Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: pauldo on May 05, 2022, 06:53:45 PM
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https://www.rockhall.com/elizabeth-cotten (https://www.rockhall.com/elizabeth-cotten)
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As I have mentioned, I had the honor of seeing Ms. Cotten live, in a small club; she most definitely belongs! (Eninem? Yeah, not so much........)
Peter (who would be more than willing to tell them who does and doesn't belong on the ballot, if they'd just ask)
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I heard about that one, and I'm glad to see her receive honors... you might roll you eyes and think; Rock & Roll HoF, 30-some-odd years posthumous, really? But you have to look at it in the context of the award. Early Influence. It's about who wouldn't be doing what they did had they not had that backdrop. We're a couple generations into that influence now, and it's good to be reminded. Doc Watson and Norman Blake were my portal back. Now I hear little pieces of Freight Trains all the time, in everybody's music. Come to think of it, I grew up a couple miles from the same tracks.
It's been a while, maybe a year or two, but Acoustic Guitar magazine did a nice piece on Elizabeth Cotten in their Guitar Hero section. Tabbed out a couple exercises and there was some discussion about her Martin guitar maybe. (?) That may have been on another forum I read.
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I was going to go with friends down to Clarksdale, MS, for several weeks one summer, and they were from there, had recorded there, knew everyone, and were going to take his Square White Self down there to add some soul to my bones. It didn't work out, and I've regretted it ever since.
Follow blues, rock and roll, country and country blues, gospel and jazz backwards in time and they all grew from a common root: Here you can hear it in spades. She sings this more country blues, almost folk-like. Rev this up and/or darken it, it's blues or rock and roll. Turn the changes inside out, it's jazz. This is the root of all American music, save for maybe polka (!) and bluegrass, which is predominantly here because of Irish and Scottish immigration.
THIS is the well. Upside down/left handed, and she can pick, and notice with the guitar strung normally for a right-hander, when she finger picks her thumb is playing the high notes and her fingers the low ones. Backwards ! Plus an included guitar lesson at first. A priceless treasure.
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That two fingers-upside down thing freaks me out every time I see it.
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This is the root of all American music, save for maybe polka (!) and bluegrass
I'm not sure (the state of Wisconsin not withstanding) that polka can be counted as "American music"; it's predominately Polish - so your theory holds.
which is predominantly here because of Irish and Scottish immigration.
Fun fact: The "Hindu drone" traveled the Silk Road east, ending up as the drones on the Highland bagpipes - from whence, after the migration from the Highlands to the Appalachians, it was transplanted onto the African-American banjo as the the 5th string.
Even the most American of music is rooted else where.
But I am in total agreement with your assessment of Libba's importance in _everything_ that came after.
Peter
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Peter, based on conversations I had this past Friday night at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis, MN with a number of Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech musicians (we were there for a three band musical fund-raiser for Ukraine) polka originated in the mid-1800s in Bohemia in what has for a long time been part of the Czech Republic 🇨🇿. Given that there’s a heavy polka influence in everything these bands play and even the musicians in the Polish band agreed with the Bohemian origins, I do not doubt the veracity of the Czech claim to fame.
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Peter, based on conversations I had this past Friday night at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis, MN with a number of Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech musicians (we were there for a three band musical fund-raiser for Ukraine) polka originated in the mid-1800s in Bohemia in what has for a long time been part of the Czech Republic 🇨🇿. Given that there’s a heavy polka influence in everything these bands play and even the musicians in the Polish band agreed with the Bohemian origins, I do not doubt the veracity of the Czech claim to fame.
My assumption of polka's mostly-Polish origins was based on the ethnicity of the bulk of its practitioners behind the Cheddar Curtain; that does not, of course, account for the historical fluidity of Eastern European borders. I will accept your sources' claim for it as Bohemian.
Peter (whose family came from Ulm - but who has met Gerlachs who consider themselves Polish)
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Peter, based on conversations I had this past Friday night at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis, MN with a number of Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech musicians (we were there for a three band musical fund-raiser for Ukraine) polka originated in the mid-1800s in Bohemia in what has for a long time been part of the Czech Republic 🇨🇿. Given that there’s a heavy polka influence in everything these bands play and even the musicians in the Polish band agreed with the Bohemian origins, I do not doubt the veracity of the Czech claim to fame.
Side note- my grandparents on my mothers side were Czech. Grandpa was a heck of a musician, multi-instrumentalist. I recall he favored the stylings of Eubie Blake more so then the likes of the Yosh and Stan Schmenge.
Paul (current owner of Joseph Jensik’s piano, cigarette burn on the bench seat and all!). (as a resident behind the Cheddar Curtain, there is nothing abnormal about listening and/or performing polka music 😃)