CHARLEY PATTON: COMPLETE RECORDINGS: VOL. 1 (1929/2002)
1) Pony Blues; 2) A Spoonful
Blues; 3) Down The Dirt Road Blues; 4) Prayer Of Death, Pt. 1; 5) Prayer Of
Death, Pt. 2; 6) Screamin' And Hollerin' The Blues; 7) Banty Rooster Blues; 8)
Tom Rushen Blues; 9) It Won't Be Long; 10) Shake It And Break It; 11) Pea Vine
Blues; 12) Mississippi Boweavil Blues; 13) Lord I'm Discouraged; 14) I'm Goin'
Home; 15) Snatch It And Grab It; 16) A Rag Blues; 17) How Come Mama Blues; 18)
Voice Throwin' Blues.
The easiest way to get one's Charley Patton
homework done is to pick up some nifty 1-CD compilation with around 20-25
tracks on it — the man only recorded for about a five-year period, and not each
of his songs was stunningly original, to put it mildly (not at all atypical of
pre-war bluesmen — or any bluesmen,
for that matter). However, since we here at Only Solitaire despise easy ways,
the alternate comprehensive road means getting your hands on this 5-CD boxset
of Charley Patton's Complete Recordings
that covers every single released A- and B-side of his, a few surviving
alternate takes, and plenty of additional stuff by other artists where Patton
is sitting in on the sessions as a guest vocalist or a guest guitar player — or
even is simply thought to be sitting
in, with musicologists around the world wrecking their brains over a definitive
proof of the man's presence or absence on said tracks.
Indeed, the man is just as much of a mystery to
this world as his slightly later, and far more «flashily» mythologized
colleague Robert Johnson. Just as with Johnson, there's only one surviving
photo of Patton; just as Johnson, there are but a handful of legitimate
recording sessions that survive; just as Johnson, the man had a unique musical
presence that resonates particularly well with the singer-songwriting crowd —
an «authenticity» and «honesty» without an ounce of smooth gloss that was
typical of «urban blues» performers. Plus, Patton's recording years (1929-1934)
pretty much correlate with the darkest Depression years, so he's even more of
an epitome of the black man's (or, in fact, any man's) struggle and strife with
the world than Johnson, who always comes off as a more introspective,
self-immersed fellow.
The first disc of the boxset (we will take them
one by one, as if they were five different records) is arguably the best one,
covering a lengthy record session that, apparently, all took place on one day
(June 14, 1929), with most of the tracks subsequently released on Paramount
singles. Only the last four tracks are not really Patton, but a little-known
bluesman called Walter "Buddy Boy" Hawkins, who was decent enough but
whose main talent, supposedly, was in adding a bit of corny ventriloquism to
the sessions (ʻVoice Throwin' Bluesʼ); Patton is thought to be providing second
vocals on ʻSnatch It And Grab Itʼ, but that's about it — the other tracks just
provide some extra context for the day.
Anyway, what truly interests us are the 14
tracks that Patton cut himself, and their coolness still shines through despite
the crappy sound quality (very
typical of all Paramount recordings at the time — the Depression hadn't even
started yet, and they were already using subpar material for most of their
pressings). For some reason, musicians and critics alike tend to single out
ʻPony Bluesʼ — one of Charley's best covered songs and the one to have made it
onto the National Recording Preservation Board — and this is why it holds an
honorable first place on the disc; but honestly, I am not quite sure what makes
it so much greater than any of the other songs, other than being a little
slower and more somber than the rest. Maybe it is a bit more straightforwardly
«bluesy» — much of the stuff played by Charley veered towards folk- or
country-dance, or towards traditional gospel — but that does not necessarily
make it more haunting and spirited than the superficially «lighter» material.
In any case, thing number one that strikes you
about Patton is the voice — the «gravelley» one, a direct predecessor to
Howlin' Wolf (who actually interacted with Patton in his younger days and was
much influenced by him), though not quite as hellishly sharp-cutting: Patton's
strength lies rather in his versatility, as he was capable of excellent
modulation, going from high-pitched, near-falsetto stabs to the proverbial
gravelley roar and back at will. After a few listens, you will never want to
confuse Charley with anybody else — most of his colleagues had softer,
smoother, silkier vocal tones, and when people in 1929 heard the guy sing
"saddle up my black ma-a-a-a-are" with that low, scrapy, creaky voice
of his, quite a few of them, I'm sure, could feel the Devil's breath on their
necks (so you gotta love the Library of Congress' penchant for retro-Satanism).
It's made even more amusing if you put the voice together with the photograph,
which pictures such a handsome, clean-polished young man in a bowtie (with a
rather sullen expression on his face, though — but black artists, unless it was
a vaudeville thing, rarely smiled on photos those days in general, even when
being relatively well paid).
Compared to That Voice, the man's
guitar-playing style is somewhat underrated: like all famous pre-war Delta
bluesmen, he has a free-flowing, inventive manner of handling the 12-bar blues
structure, far less predictable than the strictly locked style of Chicago and
post-Chicago electric bluesmen, but he never goes for «flashiness» like Blind
Blake or Blind Lemon Jefferson: in fact, he never even takes a proper solo. He is, however, a master of quirky guitar
licks — check out, for instance, the little high-pitched «smirk» that sums up
each line of ʻMississippi Boweavil Bluesʼ, or the perfect synchronization of
the up-down, up-down guitar and vocals on ʻA Spoonful Bluesʼ, or the
percussive-tapping style on ʻDown The Dirt Road Bluesʼ. His bag of tricks is
not limitless, and pretty soon they start repeating themselves, but Patton
clearly paid attention to putting his personal musical stamp on those tunes,
instead of simply using the guitar for basic accompaniment like so many B-level
players of the era.
And he was quite versatile, too: there is no
single overriding theme or mood that would unite these 14 tunes, all of them recorded
on the same day. There's your basic ramblin'-man blues (ʻPony Bluesʼ, ʻDown The
Dirt Road Bluesʼ), there's sex-crazed blues (ʻA Spoonful Bluesʼ, melodically
quite far removed from the Willie Dixon version, but lyrically far more
straightforward; ʻBanty Rooster Bluesʼ, a distant predecessor to ʻLittle Red
Roosterʼ), there's gospel spirituals (ʻPrayer Of Deathʼ, ʻI'm Goin' Homeʼ),
comical dance numbers (ʻShake It And Break Itʼ), and folk chants with a social
underpinning (ʻMississippi Boweavil Bluesʼ). That Voice is the one thing that
ties it all together, reigning over all the themes and moods like some bulky,
brawny Earth Elemental, potentially dangerous but also capable of being your
friend if you make all the right moves. Like giving the record a well-deserved thumbs up,
for instance, regardless of the generally awful sound quality (which is
reflected most badly on the guitar sound, but no crackles or pops can do away
with The Voice).
There are at least two confirmed surviving photos of Robert Johnson, not one.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I can't wait for you to tackle the Chronological Bing Crosby albums from the late 1920s and early 1930s.