Bloodstains on the Wall

As we know, most songs deal with instant emotions – lust, anger, envy and so on. This is a visceral art form. But, from time to time, one encounters a three minute piece which has a complete story to tell. My favourite example of the ’story blues’ is Honeyboy’s 1952 song, Bloodstains on the Wall.

As is often the case in blues matters, very little is known about Honeyboy. I know that his real name was/is Frank Patt and that he was born around 1925. I also remember seeing somewhere that he was/is the Uncle of the late blues harp player Carey Bell Harrington. In any event, is is clear that his little bit of fame rests entirely on Bloodstains … and for very good reasons. Honeyboy has a cinematic imagination.

Take the first verse:

She had pillows torn to pieces,
Bloodstains on the wall (x2).
I know I wasn’t injured when I left for work this morning,
I didn’t leave the ‘phone out in the hall.

It’s like film noir or something, isn’t it? Oddly, Honeyboy appears to have become involved, inadvertantly, with a psychopath. I love the consolidation of visual detail. Most blues guys would probably settle for a First Person factual account (‘My Baby’s a Murderer’ or some such); but Honeyboy’s acute imagery puts across the horror of the incident.

The lyric is cinematic also in the sense of movement. The fact of the ‘phone ending up in a strange place speaks of some kind of struggle having taken place.

Things become a little more predictable, thereafter, although the last verse offers an oddly conciliatory note. It appears that Honeyboy is prepared to stand by his sanguinous gal, for the time being:

Then when it’s all over,
I’m gonna let you go.
I didn’t know you were the kind of girl,
To fall so low. She had …

There are other examples of the story blues (not least in the oeuvre of the second Sonny Boy), but Bloodstains … heads the field. Somehow, that terrifying apartment of his has stayed in my mind for 30 years.

Jaybird

One of the great things about blues music is its ability to catch you off-guard. Over time, the basics of the blues – the 1-4-5 changes, the 12 bar structures, the use of pentatonic scale – have become familiar to us all. Rock and roll and rock sans the roll have deployed these devices ad infinitum (and on into pop). But the real blues feeling was never so neatly contained and one can find some genuinely weird moments.

Certain mavericks come to mind: the Detroit pianist Johnny Howard and his unique way with the sustain pedal (pressed down, constantly); Skip James, with his quirky, personalised guitar tunings; the apparently a-rhythmic Robert Pete Williams. But my favourite free spirit is the harmonica player/singer Jaybird Coleman.

Jaybird had a somewhat erratic career. He started out as a troops entertainer of sorts (he fought in WW1), before doing some recording, between 1927 and 1930. The recordings split into two groups; the orthodox but energetic waxings with the Joe Williams’ Birmingham Jug Band – and his eerie solo stuff.

The liner notes to the recent Coleman collection speak of the close connections between Jaybird’s harp and vocal style and the field holler. Quite so. But he brings some additional things to the table. The records are all well-structured from a viewpoint of the use of call and response, lyrics and endings (invariably, Coleman ends on a flattened seventh note), but, en route, they are remarkably free-form.

My favourite songs are the two that Jaybird recorded, in 1930, with a pianist called J.D.Northwood. The piano-work is filigree and oddly daintly; essentially, it wouldn’t sound out of place in a ballet school. Moreover, Coleman’s accompanist seems unsure whether to follow the progression up to the fourth and/or fifth or just sort of mooch about. Northwood takes the latter course, interpolating some fussy right-hand figures as a kind of insurance policy, lest his erratic leader should veer off course. All the time, Jaybird hollers and switches the harp style between tidy bends and sawing-motion chords (Jaybird’s chords recall nothing more than a gentle wind or lilting waves).

In the shake-up, Man Trouble and Coffee Grinder Blues endure as authentic blues moments. The latter benefits further from Jaybird’s unique – and possibly religion-inspired – take on sexual politics. (This is also evinced on his solo recording, Save Your Money, Let These Women Go). In all ways, Jaybird made records which were curiously dark but which packed much personal feeling.

Hitting the Keys

This is good – take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ueuhfr2eEI

Follow the link and you’ll find Fenton Robinson performing You Don’t Know What Love Is, in 1974 in a Chicago bar. The song was recorded for a BBC TV series, The Devil’s Music, and it is simply exceptional; the very best in the modern, soulful blues.

Fenton was great, of course. He had a smooth, easy voice and his guitar solos were filled with cute phrases. The band on this clip is also exceptional (just listen to the subtle fills on the snare). But I’m struck here mainly by the piano playing, from Bill Heid.

The Fender Rhodes electric piano is a much underrated blues instrument. Classically, the Rhodes has been favoured by jazzers (Heid is a jazzman of great note) whilst the blues have generally been associated with the acoustic piano and/or Hammond organ. But in this clip, Heid demonstrates the expressive range of the electric piano.

At school, I learned that the piano was to be counted amongst the percussion instruments (on the grounds that the sound is generated by the beating of hammers on strings). Frankly, this always struck me as semantics; just like tomatoes being fruit. But the best blues pianists really do act as part of the rhythm section.

The point is proved by Heid’s evocative playing. The riff is simple – a take on the old Magic Sam routine of minor root chord played off against a major fourth – but Heid sticks to the task with admirable discipline. But he also adds some wonderful flourishes. The little right hand fills are perfectly timed and they respond beautifully to Fenton’s tale of irresistible, but doomed, love. At one moment, Heid interjects a quick-silver right hand roll to propel Fenton into a guitar solo; at another, he contributes a kind of two note suspended riff, which sounds weirdly like a police siren.

… But none of the above is clever-clever. Heid listens, he feels and he responds. The result is an exemplary piece of piano work which reveals the rhythmic soul of the instrument. Very often, blues piano players – particularly those from a classical background – treat rhythm as a kind of last resort, imagining that the song is best served by endless arpeggios. The results are usually hackneyed and lacking in spirit.

None of this could have been said of Bill Heid in 1974. Palpably, he was Fenton’s right hand man.

I Call it Pretty Music

A tiny Stevie Wonder sang back in 1962, “I Call it Pretty Music (But the old people call it the blues)”. There was never a truer word sung.

Conventionally, we think of the blues as a repetitive 12 bar form overlaid with melodies written to the pentatonic scale. But listen deeply and you’ll find some pretty melodies.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the late California blues singer and pianist, Roy Hawkins. Hawkins is probably best known for his authorship of two standards, The Thrill is Gone and Why Do Everything Happen to Me?, but his whole catalogue merits a listen. His singing has some of the urbanity that we associate with the West Coast, but he has a stronger emotional edge. Geting back to my point about melody, Hawkins was someone who knew how to shape a tune to get the most from his three or so chords.

If I Had Listened is a sombre minor blues, which finds Hawkins laid on a road, his side punctured by shots fired by a jealous love rival. Roy lifts the mood with some delightful vocal curls and, typically, he varies the tune by shifting the phrasing of the repeated line on the fourth. Strangeland is in a major key, but, again, Hawkins displays his instinct for keeping the tune moving. The repeat of the first line (“Yes, I’m in a strangeland”) includes a distinctive and tricksy vocal bend.

Sometimes, I think that blues singers could do with really studying the masters more. Too often, standard blues phrases are stuck onto twelve bar changes, to nullifying effect; Stormy Monday becomes Have You Ever Loved a Woman? becomes Key to the Highway. The best blues are far more varied and the vocal passages peform the essential job of nailing the melody.