ThatSecondAlbumVille
That spotted digital hi-fi thingy that my kids talked me into paying for landed on Led Zeppelin for the first time today.
And instead of letting it ramble
Conclusion?
Forty-five years later my ears have heard a whole lot more actual blues than the teenaged auditory capturing devices of yore.
And I've gotta say...
I'm now more sure than ever that that J. Page fellow really did bamboozle a whole generation of white kids like into thinking that it was him that was the musical 'genius'.
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Image at the top of the post....Chester Burnett (aka Howlin' Wolf) at the Newport Folk Festival in 1966....It was he who wrote 'Killing Floor', a tune that Page and Co. used to cover on stage before they recorded 'The Lemon Song'...After a legal fight Mr. Burnett finally got a co-author credit.
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7 comments:
The Lemon Song from Travelling Riverside Blues, wherein, again, the kids purloined a line in the best borrowing fashion without acknowledging any kind of a debt, cultural or financial to one R. Johnson. There was a lot of borrowing that went on in the blues community, but when nobody made more than nickels, it hardly seemed to matter. I'm thankful that I had nothing of any greater consequence over which to be outraged back in those days c. 1969...oh, wait, Vietnam, War on Drugs, Social Credit, FLQ...still had the temporal and emotional resources to spare what would have passed for tears for Burnett, Johnson, et al as that was the music that was closest to my fanaticism, er, heart.
OMG, thank you for the photo. The guitar player next to the sax player, is so familiar, but the name won't come. these things happen, but omg, thank you@!
Danneau--
Ya, but these co-opters were raking it in...They could have willingly shared the wealth a little.
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e.a.f.--
That would be Hubert Sumlin.
Led zep would take a song from vanilla sludge like You Keep Me Hanging on, radically over emphasize it and then claim the Supremes had nothing to do with it?
Bruce--
Oooh boy - point very well taken.
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My understanding is that there have been musicians who have felt deeply indebted to their influences/role models. Bonnie Raitt comes to mind, apparently taking Sippie Wallace under her financial wing in Wallace's declining years, and freely and openly editing her for her work (which, I assume, means paying royalties). Sadly, I don't think anyone did this for Bo Diddley and a host of others whose work generated serious cash, none of which seemed to find its way into the pockets of the original artists.
Figures that Ms. Rait would be one of the good ones.
Thanks Danneau.
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