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Every Friday we have the blues: 16th May 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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| Backtracking directory.. |
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Download the latest Backtracking. |
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Backtracking: Featured artist of the week |
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How 'Backtracking' began |
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Backtracking archive 2025 (Download) |
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Get in touch with PD Productions |
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Get 'Backtracking' on your radio station free. |
THE TRUTH OF THE BLUES - BACK TO WHERE IT ALL BEGAN ... Our Company is PD Productions based in the South West of the UK, but here isn't where our journey into the blues began.... It all started, way back in the 1980’s in a small town bar in Louisiana; it was like travelling back in time, dusty, rickety tables, chairs, and a bare wooden floor. Sat on a little platform was a lady and a guy with a guitar, then the lady began to sing the blues. I could have closed my eyes, although I didn’t realise it at the time, I could have been listening to Ma Rainey or Bessie Smith. Quietly listening, and with encouragement from others we joined with the, ‘Tell us your story' - and oh yes, we know.
We knew and felt the songs were telling us of a deep sadness, if you will the truth of the blues, borne of a deprivation, beyond our comprehension. I was listening to the 'Blues' long before that, but never really understood, until then, what was meant by 'Feeling the Blues' ... Each time we produce ‘Backtracking’ we try to show our love and respect for the people and the lives these songs are about, their deprivation, sadness and misery. We are honouring them by keeping their presence and their music alive and well. Simply, the authenticity of the Blues.
Each time, we are inviting our listeners to journey back with us in time to the abomination of slavery, the depth of the spirituals and of course the expressive, authentic blues from all those years ago. Our research and journey since that day has been a discovery of the ‘Blues’ that never ends, of a culture and history that has faded in the mists of time, but remains there, sleeping for us to find. We're honoured and privileged to share with you this great music and its history, back a hundred years and beyond, a genre so rich, so vast so diverse and so real.
Now based in Somerset (UK) What started all those years ago with a handful of blues tracks, a few faded photographs and books has grown exponentially with the help of our good friends, Alan, Terry, my dear friend, Graham, the ‘Doc’ my late cousin Len (Houston) and Bob (Humble Texas) the never ending patience of our group and so many people from around the world, far too many to mention, Backtracking has become a library of music and resources so vast it’s often difficult to keep track of it all, as it continues to grow.
Our radio production, ‘Backtracking’ is available to blues stations around the world, totally free and non contractual. We upload the latest production to subscribing stations direct from our UK offices every Thursday. We cordially invite you to review the latest production, we hope you will choose to join our friends around the world, as we go ‘Backtracking’ to the Roots of the Blues’ Back, to where it all began.
David R Howard – PD Productions (UK)
Get in touch at: ... syndicatingtheblues@gmail.com |
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| Featured artist of the week ..... Mable Hillery |
Mable Hillery, Perhaps not a blues artist in the sense of people like Ma Rainy, Bessie Smith etc, Mable was an artist both within her performing group and as solo. She was born July 22, 1929 in LaGrange just southwest of Atlanta, Georgia. Mable, a contralto, joined the Georgia Sea Island Singers, performing with John Davis, the community leader; Bessie Jones, the song leader; Peter Davis, Emma Lee Ramsey, Alberta Ramsey, and Henry Morrison.
She also continued the traditions of blues, spirituals, and gospel, and was not shy about bringing this repertory to the broad public, when the ideas of integration began to stir throughout the country; she composed freedom songs to reinforce the movement. Between 1961 and 1965 she toured the college circuit of campuses, coffee houses, church basements, and festivals.
In 1975, brothers John and Jim Fishel organised the fourth annual Miami Blues. When Johnny Shines suggested an obscure traditional blues singer named Mable Hillery, the brothers booked her on the strength of his recommendation. In a special one-off collaboration, the pair dazzled the Miami audience with a set that harkened back to the classic blues of Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, and Memphis Minnie.
 The Times obituary reports that Mrs. Hillery, 46, died of a heart attack, at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan, on Tuesday, that is, April 27. Most other sources, including the New York City Department of Health, say April 26. (The discrepancy might be explained by the event having occurred late on the evening of the night shift). She is buried in Strangers Cemetery, St Simons Island.
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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 undefinable sadness. 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 rumoured 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 |
| Review - Henry Sloan - Im going where the Southern Cross the Dog |
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On the Review / Download page ..... Shimmy She Wobble
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Othar Turner was born on June 2, 1908, Except for a nine-month period laying and repairing railroad track as far north as Indiana, he lived his entire life in and around Gravel Springs, I been out on the farm a good while and raised six kids, and I don't know many other people, he said of his life as a small farmer.
Other made his first cane fife when he was 13. He had already learned a good deal about drumming from players in the area and wanted to move on to the fife. He picked his cane from a river bank and cut it to the right size: a little over a foot long, with several joints in the right places. He bored six holes in it , five finger holes and one for the mouthpiece. He experimented until he got the right intonation.
His band, the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band, consists of the fife and three drums: two kettles (snare drums) and a bass. The high-pitched kettle drum is the lead instrument. All the musicians play standing up, often while walking, with the fife leading the way. The repertoire is a mix of blues, old popular tunes, spirituals, and instrumental pieces collectively known as "Shimmy She Wobble," for the liberating effect the music has on dancers. The blues indeed can be played on anything. |
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| Click / Load the Review / download page |
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Myths and Legends of the blues ..... The Spirituals.
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| Spirituals, The Blues Connection ... Spirituals are the work, and plantation songs that evolved into the blues and gospel songs for worship. In the 19th century, the word ‘Spirituals’ referred to essentially folk songs. Although they were often rooted in biblical stories, they also showed us the hardships of people who were the slaves from the 17th century onwards. Many new music genres including what we now call the blues emerged from spirituals but, as we shall see, the blues existed even before the spirituals, and in fact were an element of the Spirituals, only the format we’re familiar with was different
It was our privilege that we found as part of our research, Mammy Prater. Mammy, her real name was Annie, but she preferred Mammy. She was born a slave in 1805. She was our inspiration to research and to discover the spirituals and their connection with the blues. You can read about her and the blues connection from the links below. |
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Copyright: PD Productions ... All rights reserved .. Registered 2021 |
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