sixstr stories

In 1937, Georgia Turner was 16 years old, a “thin, pretty, yellow-headed miner’s daughter,” living in Middlesboro, Kentucky. Around her neighborhood, Georgia was known for her singing and, more specifically, for singing a song about a house in New Orleans and the sad, poor girl for whom it had “been the ruin of.”

In September of 1937, Alan Lomax and his wife, Elizabeth, with an advance from the Library of Congress, a supply of big, black, blank acetate discs and a portable disc-cutting recording machine, were traveling through the mountains of Kentucky collecting songs. They believed that those mountains had “protected for generations a rich heritage of Elizabethan song, manner, and speech” that was quickly disappearing and needed to be documented and preserved.

On September 15, 1937, the Lomaxs arrived at the Middlesboro home of Tillman Cadle, a coal miner, union activist and lover of Folk music. Through their acquaintance with his wife, New York University teacher Mary Elizabeth Barnicle, the Lomaxs had contacted Cadle in advance, asking for help in finding local singers who would be willing to share their songs. Georgia Turner was among the group he had gathered at his home that day.

When it was her turn, Georgia offered two songs for the Lomaxs to record. The first, with neighbor and fellow-teenager Ed Hunter joining in on harmonica, was called “Married Life Blues.” The second, Georgia’s favorite song, she sang alone.

It started: “There is a house in New Orleans, they call the Risin’ Sun. It’s been the ruin of many poor girl and me, oh God, for one.”

How Georgia Turner knew this song is anyone’s guess. It seems that neither she or Alan Lomax had heard the Ashley & Foster recording from 1933. (See my post of September 6.)

In his 1960 compilation, The Folk Songs of North America, Alan Lomax describes the song as being “so far as I know, unique.” In the first publication of a transcription of the song (done from the recording by Ruth Crawford Seeger) and found in the 1941 songbook Our Singing Country, Lomax wrote: “The fact that a few of the hot jazzmen who were in the business before the war have a distant singing acquaintance with this song, indicates that it is fairly old as Blues tunes go.”

What is known, is that Lomax liked the song well enough to share it with his friends back in the New York City Folk music community. By the early 1940s, people like Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly and Pete Seeger had recorded versions of the song, sometimes calling it “The House of the Rising Sun.”

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Greenwich Village Folk musician Dave Van Ronk was performing a re-harmonized, minor key version of the song that caught the ear of the new kid in town, Bob Dylan.

In 1961, Dylan recorded his version of Van Ronk’s version on his first album.  (No, he didn’t ask Dave first.)

In 1964, the British Invasion band, the Animals recorded their version, markedly similar to Dylans, that stands as the most well known recording of the song.

The Georgia Turner recording would not see the commercial light of day until 2003 and Rounder Record’s release of the CD Alan Lomax: Popular Songbook. It is track 21, entitled “The House of the Rising Sun (Rising Sun Blues)” For some reason the first two words, “There is,” are not there, as if Georgia couldn’t wait for Lomax to get the machine going before she started to sing.

Every time I listen to this recording, I understand more and more what Ted Anthony wrote in his fabulous book Chasing The Rising Sun about how he felt after the first time he heard Georgia sing: “I have just listened to The Moment – the nexus where generations of folk expression and oral tradition flowed in and the seeds of modern recorded, produced, marketed music flowed out. From the little cabin on September 15, 1937, we can chart a direct course into and out of the folk revival, to Bob Dylan and the definitive version recorded by the Animals – and everything beyond, across america and across oceans.”

Thank you, Ted Anthony.

Thank you, Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress.

Thank you, Georgia Turner.

As my father would say: “Age before beauty.”

On September 11, 1847, the song “Oh! Susanna,” by Stephen Foster, was given its first public performance. It happened in Pittsburgh, PA, at The Eagle Ice Cream Saloon. The performers were a small troupe of singers under the musical direction of Mr. Nelson Kneass, an actor, singer, pianist and banjo player.

According to Stephen Foster biographer Ken Emerson, from his book Doo-Dah! Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture (1997), that event makes September 11, 1847: “a firm date for the birth of pop music as we still recognize it today.”

That’s the first, here’s the second.

On September 11, 1945, Leo Kottke was born in Athens, GA.

At the age of 11, Leo’s mother bought him a cowboy-stenciled guitar to try to cheer him up as he recovered at home from a long and serious bout of mononucleosis. Somehow, while fooling around with the instrument, he discovered the fingering for the E major chord. Within two weeks he was well enough to get out of bed. He later once explained: “The guitar gave me something to do for the rest of my life.”

Leo recorded his first album, 12-String Blues, in 1968 for a small Minnesotan label and his first album for John Fahey’s slightly larger Takoma Records in 1969. That album, 6 & 12-String Guitar, containing 13 steel-string acoustic guitar instrumentals, launched his career and led to his debut album with Capitol Records in 1971.

Leo Kottke, through dozens of subsequent albums and countless (on going) live performances, has been credited with popularizing solo, steel-string acoustic guitar music and establishing it as serious concert material. Writing in an album review in Acoustic Guitar magazine, Jeffery Pepper Rogers wrote that Leo is: “one of acoustic guitar’s most evocative and enduring voices.”

If you’ve never heard Leo Kottke before, the best place to start, in my opinion, is with his Live CD. Released in 1995 and recorded on an Easter Sunday at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, CO, it captures some of his best guitar pieces and songs in spectacular performances and even features a few of his renowned in-concert stories that make his concerts such hilarious as well as spellbinding events.

Always good for a colorful quote, my favorite from Leo is found in the book Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar (2000). Leo says: “A guitar sounds good even if you drop it on the floor. A beginner can find music in the guitar that has escaped the virtuoso. It’s a magical instrument, constrained by a short range and a peculiar tuning, that produces music beyond the limits of its own nature.”

And last but not least, the third.

On September 4, 1962, the Beatles (21-year-old John Lennon, 20-year-old Paul McCartney, 19-year-old George Harrison and 22-year-old Ringo Starr) entered Abbey Road Studios in London, England, to record the songs for their first record.

Under the direction and guidance of producer George Martin, the Beatles rehearsed and then recorded multiple takes of two songs: “How Do You Do It” by Mitch Murray and “Love Me Do,” a Lennon & McCartney original.

At their next recording session, on September 11, 1962, the Beatles abandoned “How Do you Do It” and recorded two more original songs: “P.S. I Love You” and “Please Please Me.” They also took another stab at “Love Me Do,” but this time with a change.

George Martin had not been happy with Ringo’s drumming on “Love Me Do” at the previous session. So, he brought in 32-year-old Andy White, a well-respected London recording session drummer, to play on the re-recording of the song. The resulting takes produced the version that now stands as the A-side of the Beatles’ first single: “Love Me Do”/”P.S. I Love You” 

But the very first run of 45-rpm records released in the UK on October 5, 1962 had the September 4th version with Ringo on drums. Sometime in 1963, Parlophone Records changed the pressings to contain the September 11 version with Andy White on drums. When Please Please Me, the Beatles’ first album came out in the UK, it also contained (and still does on the CD) the September 11 version.

The September 4th version is on the Past Masters, Vol.1 CD.

So, it could be argued that technically, the Beatles first single was recorded on September 4, 1962. But the recording of “Love Me Do” that most of the world knows and loves was recorded on September 11.

Here’s a question for you: besides who’s playing drums, what’s the difference between the two versions?

Leave a comment with your answer!

Information for the section of this post about “Love Me Do” came from the book The Beatles Recording Sessions (1988) by Mark Lewisohn. If you can find it, buy it. This is a must have for any Beatles fan. Highly recommended.

When John Hammond (Columbia Records producer and talent scout extraordinaire) called Benny Goodman (Jazz clarinetist, band leader, Top Ten recording artist and “King of Swing”) in California one day in early August, 1939, to tell him that he’d just found a great young electric guitar player in Oklahoma who would be a perfect fit for his small combo, Goodman replied: “Who the hell wants to hear an electric guitar player?” 

When Hammond persisted, Goodman agreed to fly 23-year-old Charlie Christian out to Los Angeles for an audition.

But, on the afternoon of August 16, 1939, when the young Oklahoma guitarist walked into the Los Angeles recording studio where Hammond was recording Goodman’s big band for Columbia, Benny took one look and initially didn’t even want to hear him play. Charlie’s outfit featured pointed yellow shoes, a bright green suit, a purple shirt, a black string tie and a ten-gallon hat.

Eventually though, Goodman consented to let Charlie get out his guitar but dismissed the electirc guitarist after hearing one, unplugged chorus of “Tea For Two.” Hammond, however, with band members Artie Bernstein (bass) and Lionel Hampton (vibes), took pity on Christian and together they formulated a plan to give him another chance.

That night, the Benny Goodman Orchestra was performing at the Victor Hugo restaurant in Beverly Hills. The usual program consisted of the big band playing the first set then, after a break, the Benny Goodman Qunitet (or Quartet) would play a set. During the break, while Benny was having dinner, Hammond and company quickly snuck Charlie in through the kitchen and set him up on stage with his guitar and amplifier. The other four players took their places and, when Goodman came out in front of the audience to start the set, he saw the outlandishly-dressed  electric guitarist and realized he couldn’t do a thing about it!

With barely supressed anger, Benny decided to call a tune that he figured there was no chance this young rube had ever heard before. “Rose Room,” he said to the band, and counted off the tempo. “Rose Room” (written in 1917 by Art Hickman & Harry Williams, recorded in 1920 by Art Hickman & His Orchestra) started.

 “Rose Room” then proceeded to go on for more than 45 minutes.

When it was Charlie’s turn, the young electric guitarist produced solo after solo after brilliant solo, each different and more inventive than the one before. When Goodman and the others took their solos, Charlie fed them a continuous stream of riffs, chords and rhythms to support, compliment and inspire their playing.

As the incredible performance unfolded before them, the Hollywood crowd went crazy, screaming with amazement and, at the end, exhaustedly delivered an ovation unlike anything the Goodman Quintet or Orchestra had ever received before.

When “Rose Room” was over, the young electric guitarist from Oklahoma had decidedly passed the audition. That night, August 16, 1939, the Benny Goodman Quintet became the Benny Goodman Sextet featuring Charlie Christian.

P.S.: Charlie knew the tune. “Rose Room” was one of the three songs that Charlie learned as a teenager under the tutelage of his brother, Clarence, and Oklahoma City guitarist Ralph Hamilton when he first started playing Jazz.

Information for this post came from several sources. There were two books: “Charlie Christian” by Bill Simon from Jazz Guitars: An Anthology (1984) edited by James Salis and The Guitar Players: One Instrument & Its Masters In American Music (1982) by James Salis; one magazine article: “John Hammond: On Charlie Christian” as told to Jas Obrecht from the March 1982 issue of Guitar Player;  and two websites: wikipedia.com and JazzStandards.com.