Re: [Harp-L] Train Time Check out the real source



As to Traintime, I agree, it's close to southern rural styles of
players like Terry and Bailey, and it's worth pointing out to someone
inspired by Traintime. Once they've explored that tune and are ready
for more, they can get into those source players and others in a
similar vein (George Bullet Williams, William McCoy, Phil Wiggins,
Peter Madcat Ruth, among others).

But as to Butterfield and Mayall, those are very different stories.

Butterfield grew up in 1950s Chicago, a hotbed of urban electric blues,
with harp players like Little Walter, Big Walter, James Cotton, Junior
Wells, Billy Boy Arnold, Carey Bell, Sonny Boy II and others. His style
was formed in his local scene and the players he acknowledged as
influences came from this group. Many of them in turn acknowledged John
Lee Williams (Sonny Boy I) as a primary influence. His style in turn
echoes Memphis players of the 1920s and '30s like Will Shade and Noah
Lewis, very different from Terry and Bailey.

De Ford Bailey and Sonny Terry form a school, often referred to as
Piedmont style, quite distinct from the urban postwar school that
Butterfield came from. Bailey, best known for his partipiation in Grand
Ole Opry broadcasts from WSM in Nashville, would not have been heard in
Chicago except by country music fans, and then not after his dismissal
from the Opry in 1941. His records would have been out of print and may
not even have been distributed in northern cities. Sonny Terry would
have been active on the folk circuit and Butterfield may have heard him
but his style doesn't show it.

Mayall listened widely to all sorts of blues, collecting rare records
even rarer in the UK than in the US. Lacking a local scene, he  did
research (as did other UK blues congnescenti, from whose ranks many
other British rock and blues stars came) and borrowed from  and
reworked material from a wide variety of sources - the harp part to his
most famous tune, Room To Move, is easily heard almost verbatim in
Sonny Boy II's "One Way Out" (covered at about the same time by the
Allman Brothers without harp).

The rhythmic chording, whooping, and fox chase/train imitations that
are  considered hallmarks of both Terry and Bailey are absent
completely from Butterfield's playing. I can't speak to Mayall as I
haven't heard all his stuff, but I don't recall it being a major
feature.

Winslow

--- James <wasabileo@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I can appreciate your excitement in Train Time. But to really
> appreciate it and perhaps come up with your own variations, check out
> Sonny Terry and William De Ford Bailley
> De Ford Bailley mastered the train whistle and was a Grand Ole Opry
> Radio Star.
> Listen to them and you get the inspiration for Train Time as well as
> John Mayall and Paul Butterfield
> 
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