a process of enlightenment, the Black man has undergone a process of socialization and evolution in America. In the music itself we see lots of clowning and "hokum" in the Blues of the 1920’s and 30’s. The Black man in Vaudeville and early movies has no dignity, no self respect. His only expression of being a real person is his sexuality- the one thing the White man didn’t manage to repress. The White man was afraid of the Black man’s overt sexuality, leading to all the nasty stereotypes that exist about Black’s and their sexuality.

The expressions of sexuality that seemed natural and healthy in Black society, were too blatant for the uptight and even puritan White society in America of the 40’s and 50’s, and this was a major factor in keeping R & B and Blues from breaking the color barrier in the 50’s. The "softened" versions of the Black music that were hits for Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and other White performers were often simply "covers" of the Black originals that couldn’t break through, and were often stolen outright from the Black artists.

The late 50’s and early 60’s saw a maturation of the Black music scene, Chuck Berry became a star that appealed to Whites as well as Blacks, but just as the White audiences began discovering the wonderful Black heritage, the Black community began to turn away from the Blues as being archaic, and something they wanted to put behind them. For a while there was even a kind of shame involved in the old black culture and music, and only in the mid 1980’s did young Black artists find a renewed pride in the traditional Blues (witness Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Keb ‘Mo, Guy Davis, and Eric Bibb).

The great attention Blues has received in recent years in the media, including the United States government declaring 2003 as “The Year of the Blues”, is a "ship finally coming in" for artists such as John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, and the recently departed Luther Allison- artists who have patiently practiced their Blues craft for 30-40 years before achieving real fame and fortune. A pop-rock artist may rise to fame in 5 years and then vanish overnight, but the Blues, like Zen, is a patient and enduring art.

Living with the Blues and learning as we go, brings us full circle, like Zen, to the starting point of simplicity, an expression of everyday life-
"THE BLUES IS LIFE"
Brownie McGhee

© 1998-2008 Eli Marcus

Blues for Advanced Beginners - Judith Podell

Here is the official "sequel" to
"Blues For Beginners" or "How To Sing the Blues" -

*****
"Blues for Advanced Beginners"
by Judith Podell

"Woke up this morning and went back to sleep..."
-- "Epstein-Barre Blues"
attributed to Memphis Earline Gray


1. You have an inalienable right to sing the blues if you were born under a bad sign. Capricorn is a bad sign to be born under. Jesus was one. So was Nixon.

2. The right to sing the blues may be earned if you:
     a. suffer
     b. lose
     c. pay some dues

3. It's not the blues when your loss is tax deductable.

4. Some examples of dues:
    a. working for the man
    b. hating your day job
    c. losing your man

5. Some forms of suffering that will never be blues - worthy:
    a. anorexia nervosa
    b. low LSAT's

6. It's the blues if you:
    a. wish you'd never been born
    b. feel like a motherless child

7. If your mother is dead and you miss her it's Country.

8. Good times to have the blues are:
    a. Christmas
    b. Mother's Day
    c. every night when the sun goes down

9. You can't sing the blues in Chinese.

     "Mouth full of toothache
      Head full of network news
     Gonna go downtown
     Buy some alligator shoes"--
      "Silverpoint Blues"
     attributed to Blind Drunk Johnson

10. Blues women never sing "Send in the Clowns".
       They pack heat and eat meat.

11. Just because you shot that two-timing man doesn't automatically make you a blues woman, but it's a good start. So is buying him an Armani suit, or paying his child support.

12. Blues sports are:
       a. drinking
       b. gambling
       c. running around

13. Blues men are not team players.

14. You can't sing the blues in Gore-Tex.

15. The following drugs don't belong in the blues:
       a. ecstasy
       b. speed
       c. multi-vitamins

16. Blues women don't wear Chanel. Other fashion no-no's:
       a. running shoes
       b. lace
       c. Botox

17. Blues men don't get born again.

18. There is no word in French for "hellhound".

19. You can't sing the blues in French,
       not even if you are blind.


*****
Excerpted from "May Contain Nuts"
(Harper Collins, Perennial Currents imprint, 2004)
Copyright 2003 by Judith Podell
used by kind permission from the author.

Blues For Beginners - by Judith Podell

In early 1997, Judith Podell published an essay on "How to Sing the Blues" in Wordrights Magazine.  
Without her permission, it was transcribed and distributed around the world via email and various websites. In most cases, the text was modified, added to, some parts were completely changed, and in almost all cases the original author credit was missing.

By way of trying to right the wrong, I present the original text that was published in Judith Podell's book "Blues For Beginners and Other Obsessions" (Argonne House Press, 2001)

You can read a few more essays by Judith in my recent entries here
"Blues For Advanced Beginners"
"Animal Behavior"
"Death of the Blues"

*****
Blues For Beginners
by Judith Podell

woke up this morning
cat threw a hairball on the bed.
said, i woke up this morning
cat puke all over the bed.
went to the kitchen
mr. coffee was dead.
"Post-Graduate Blues,"
(attrib. to Memphis Earline Gray)


1. Most blues begin "woke up this morning."

2. "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line.

i got a good woman-
with the meanest dog in town.

3. The Blues are simple. After you have the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes.

got a good woman-
with the meanest dog in town.
he got teeth like Margaret Thatcher
and he weighs 500 pound.
4. The Blues are not about limitless choice.

5. Blues cars are Chevies and Cadillacs. Other acceptable blues transportation is Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Walkin' plays a major part in the Blues lifestyle. So does fixin' to die.

6. Teenagers cant' sing the blues. Adults sing the Blues. Blues adulthood means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. You can have the blues in New York City, but not in Brooklyn or Queens. Hard times in Vermont or North Dakota are just depression. Chicago, St Louis and Kasas City are still the best places to have the Blues.

8. The following colors do not belong in the blues:
a. orange
b. beige

9. You can't have the blues in an office or a honky-tonk. The lighting is wrong.

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. the highway
b. the jailhouse
c. the empty bed

11. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, unless you happen to be an old black man.

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if:
a. your first name is a southern state.
b. you're blind.
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can't be satisfied.
No if:
a. you once were blind but now can see.
b. you're deaf.

13. Neither Frank Sinatra nor Meryl Streep can sing the blues.

14. If you ask for water and baby give you gasoline, it's the blues. Other blues beverages are:
a. wine
b. Irish whisky
c. muddy water

15. If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is a blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse, or being denied treatment in an emergency room.

16. Some blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama

17. Some blues names for men:
a. Willie
b. Joe,
c. Little Willie
d. Lightning

Persons with names like Sierra, Sequoia will not be permitted sing the blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

*****
Copyright - 1997 by Judith Podell and 2001 by The Argonne House Press
used by kind permission from the author.

Animal Behavior - further ponderings by Judith Podell

Animal Behavior
by Judith Podell

1. Cats never apologize and never explain. Dogs let it all hang out on Oprah.
Dogs are hot, but cats are cool.

2. John Travolta, Demi Moore, and President Clinton are dogs. Dogs get in your
face: they leave nothing to the imagination.
Lawrence of Arabia was a cat.

3. Cats do not play well with others.

4. Favorite teachers are dogs. Teachers you get crushes on are cats.

5. Opera singers are dogs. Ballet dancers are cats.

6. People who need people are dogs.

7. Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie were dogs. Any jazz musician who doesn't
shoot heroin is a dog.

8. Cats have the killer instinct. If you put your cat on a vegetarian diet she
will go blind.

9. Dogs let others do the killing and hang around for the leftovers. They are
natural born shoppers.

10. Dogs are shameless, but easily guilt-tripped. Cats are without guilt, but
sometimes you can embarrass them.

11. Dogs are resilient, courageous, and sentimental. They buy vacuum cleaners
for their wives, and neckties for their boyfriends. They hang their children's
artwork in their cubicles.

12. Cats despise cubicles. If they bother with gifts it's always what you wanted
but never thought to ask Cats are the ones who break up first.

13. Cats can handle high fashion but dogs look better in the classics. That
means no spandex, and no see through. It's more fun to design for cats, but the
money lies in making products for dogs.

14. No one wants a cat for a lawyer.

15. Dogs have sexual energy, which is not the same thing as sex appeal." I just
made love to a million people", Janis Joplin said after one of her concerts,
"but I'm going home alone".

16. Only dogs can sing the blues.


*****
Excerpted from "Blues For Beginners and Other Obsessions" (Argonne House Press, 2001)

Copyright - 2001 by Judith Podell and by The Argonne House Press
used by kind permission from the author.

A Sea Turtle Named Eli Marcus????

About a year ago, I organized a Jazz and Blues series of concerts at the "Beach-Bar" venue in ancient Caesarea on the beach of the Mediterranean in Israel.
It was also the occasion of my 50th birthday, so I set aside the night of Friday September 28th, 2007 for myself and a few friends to do an electric Blues concert to celebrate my 50th.
Publicity was sent out to local papers and radio 90FM, email messages, flyers and text messages to cell phones were distributed as well.

About 10 days after the series was over, a friend at work came up to me with a curious article in a local paper from the region of Caesarea stating the the giant sea turtle Eli Marcus had been rehabilitated and released back in the sea.

I found this very amusing of course, but it got me curious and doing a bit of detective work to try and find out how my name was tagged onto a distressed sea turtle that was rescued from strangulation by floating garbage.

I couldn't get any response from the contact names in the local paper. Nor could I find any direct references to the source. A bit of internet research came up with leads at the Society For Protection of Nature in Israel and another organization that has a sea turtle research center and shelter a few kilometers south of Caeasarea. None of the researchers or professors listed in the site responded to any of my inquiries, but finally I tracked down one of their log reports that stated that a giant sea turtle had recently been saved from strangulation by swallowing floating plastic garbage in the sea.
As it turns out, the volunteers working with the turtle were named Elie and Marco, and thus the turtle was given the name Elie Marco.
The person writing the piece in that local paper, must have seen one of the posters for the Beach-Bar the week before, and made the mistake of using my name for that turtle.
Some who dunnit, huh?
Sloppy journalism, and the power of the internet for doing research...