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Back to the Roots of the Blues ... Backtracking
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Latest release 13th June 2025 - Thank you for visiting with us, we cordially invite you to review and download the current production below. 'Backtracking' is a result of our research a journey of discovery that never ends, and our love of the Blues. All this simply because the music, the history and the culture of the blues never ends. We're honoured and privileged to share the music within the genre of the Blues back in time a hundred years and beyond, a genre so vast and so diverse.
Backtracking is streamed online and is broadcast worldwide. It's free to join the 'Backtracking' time machine - Get the authentic blues on your radio station ..... |
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Featured artist of the week .....Elizabeth ‘Libba’ Cotten.
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Elizabeth ‘Libba’ Cotten (1895-1987), best known for her timeless song Freight Train, built her musical legacy on a firm foundation of late 19th- and early 20th-century African-American instrumental traditions. Through her song writing, her quietly commanding personality, and her unique left-handed guitar and banjo styles, she inspired and influenced generations of younger artists. Born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Libba Cotten taught herself how to play the banjo and guitar at an early age. Although forbidden to do so, she often borrowed her brother's instruments when he was away, reversing the banjo and guitar to make them easier to play left-handed. Eventually she saved up the $3.75 required to purchase a Stella guitar.
 Elizabeth continued to tour and perform right up to the end of her life. Her last concert was one that folk legend Odetta put together for her in New York City in the spring of 1987, shortly before her death. Elizabeth’s legacy lives on not only in her own recordings, but also in the many artists who continue to play her work. The Grateful Dead produced several renditions of Oh, Babe, It Ain't No Lie, Bob Dylan covered the ever-popular Shake Sugaree, and of course, Freight Train continues as a well-loved and recorded tune played by Mike Seeger, Taj Mahal, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, Chas McDevit, a skiffle version, to name but a few. Libba's recordings, concert tours, media acclaim, and major awards are a testament to her genius, but the true measure of her legacy lies with the tens of thousands of guitarists who cherish her songs as a favourite part of their repertoires, preserving and keeping alive her unique musical style. |
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Prison work songs speak to us of despair, misery and deprivation, possibly beyond most people's comprehension, these songs are surely a blues connection. When we first began to research these songs and their history we found not only a connection, but a cry from the past so prolific it became an obvious root of the blues, not to be discarded.
Prisons were facilities where music was regularly created - and not only for the residents themselves, but for Southern society at large. Incarcerated people had these work songs, hollers, and chants to break up the monotony of their work, these songs were used certainly to create a rhythm for their work, but also as entertainment and in various forms, even worship. Songs varied depending on the kind of work: The music could be up-tempo if the work was of a faster speed or slower, if it was more difficult or intricate.
Beyond songs about prison work, there were also songs about prison itself. Probably the most iconic of these songs was Leadbelly's 'The Midnight Special'. Like many blues songs, it was pieced together from parts of other blues songs, with individual singers putting their own stamp on it over time. Sam Collins' version, which was recorded in 1927, introduces us to an insight into their misery from beyond prison itself, with a verse about a woman begging for her man's freedom.
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Every day we have the blues ..... Review / Download page
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| Featured page - Jazz - Moods in blue |
Listening to Ella Fitzgerald's Blue's in the Night, we’re reminded just how diverse blues really is and so, must be added to our never ending collection, sometimes sad, sometimes upbeat and full of joy. Shades of Blue can make you cry or make you sing, it can stir a memory long forgotten. In fact, because of its often abstract nature, it can be almost whatever you want it to be.
People so often focus on just one aspect of the Blues and that's a shame. Traditional blues, whatever they are, the great artists of today and the simple classic blues of a 100 + years ago. Then there is Jazz in blue, an essential aspect of our genre so vast, so wide and so deep,so many shades of blue, so many colours, so much depth. We gather blues music in every form from around the world, it's what we do, naturally, and all aspects have a corner at PD Productions. |
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Myths and Legends of the blues ..... I got the blues.
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'I got the blues'. Antonio Maggio.- People say, Haven’t you got anything better to do? – The answer to that is yes, I have, but then as I wander through and research the history of the blues, yet another story pops up ...
I got the blues has the distinction, albeit, a somewhat dubious distinction of being the first blues song every published, it’s claim is in the sense that it has blues in the title and used a 12-bar pattern.
Antonio Maggio published his arrangement of the song in 1908, but he didn't write it, that was in the late 1800's - the person who did has never been identified. Antonio emigrated from Sicily to Louisiana in 1982. A violinist, he settled in New Orleans, where he heard this song in the Algiers district of the city.
Quoting Antonio, I heard an elderly Negro with a guitar playing three notes over and over again. I didn't think anything with only three notes could have a title, so to satisfy my curiosity I asked him what was the name of the piece. He replied I got the blues. Having this on my mind, I wrote an arrangement by making the three notes dominating most of the time. That night, our five-piece orchestra played at the Fabaker Restaurant I got the blues, the song was composed as a musical caricature, and to my astonishment became our most popular request number. The story never ends, Blues are so strange, so diverse, don’t you agree? |
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Copyright: PD Productions ... All rights reserved .. Registered 2021 |
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