Okay, I really don't understand all this stuff yet, but I think I did it. I was pointed to the Blogdrive help page for RSS feeds, which of course was vague, but better than the norm from them. They gave me a couple things to add to my address and told me to post those links in my sidebar, which I have done - it's beneath my links and above the Asshole of the Year.

So, does it work??????????????????????????

 

 

 

Just imagine - for a few brief moments, he'll understand how he makes most of us feel.

The age of "stealth recording", or "sneaking a tape rig into a show to record it" as it's sometimes called, started in the late 60's. That's when the recorders thamselves first became small and portable enough, although not so small that a lot of stealth wasn't required. I once heard about a stalwart early Pink Floyd archivist who would mount a reel-to-reel deck under the seat of a wheelchair. He not only got to record, he got preferential seating.

To get music from before this time, however, pretty much relies on studio outtakes that were never used and radio programs. That latter is a rich source of info, not only for the rock and folk of the 60s but also the jazz of the fifties. Because of jazz's mainstream popularity, it becomes easy to get unofficial recordings of many of the old time masters of the form, such as Miles, Coltrane, Dizzy, Monk, even old Satchmo himself.

It's not so easy to find the original blues masters, though. It wasn't as mainstream as jazz, to begin with. Blues was looked down upon in many circles as a lower class type of music. Some, like the great W.C. Handy's father, called it "the Devil's music". It simply didn't have the radio presence that the horn blowers and romantic crooners had.


And even when there was a bluesman on the radio, he either wasn't being recorded, or whatever recordings made were not saved. This partly derives from the fact that jazz retained it's popularity for a much longer time and thus benefitted from the advances that made recording easier and cheaper, but also from the fact that the blues just wasn't considered as important. So it is highly unlikely that I'll ever find any recordings from the heydey of folks like Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lightnin' Hopkins, Professor Longhair, or Sonny Boy Williamson, as much as I do long to.

A great thing happened, however, 30 years after that heydey. A lot of young people who grew up on old blues records became professional musicians themselves. They ushered in a folk music revival that not only brought back many of the names above, but paved the way for the next wave of greats - names like BB King, Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor and Taj Mahal. And those old timers that were still around and able to play got a second chance. So while the golden years may be (thus far) out of my reach, I can find live recordings from the twilight years of such luminaries as Professor Longhair, Howlin' Wolf, Son House, and today's feature, the magnificent Lightnin' Hopkins.

Now, I learn about blues the old fashioned way...... by listening to as much as I can, and not being afraid to look under a few rocks. I first heard Lightnin' Hopkins when I got one of those bargain-basement "Blues Classics" boxed sets. You know the type - great price, about five CDs that have way too little music on them and issued by a record label that existed just long enough to get the package made and into distribution. I got it mainly because I had never heard Hopkins play, although having to get the other discs, by the likes of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, didn't hurt my feelings any.




This is classic delta style blues, straight from the source. While played on an electric guitar with a rhythm section, instead of solo and acoustic as the blues was born, it is still obviously the genuine article. Then again, like I said, it's the source. Sam Hopkins (1912 - 1982) cut his teeth playing with Blind Lemon Jefferson (whose name later inspired the band name Jefferson Airplane) at the tender age of 8. He was a blues man from then on. He picked up the name "Lightnin'" when his agent paired him with pianist Wilson "Thunder" Smith. I have no idea whatever happened to Thunder, but Lightnin' made his way into blues history.

This is from one of his latter shows, at Ebbet's Field on April 24, 1974. This was the last year that Lightnin' made a signifigant number of appearances, slowing down considerably on both performing and recording due to poor health. He's still got some licks, though, and it sends chills down my spine to think of what he must have sounded like live in his heydey. This is a delicious sounding copy, coming as it does from a local radio station's recording of the show.



While he does do some rockin' in this show, you'll have to download it to hear that. I'm featuring a nice, smooth, mellow rendering of the classic Rock Me, and you just click right here to listen to it.

To get the whole thing, which fits easily onto one disc, just read the instructions at the bottom of this post, but on step two you download this file instead of that one. It's easy as pie. My e-mail is on the sidebar if you have any questions or problems.

33% Extroversion, 80% Intuition, 27% Emotiveness, 57% Perceptiveness

Heuristic, detached, and analytical to a fault, you are most like The Oracle. You are able to tackle any subject with a fine toothed comb, and you possess an ability to pinpoint nuances and shades of meaning that other people do not have and cannot understand. Accomplishment and realization of ideas are, for you, secondary to the rigorous exploration of ideas and questions -- you are, first and foremost, a theorist. You hate authority, convention, tradition, and under no circumstances do you accept a leadership role (although, you will gladly advise leadership when they're going astray, whether they want you to or not). Abstraction and generalities are your interests, details and particulars are usually inconsequential and uninteresting. You excel at language, mathematics and philosophy.

You are typically easy-going and non-confrontational until someone violates one of the very few principles that you deem sacred, at which point you can fly into a rage. Although you possess a much greater understanding of process and systems than the people around you, you are always conscious of the possibility that you've missed something or made a mistake. You don't tend to become attached to particular theories, and will immediately discard mistaken notions once they're revealed to be incorrect (but you don't tolerate iconoclasts who try to discredit validated theories through the use of fallacies and bad data). Despite being outwardly humble, you probably think of yourself as being smarter than most other people. That's because you are. In fact, in your dealings with people your understanding of their motives is so expansive that you know what they're going to say before they say it, and in world affairs, you usually know what is going to take place before it actually does. This ability would make you unbeatable in debates if only you were a little less pensive about your own conclusions, and a little more outgoing.

Famous people like you: Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, John McWhorter, Ramanujan, Marie Curie, Kurt Godel
Stay clear of: Apollo, Icarus, Hermes, Aphrodite
Seek out: Atlas, Prometheus, Daedalus

What old Greek buggerer are you?