Updates week beginning: ... Saturday 30th September 2023  
 
   
Every Friday we have the blues. These are the artists from the earliest days of the blues. Our production is about the privilege of bringing these legendary artists, together with the more obscure ones and their music to a worldwide audience.

Primarily, we play the music from as far back as a 100+ years, that's what 'Backtracking' is all about, but by contrast, we dip a toe, tentatively, into the 50s / 60s and even the 70s. We reflect today that artists play and sing ABOUT the blues, the people we feature, were talking about their lives, they KNEW the blues.

Listen beyond the guitar or even the person singing and hear the story. Join the ‘Blues Time Machine’ every week ... Going back to the 'Roots of the Blues' - Back, to where it all began.
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    Discovering the blues / My personal journey

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  Welcome to PD Productions music stream ... Go deep and discover the 'Roots of the Blues' ... Back to where it all began .. Get in touch and let's talk about the Blues ....
Featured - The lady sings the blues
    Ida Cox - Any woman's blues - (1923)  
 
Ida Cox ... anecdotally known as 'The Uncrowned Queen of the Blues', she never achieved the level of fame of her contemporaries such as Bessie Smith or Ma Rainey, but her powerful voice and captivating stage presence gained her significant popularity during the 1920s.

She recorded 78 songs between 1923 and 1929, resulting in a four-volume set of her greatest hits. Traveling the show circuit, Ida performed on stage until the mid-1940s. In later years, although her voice no longer had the greatest range or depth it once did, her ability to project emotion and mood through phrasing and the energy of her charismatic personality was unmatched.

She was born, Ida Prather on February 25, 1896. She sang in the choir of the local African Methodist Episcopal Church. In search of fame and fortune, Ida left home at the age of 14 to tour with the White and Clark's Black & Tan Minstrels, later, The Florida Orange Blossom Minstrels, The Silas Green Show, and the Rabbit Foot Minstrels.
 
 
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Gospel Blues Train - Get onboard
    Bessie Smith - On revival day
  Gospel blues are a form of blues-based gospel music that has been around since the inception of blues music. Possibly fair to say, that the revival in the 1930s was led by The Reverend Gary Davis. Listen out for the 'Gospel Blues' Track' on the 'Backtracking' production, join the early 21st century gospel revival to the glory of God. Get on board the Gospel Blues Train'
 
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North Mississippi blues / Hill Country Blues
    Jack Dupree - Number nine blues (1953)  
  Hill Country Blues is one of the many regional styles of country blues, gosh, there are so many. It is characterised by a strong emphasis on rhythm and percussion, steady guitar riffs, few chord changes, unconventional song structures, and heavy emphasis on the groove. It has its own very distinctive style from other genres.
 
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Featured artist of the week
    Howlin' Wolf - Going down slow  
 

In the history of the blues, there has never been anyone quite like 'Howlin' Wolf. Six foot three and close to 300 pounds (About 20 stone), the Wolf was a primal force of the blues. Robert Johnson may have possessed more lyrical insight, Muddy Waters more dignity, and B.B. King far more technical expertise, but none could match the wolf for his ability to rock the house down to its foundations while scaring his audience out of their wits.

A chance meeting with Charley Patton changed his life forever; two of the major components of The Wolf's style (Patton's inimitable growl and his propensity for entertaining) were learned firsthand from the Delta blues master.

The Wolf finally started recording in 1951 and thrilled us into the 70s, but as the '70s moved on, the end started coming closer. By now Wolf was a very sick man; he had survived numerous heart attacks and was suffering kidney damage from an car accident that sent him flying through the windscreen. His band leader Eddie Shaw firmly rationed Wolf to just half-dozen songs per set. Occasionally some of the old fire would come blazing forth from some untapped source to show us that he could still tear the house apart when the spirit moved him. Sadly, he entered the Veterans Administration Hospital in 1976 to be operated on, but never survived it.

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Zydeco Blues
    Doug Kershaw - On the Bayou
  Zydeco evolved in southwest Louisiana by French Creole speakers which blends blues, rhythm and blues, and music indigenous to the Louisiana Creoles and the Native American people of Louisiana. Although it is distinct in origin from the Cajun music of Louisiana, the two forms influenced each other, forming a complex of genres native to the region.
 
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Appalachian blues trail
    Sticks McGhee - My baby's gone
  Appalachian Blues Trail .. The 'mountain cousin' of the Delta blues carries the stamp of a distinctive regional mix of European and African styles and sounds from the cultural crossroads of railroad camps, mines and rural settlements. . Perhaps there are even elements of the 'Gandy dancers' music in there. The music of blues artists such as Pink Anderson, Lesley Riddle, Etta Baker, John Jackson and many more shine bright, as a key cradle of acoustic blues.
 
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Blues on the Bayou
    Leroy Washington - I've been in this prison
  .... or gator blues is a type of Louisiana blues that developed in the Black communities of Southwest Louisiana in the 1950s. It incorporates influences from other genres, particularly zydeco and Cajun. Bayou blues has a laid-back, slow tempo, and generally is a more rhythmic variation.
 
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Prison work songs / The spirituals connection
    Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
  Field hollers, call and response. These songs were performed by prisoners as they worked in the fields, on the roads, in the ditches and during worship or at other gatherings for entertainment. Blues / Spirituals borne out of untold suffering, poverty, despair and depravation, but with a deep, yet almost melancholy beauty that often defies understanding - if they aren't the blues, the blues don't exist.
 
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The Blues shack / Artists we'd almost forgotten
    Will Weldon - Hitch me to your buggy (1927)  
 

The history of the Blues is as rich as the music itself, myths, stories, legends abound often, stories have been told over and over until fact and myth merge. The genre is full of characters that helped shape the 'blues'. Indeed, there are a great many Blues artists who are forever lost to history, fortunately the legacy of their music often remains. However, there are legendary blues men and women whose names have survived the passing of time, but sadly, for example, in the case of Marmie Desdunes her music may never be heard in its original form again.

They really did exist… 'Little Hat Jones' 'Funny Papa Smith', 'Papa eggshell'- even,'Six cylinder Smith'… Introducing you to some of the most obscure Blues artists, long forgotten, artists that have almost disappeared into the mists of time, but not quite. Featuring the long-lost blues artists from so long ago. Artists we'd nearly forgotten.

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Sawmill Gravy Blues - Special Productions
    No, not the rolling stones
  The strange and mysterious artists who seem to have little background, that is until we start digging and then all kinds of facts and statistics begin to appear. One example was a fantastic artist rejoicing in the name of 'Lucille Brogan'. We thought it would be a good idea to research this lady and play a few of her recordings. Sadly, she was sub tagged as a 'Dirty Blues Artist' and we soon found out why. Without being too explicit, if we were to edit out the obscenities and profanities of her recordings we'd be left with a about 5 seconds to play.
 
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Railroad Blues
    Ed Bell - Mean conductor blues
  Blues songs about trains and the railroad? ... Well, the railroad was a means of escaping the harsh realities of life; it was a way of heading for the promised Land. Look no further than Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s 1939 classic, ‘This Train’ and the several other covers of that song. It’s about time we took a look back at all things train.
 
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Jazz - Moods in Shades of Blue
    Chet Baker - Almost blue - (1987)
  Chill with us as we stream the deepest, bluest Jazz. Blue Jazz has a very special feel, it can easily make you sing or cry as a very personal memory comes flooding back. So here we go, featuring artists so fine such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Randy Crawford, our own, the incomparable Cleo Laine and so many more.
 
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The Mississippi Moaners
    Isaiah Nettles - (The original Mississippi Moaner) - 1935 Blues.
  The Mississippi Moaner was the name first used by American blues man Isaiah Nettles. Little is known about Isaiah, but he is best remembered for his recordings in 1935 when he recorded five sides for Vocation Records. Only one 78 from the session was ever officially released. The phrase has since been taken up by a number of blues artists
 
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Swamp pop
    From our very good friends Rob and Dee in the US  
 

Swamp pop is a music genre indigenous to the Acadiana region of south Louisiana and a part of southeast Texas. Created in the 1950s by young Cajuns and Creoles, it combines New Orleans–style rhythm and blues, country and western, and traditional French Louisiana musical influences. Although a fairly obscure genre, swamp pop maintains a large audience in its south Louisiana and southeast Texas homeland, and it has acquired a small but passionate cult following in the UK, and Northern Europe. Direct from the US, with Rob and Dee, we’re delighted to be streaming this great production:

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Feature: ... Myths and legends of the Blues
    Henry Sloan ... I’m going where the Southern Cross the Dog  
 

... Many early blues singers used variations on the phrase. The expression refers to the place in Moorhead, Mississippi, where the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley rail line intersected with the Southern rail line. Many southerners referred to the Yazoo and Mississippi line as the 'Yellow Dog' or simply the 'Dog'

W. C. Handy wrote in his autobiography of the experience of stopping at the railroad station at Tutwiler, Mississippi around 1903, and coming across, as he described it, a lean, loose-jointed Negro who was plucking at a guitar. His clothes were in rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages.

As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings ... Quote: The effect was unforgettable. His song, too, struck me instantly... The singer repeated the line (Going' where the Southern cross' the Dog) three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the strangest music I had ever heard. Unquote

The man at the train station is rumored to have been Henry Sloan ... An elder from Dockery Plantation that taught Charley Patton to play.. The Peavine Railroad went from Dockery to 'Where the Southern Cross the Dog a few miles away to connect to all points North and West.

There is a version of the song that WC Handy heard that day and that is readily available... Blues singers such as Charley Patton, Robert Johnson and Willie Brown all apparently learnt how to play from Henry, this is why his influence is so recognised. In 1917 he boarded a train to Chicago, and was never seen again. For some unfathomable reason, I just wish his name had been 'John Henry' - ah well.

 
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