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Back to the Roots of the Blues ... Backtracking
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Latest release 6th 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 .....Charley Patton.
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Charley Patton(born 1891?, Hinds county, Mississippi, U.S.—died April 28, 1934, Indianola, Mississippi) was a blues singer-guitarist among the earliest and most influential Mississippi blues performers.
Charley spent most of his life in the Delta region of the North-Western Mississippi, from about 1900 he was often based at Dockery’s plantation. There he and other early blues performers, such as Tommy Johnson and Willie Brown, shared songs and ideas. Charley spent most of his career playing blues and ragtime-based popular songs for dancers at rural parties and barrel houses, where his singing and clowning made him a popular entertainer.
In the nearly 70 recordings he made between 1929 and 1934, Patton sang in a gravelly, strained, sometimes unintelligible voice while providing himself with a percussive guitar accompaniment. His lyrics range from personal to topical. He also recorded some gospel songs. Perhaps his best-known recording is Pony Blues, among the first to be issued, and others such as Down the Dirt Road, Shake It and Break It, High Water Everywhere, and Moon  Going Down helped secure his popularity.
As if his singing and playing wasn’t sufficient, audiences loved his showmanship, sometimes playing with his guitar down on his knees, behind his head, or behind his back.
The aggressive intensity of his performances is particularly notable, a style that truly influenced others such as Howlin’ Wolf, Son House, and Bukka White. Charley was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in its inaugural class (1980) - and so he should be.
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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. |
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On the Review / Download page ..... Blues behind bars.
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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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| Click / Load the Review / download page |
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Myths and Legends of the blues ..... Sea Island Singers.
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| Does anyone want to say 'This isn't the blues' ? - For slaves, singing became a way of life. Songs floated over the rice and cotton fields, on the coastal waters, boatmen navigated and rowed from one plantation to another, and in the church meetings where the slaves convened. Out of this oppression rose a body of songs, which melded various songs into the genres of spirituals, gospel and even blues music, borrowed from traditional hymns and folk songs.
Preserving a fragile part of the South's heritage in song through the generations was a labour of love for the Georgia Sea Island Singers. The original Singers, members of the Armstrong, Davis, Ramsey, Morrison, and Proctor families, were descendants of slaves who lived and worked on local plantations. They were joined by Mrs. Bessie Jones, and later by Doug and Frankie Quimby of Brunswick.
The Georgia Sea Island Singers carried their songs, games and storytelling to virtually every state in the country and performed before Presidents and other world leaders. Through their music, these gifted performers described the world of their own slave ancestors, occupying that rare and powerful point where music carried profound meaning for the singer and listener. |
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