Bukka White
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Booker T. Washington "Bukka" White (November 12, 1906 – February 26, 1977) was a delta blues guitarist and singer born near Houston, Mississippi. Even though he didn't like the spelling "Bukka", he was best known by that name. He gave his more famous cousin B.B. King his first guitar, a Stella. Bukka himself is remembered as a player of National Steel guitars. He also played, but was less adept at, the piano.
[edit] Biography
White started his career playing the fiddle at square dances. He claims to have met Charlie Patton early on, although some doubt has been cast upon this;[1] regardless, Patton was a large influence on White. He typically played slide guitar, in an open tuning. He was one of the few, along with Skip James, to use a crossnote tuning in E minor, which he may have learned, as James did, from Henry Stuckey.
He first recorded for the Victor label in 1930. His recordings for Victor, like those of many other bluesmen, fluctuated between country blues and gospel numbers. His gospel songs were done in the style of Blind Willie Johnson, with a female singer accentuating the last phrase of each line.[2]
Nine years later, while serving time, he recorded for folklorist John Lomax. The few songs he recorded around this time became his most well-known: "Shake 'Em On Down," and "Po' Boy."
Bob Dylan covered his song "Fixin' to Die Blues", which aided a "rediscovery" of White in 1963 by guitarist John Fahey and ED Denson, which propelled him onto the folk revival scene of the 1960s. White had recorded the song simply because his other songs had not particularly impressed the Victor record producer. It was a studio composition which White had thought little of until it re-emerged thirty years later[3].
Fahey and Denson found White easily enough: they wrote a letter to "Bukka White (Old Blues Singer), c/o General Delivery, Aberdeen, Mississippi." Fahey had assumed, given White's song, "Aberdeen, Mississippi", that White still lived there, or nearby. The postcard was forwarded to Memphis, Tennessee, where White worked in tank factory. Fahey and Denson soon travelled to meet Bukka White. He and Fahey remained friends throughout White's life,[4] and he recorded a new album for Fahey's Takoma Records. Denson became his manager.
White was, later in life, also friends with fellow musician Furry Lewis. The two recorded, mostly in Lewis' Memphis, Tennessee apartment, an album together, Furry Lewis, Bukka White & Friends: Party! At Home.
One of his most famous songs, "Parchman Farm Blues", about the Mississippi's infamous Parchman Farm state prison, was to be released on Harry Smith's fourth, never realized, volume of the Anthology of American Folk Music. His 1937 version of the oft-recorded song,[5] "Shake 'em on Down," is considered definitive, and became a hit while White was serving time in Parchman.[6]
Bukka White was heavily sampled by electronic artist Recoil for the track, "Electro Blues For Bukka White," in 1992, which is essentially just his bluesy vocals over a very clean electronic backing, blending the genres. The song was reworked and re-released on the 2000 EP "Jezebel".
[edit] Notes
- ^ Stephen Calt claims, in his book about Skip James: I'd Rather Be the Devil, that White claimed to know Patton merely because Fahey was a fan of the long dead bluesman.
- ^ In the liner notes for American Primitive, Vol. 1, which features White's I am in the Heavenly Way, Fahey states that White "...had no particular interest in religion. Victor went and hired the woman from a local Baptist church for this recording. Trying to imitate Blind Willie Johnson."
- ^ I'd Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues by Stephen Calt, p. 243
- ^ In his collection of autobiographical sketches, How Bluegrass Music Ruined My Life, John Fahey reminisces about he and White's time cat fishing together. He also laments that White had, by the time of his rediscovery, largely forgotten how to play guitar, but had become an even more adept lyricist.
- ^ Furry Lewis, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Wade Walton, and R. L. Burnside have all recorded version of Shake 'em on Down, as have countless others.
- ^ http://www.answers.com/topic/bukka-white
[edit] External links
- Illustrated Bukka White Discography
- Bukka White Biography and Discography
- http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:67d5vwrva9uk~T1
