The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music (Second Edition, 1989, edited by Donald Clarke) defines a tribute album as an album “of various artists paying tribute to another artist.”
Given my fondness for a good cover, you’d think I would have more tribute albums in my music collection. I do have a few, but there’s really only one that I take down off the shelf and listen to with any frequency.
That album is Things About Comin’ My Way: A Tribute to the Music of the Mississippi Sheiks.
The idea for this album was formulated one day by Steve and Alice Dawson while sitting in their kitchen listening to The Mississippi Sheiks. Steve is an award-winning record producer and truly extraordinary guitarist from Vancouver, Canada. About a year and half after conception, the couple released Things About Comin’ My Way on October 20, 2009, through their now Nashville-based record company, Black Hen Music.
Who or what was The Mississippi Sheiks?
The Mississippi Sheiks was the most prominent and successful African-American string band of the 1930s. They have proven to be the most important and influential string band from that era – Black or White – as well.
During the course of their five year recording career, The Sheiks recorded in the neighborhood of 70 original tunes. Their biggest hit was “Sitting on Top of the World.” This commonly “borrowed from” and frequently covered song is a certified American Roots Music classic and was a 2008 inductee into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
None other than Muddy Waters once said: “I knowed the Mississippi Sheiks. Yessir. Walked ten miles to see them play. They was high-time… making’ them good records, man.”
The performing version of the band was made up from the various members of the Chatmon Family from Bolton, Mississippi: siblings Sam, Lonnie, Edgar, Harry, Fred, Josie, Willie, Bert, Laurie and Armenter, along with their father, Henderson and mother, Eliza.
On record, however, The Mississippi Sheiks were most often just violinist Lonnie Chatmon and singer/guitarist Walter Vinson. The first time this duo recorded was on February 17, 1930, in Shreveport, Louisiana for OKeh Records.
On June 12, 1930, Lonnie and Walter recorded again for OKeh, this time in San Antonio, Texas. One of the songs they cut was called “Bootlegger’s Blues.”
On Things About Comin’ My Way, one of the best of the 17 totally outstanding tracks is a rousing and robust rendering of “Bootlegger’s Blues” by Oh Susanna.
Here’s that recording. Give a listen. You’ll be glad you did!
Oh Susanna is the stage name of Canadian singer/songwriter Suzie Ungerleider. Ms. Ungerleider launched her career in 1996 with the release of a self-produced 7-song cassette album. Eight full-length albums later, she is a multiple award-winning and internationally-acclaimed performer and recording artist.
Accompanying Oh Susanna on “Bootlegger’s Blues” were:
Steve Dawson – National Tricone Guitar, Weissenborn Guitar
Keith Lowe – Bass
Matt Chamberlain – Drums
Jesse Zubot – Violins and Violas
Peggy Lee – Cellos
Cam Giroux – Backup Vocals
Van Dyke Parks – String Arrangement
(Bonus points to whoever thought of adding backup vocals and making the chorus call-and-response!)
Finally, for comparison purposes and your listening pleasure, here is the original 1930 recording of “Bootlegger’s Blues” by The Mississippi Sheiks. It comes from the 2004 Columbia Records CD Honey Babe Let The Deal Go Down: The Best Of The Mississippi Sheiks.
The musicians on that recording were:
Walter Vinson – Guitar & Vocals
Lonnie Chatmon – Violin
As I always say, “Good music doesn’t get old.”
As The Mississippi Sheiks said, “You got to make it to the woods, if you can.”
“I want to tell you all about the way they treated me.”
From: “If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day” by Robert Johnson
I’ve written about Robert Johnson before.
I’ve written about the Mississippi Blues musician’s first recording session twice.
That’s the session that took place on November 23, 1936, in Rm.414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, Texas, for Vocalion/ARC records. (My first post was in November, 2010 and Take 2 was in November, 2019.)
Well, what about the day before that first recording session?
Robert Johnson arrived in San Antonio, Texas, on Sunday, November 22, 1936, ready to make his dreams come true.
However, according to the liner notes on the 1961 Columbia Records LP Robert Johnson/King Of The Delta Blues Singers, the 25-year-old “country boy… found trouble within hours after he arrived.”
Those liner notes were written by Frank Driggs, the album’s producer.
Frank tells how Don Law – the British ARC record producer and “roving A&R man” in charge of the company’s satellite recording studio set up in the Gunter Hotel – had “considered himself responsible for Johnson, found him a room in a boarding house and told him to get some sleep so he would be ready to record at ten the following morning.”
Frank relates how Don Law then settled down with his wife and a few friends for dinner in the Gunter Hotel’s dining room.
“(Law) had scarcely begun dinner,” Driggs continued, “when he was summoned to the phone. A policeman was calling from the city jail. Johnson had been picked up on a vagrancy charge. Law rushed down to the jail, found Johnson beaten up, his guitar smashed; the cops had not only picked him up but had worked him over.”
I remember reading that: “…beaten up, his guitar smashed.” “The cops… worked him over.”
What?!?
Frank just moves right on to share another anecdote and quote some of Robert’s lyrics.
Over the many years since I first read that story on the record jacket of my vinyl copy of King Of The Delta Blues Singers, I’ve turned to several other authors hoping to find a deeper explanation of the troublesome events of November 22.
Robert Palmer made no mention of them in Deep Blues (1981).
Neither did Peter Guralnick in his book Searching For Robert Johnson (1989) or in his essay that accompanied the Columbia Legacy CD reissue of King Of The Delta Blues Singers in 1998.
Ted Gioia did in Delta Blues (2008) but seemed to be convinced that the “tale was embellished in the telling.”
This past Fall, I had some better luck.
A late-night Google search led me to an article by Robert Wilonsky that appeared in the January 22, 2009, edition of the Dallas Observer newspaper.
The article was about a letter. (It even contained a link to a copy of the letter!)
This letter – initially dated April 10, 1961 – had gone from Frank Driggs to Don Law and from Law back to Driggs.
(At the time, Frank Driggs was working on putting together the King Of The Delta Blues Singers LP for Columbia.)
The subject line of the initial letter read “ROBERT JOHNSON – Liner notes.” Driggs starts off explaining to Law that he “needs some amplification on the story you gave me just before you left for England last month.”
The document shows that Law returned the typewritten letter with a number of handwritten notes correcting, confirming and expanding upon Driggs’ recounting of his story of the events of November 22, 1936 in San Antonio.
Don Law made no changes to the following statements in Driggs’ letter:
“The first night he was picked up by the police, beaten up and thrown in jail on a false vagrancy charge, which you were able to beat.”
“You borrowed another guitar and recorded him the following morning.”
In the letter, Frank Driggs also asked Don Law a question: “Were you going to record him again after the final session in Dallas in 1937?”
Law wrote: “Yes.”
For me, I finally had the answer to my long-standing question of where did Robert Johnson get the guitar that he used in the San Antonio sessions!
(BTW: The Driggs/Law letter was among a sizable acquisition made by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in December, 2005, from the collection of Blues enthusiast Tom Jacobson.)
That Google search proved to be even more fortuitous!
It informed me of a brand new book: Up Jumped The Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow.
The first sentence of the Acknowledgements that mark the beginning of Up Jumped The Devil stated: “This book is the result of over fifty years of work, interest, research, interviews, writing and rewriting, discussing, listening, traveling and every other type of human endeavor.”
As I continued reading, I was hopeful I would finally find the details I’d been looking for.
Chapter 11 – “I’m Booked And Bound To Go” – covered the events leading up to the San Antonio sessions.
(All of the quoted material that follows is from Up Jumped The Devil.)
Robert had come to the attention of Vocalion/ARC through the efforts of H.C. Speir, a talent scout based in Jackson, Mississippi. When H.C. was informed by the company that they wanted to record Robert, he contacted Ernie Oertle, a local salesman for Vocalion, and made the arrangements for Ernie to bring Robert to San Antonio.
On or about Friday, November 20, Ernie, accompanied by his wife, Marie, picked up Robert at his family’s home in Memphis, Tennessee. Given the prevailing racial attitudes of the states and communities they would be driving through on their 700+ mile road trip, the only acceptable arrangement in which this trio could be traveling together was if Robert was the one behind the wheel.
Ernie, Marie and Robert met Don Law at the Gunter Hotel on Sunday, November 22. Don informed Robert that since the Gunter was a “whites only” establishment, he had found a room for him “in a boarding house on East Commerce Street in the city’s black section” about ten blocks away.
Robert soon discovered that San Antonio was “a jumping town” on that November Sunday afternoon. San Antonians were actively “celebrating the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday and the end of the Texas Centennial Year celebration.” Robert was not, however, aware that San Antonio mayor C.K. Quinn had recently “declared ‘war’ on street crime, especially vagrancy” and that police chief Owen Kilday “had his officers out in force.”
So, when Robert, the seasoned street performer, “tried to take advantage of the holiday throngs by playing his music on the street,” he quickly attracted the attention of the police.
Conforth & Wardlow write that: “Robert was arrested, had his guitar broken beyond repair, and was thrown in jail on false vagrancy charges.”
After being booked, “Robert was given his one phone call, and he made it to Don Law at the Gunter Hotel.” Law went to the police station and “with some effort, extracted Robert from the police and brought him back to the boarding house.”
The beating that Robert Johnson had suffered “was severe enough to be noticeable several days later.”
Robert Johnson had arrived in San Antonio, Texas, on Sunday, November 22, 1936, ready to make his dreams come true.
And somehow, on Monday, November 23, he did.
What I find most stunningly remarkable about this story and its very disturbing details is that while sitting in front of a microphone in a recording studio for the first time, playing an unfamiliar guitar, certainly still feeling the pain and anger from the assault and humiliation he’d most recently been the victim of, the first song Robert Johnson recorded sounded like this:
Robert Johnson recorded eight songs that day. He was paid “about $25.00 per song.”
At the time, the payment of royalties for records sold was not part of the deal between black musicians and white-owned record companies.
Robert’s songs would be released by Vocalion Records in their “Race Series.”
Race records, as Frank Driggs explained in a footnote to his King Of The Delta Blues Singers liner notes, were “sold exclusively to a Negro audience chiefly in the rural South.” This was as opposed to Popular records that were “distributed throughout the country to a primarily white audience.”
Vocalion also sold Robert’s recordings on the low-cost Perfect, Oriole and Romeo labels.
Record companies began marketing race records in 1920 and continued to call them that until 1949. That was when Jerry Wexler, a staff writer for Billboard Magazine decided to change the name of the publication’s “Juke Box Race Records” chart to “Rhythm & Blues.”
The primary sources of information used in the writing of this post were:
Frank Driggs’ liner notes on Robert Johnson/King Of The Delta Blues Singers, Columbia Records LP, CL-1654. Released September 11, 1961.
Up Jumped The Devil: The Real Life Of Robert Johnson by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow. Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated, 2019.
Since one of my guitar-playing followers asked, I decided it was time to transcribe my arrangement of the fiddle tune “Waltz: My Home” that I posted about last month.
Here it is!
To see more Guitar TAB transcriptions, click on Guitar Music in the Categories list!
I found it here: The Second Fiddler’s Tune-Book – 100 More Traditional Airs. This small gold mine of music was edited by Peter Kennedy and published in 1954 by Hargail Music Press and The English Folk Dance And Song Society.
I don’t recall when I purchased my copy, but – according to the markings on the title page – I did so for $3.50 at The Music Emporium in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“Waltz: My Home” appears among the hornpipes, reels, schottisches and polkas on the first page of the section titled: “Waltzes & Jigs.”
In arranging this lovely tune for the guitar, I found that the notes fit my fingers better in the Key of G than the published Key of A. Putting a capo at the second fret, of course, returns the lower pitches to the “proper” key.
Give a listen.
For all the times I’ve played “Waltz: My Home,” it never fails to bring me comfort, peacefulness and joy.
Just like being home.
P.S.: It was the marvelous recordings of Doc Watson and Eric Schoenberg that introduced me to the wonders and fun of playing fiddle tunes on the guitar.
P.S.S.: That recording came from a Sony Metal-SR cassette tape dated 8/28/02. “Waltz: My Home” is the third track among nine instrumentals that I recorded that day. (A most successful recording session, if I do say so myself!)
Today – April 18, 2020 – is the 10th anniversary of the day that I, with the able assistance of my always amazing daughter, launched this blog.
Today is also the 22nd day here in New Hampshire of living under the stay-at-home order issued by our governor in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Finally, when I first looked out my window today, it was snowing.
April 18, 2020, the 31st day of Spring.
So… given the present situation this little bit of celebration called for something unique.
How about a 10-string guitar?
Yes, there really is such an instrument, and I’ve found a remarkable musician to play one for us.
Marina Krupkina is a performer, composer, arranger and recording artist from Smolensk, Russia.
As a classical guitarist, Marina studied at the Smolensk Regional Music College and the Moscow State Classical Academy.
In 2012 & 2013, she was a prize-winner at a number of international classical guitar competitions in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Marina made her debut on 10-string guitar in 2015. She released But Does It Djent?, her first album of music for the 10-string guitar in 2018. Her second album, Decacorde Stories, came out in 2020.
“Ouroboros” is a piece composed by Marina Krupkina and included on But Does It Djent? This mesmerizing live performance video is from July, 2019.
Go ahead. Take a few minutes and watch/listen to this. You’ll be very glad you did!
Here’s to the decade past and whatever lies ahead.
Now and always, “Good music doesn’t get old.”
JTLYK: “Djent” is the name given to a subgenre of the style of rock music known as progressive metal.
Back then, the New World Coffee House was largely the home to the music scene in Portsmouth, NH; the “big city” closest to Exeter, the small town (with no music scene) where I grew up.
Saturday nights often found my friends and me sitting around a table at the New World, slowly sipping our beverages and listening intently to the folk singers.
One night, the folk singer ended his set with a rather catchy number that I’d never heard before. He answered my off-stage query that it was a Dylan song, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.”
It took me a while to track the song down, but it didn’t take long to figure out that the song’s chord progression was well within reach of my novice guitar player fingers.
From that day to this, I’ve played and sung “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” a countless number of times. It never gets old.
So, give a listen and, if you’re vocally inclined, sing along!
Bob Dylan wrote “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” in the summer of 1967, right around when he wrote “I Shall Be Released,” the song that initiated this series.
Dylan first recorded “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” with The Band (though they weren’t called that yet) sometime during what have become known as TheBasement Tapes sessions. These legendary recording and songwriting sessions were held in a rented house called “Big Pink,” located in West Saugerties, New York, from June through October of 1967.
There’s a picture in the book Low & Behold: Photographs & More…* of the back cover of a box that held one of the many 7 ½-inch reels of ¼-inch Scotch magnetic recording tape used in the Big Pink sessions. On that tape box is a hand-written track listing showing that “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and “I Shall Be Released” (two takes of each) were actually cut in the same session.
That second take of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” by Bob Dylan & The Band was released in July, 1975 on the Columbia Records double LP set titled The Basement Tapes.
The first commercially-released recording of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” was made by The Byrds on March 9, 1968 at Columbia Studios in Nashville, Tennessee.
This would be the first day of sessions for the group’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo album.
All involved were so pleased with the March 9 track that “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” (b/w “Artificial Energy”) was released as a single on April 2, 1968. (Sweetheart of the Rodeo would not hit record store shelves until August 30, 1968.)
For the guitar players among you, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” is in 4/4 time and set in the Key of G.
The chord progression goes: ||: G | Am | C | G :|| (Yup, that’s it.)
The musicians on that recording were:
Roger McGuinn – Electric 12-string guitar & lead vocals
Chris Hillman – Bass guitar & harmony vocals
Kevin Kelley – Drums
Gram Parsons – Organ
Lloyd Green – Pedal steel guitar
Bob Dylan recorded a substantially re-written rendition of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” on September 24, 1971 – the same day that he also finally recorded “I Shall Be Released.”
The location was Studio B at the Columbia Records Recording Studios in New York, New York. Accompanying Bob was his friend and fellow musician, Happy Traum.
That performance of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” was included on the 2-LP set: Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits – Volume 2, released on November 17, 1971.
The musicians and their contributions were:
Bob Dylan – Acoustic guitar, lead vocals & harmonica
Happy Traum – Banjo & harmony vocals.
. . . . .
“Music is the best medicine.”
That line is from “Best Medicine” – a 2014 song by Maya de Vitry when she was with the wonderful acoustic trio known as The Stray Birds.
My thought behind this series has been to offer up some songs that I’ve been thinking about, listening to and singing quite a bit these days. It is my hope that these small doses of musical medicine will be a source of comfort, joy, hope and sanity for you as they have been for me.
Stay safe, my friends. Take good care and add some music to your day.
* Low & Behold: Photographs & More… is part of The Bootleg Series, Vol. 11: Bob Dylan and The Band, The Basement Tapes Complete. This 6-CD box set was released on November 4, 2014.
“Hard Times Come Again No More” was written by Stephen Foster.
Firth, Pond & Co., Foster’s publishing company at that time, registered the title page for copyright on December 16, 1854. They deposited the music for the complete song on January 17, 1855.
Firth, Pond & Co. advertised the song as being “Just the song for the times!”
Stephen Foster was living in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania in 1854. (The municipality of Allegheny City was founded in 1788 and annexed by the City of Pittsburg in 1907.)
Ken Emerson described “the times” in Allegheny City at that time in his book, Doo-Dah! Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture:
Distress was widespread in Allegheny City and Pittsburg in 1854. Unemployment had reached unprecedented levels that spring, and in the summer cholera struck once again, killing four hundred people in just two weeks.
Hard times, indeed.
The 1855 sheet music presents “Hard Times Come Again No More” in the Key of E-flat major; four verses and a chorus with an elegant, but relatively simple piano accompaniment.
Thanks to the Library of Congress, we can all take a look.
“Hard Times Come Again No More” was recorded for the first time by the Edison Manufacturing Company in 1905. Edison Gold Moulded Cylinder #9120 captured a performance of the song by the Edison Male Quartette with “orchestra accompaniment.”
The recording has a spoken introduction followed by the orchestra. The Edison Male Quartette sings the first verse and then goes two times through the chorus. (Check out those changes on the second chorus!) The orchestra provides the instrumental coda.
Thanks to the Audio Archive of the University of California Santa Barbara Library, we can all give a listen!
I have two favorite contemporary covers of this exquisite song.
James Taylor, Mark O’Conner, Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer collaborated on a wonderfully re-harmonized rendition of “Hard Times Come Again No More” for their 2000 album Appalachian Journey.
That performance features:
James Taylor – Acoustic Guitar & Vocals
Mark O’Conner – Violin
Yo-Yo Ma – Cello
Edgar Meyer – Bass
Mavis Staples contributed a deeply heartfelt rendering of the song for the 2004 compilation Beautiful Dreamer – The Songs of Stephen Foster. (That collection won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album in 2005.)
The musicians on that recording are:
Mavis Staples – Vocals
Matt Rollings – Piano & Organ
Buddy Miller – Electric Guitar
Steve Fishell – Dobro
“Hard Times Come Again No More” has been recorded by a wide array of artists, including Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. Check them out!
“Music is the best medicine.”
That line is from “Best Medicine” – a 2014 song by Maya de Vitry when she was with the wonderful acoustic trio known as The Stray Birds.
My thought behind this series is to offer up some songs that I’ve been thinking about, listening to and singing quite a bit these days.
It is my hope that these small doses of musical medicine will be a source of comfort, joy, hope and sanity for you as they have been for me.
Stay safe, take good care and now, more than ever, add some music to your day.
That line is from “Best Medicine” – a 2014 song by Maya de Vitry when she was with the wonderful acoustic trio known as The Stray Birds.
My thought behind this series is to offer up some songs that I’ve been thinking about, listening to and singing quite a bit these days. It is my hope that these small doses of musical medicine will be a source of comfort, joy, hope and sanity for you as they have been for me.
Give a listen and, if you’re so inclined, sing along!
“Worried Man Blues” is credited to A.P. Carter of The Carter Family.
Most likely, “Worried Man Blues” was a song that A.P. and his partner, Lesley Riddle, became acquainted with on one of the many song-collecting trips they made around their corner of Poor Valley, Virginia.
The Carter Family – A.P., Sara & Maybelle – made the first recording of “Worried Man Blues” in Memphis, Tennessee on May 24, 1930.
For you guitar players out there, Maybelle – the “lead” guitarist in The Carter Family – is fingering chords in the Key of C (her favorite). But, since she has her guitar tuned down one whole step, the performance sounds in the Key of B-flat.
The chord progression is a standard 12-bar Blues.
||: 4/4 C | C | C | C | F | F | C | C | G | G | C | C :||
(In the picture below, that’s Maybelle on the left, A.P. in the middle and Sara on the right.)
In Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? – The Carter Family & Their Legacy in American Music, authors Mark Zwoniter and Charles Hirshberg wrote: “In ‘Worried Man Blues,’ a man goes across the river to sleep, wakes up a prisoner in chains, and has no idea what he’s done wrong. That song spoke a simple unjustifiable truth: Some men were born to the poor and lonesome class in America, and despite the national promise, that class was hard to escape.”
Thanks to the endless wonders of YouTube, here’s a somewhat blurry but still wonderful clip of Maybelle herself playing “Worried Man Blues.”
On June 14, 1969, Maybelle and her three daughters – June, Anita and Helen – performed as The Carter Family on Episode 2 of the television music variety program known as The Johnny Cash Show. They did this lively, syncopated 16-bar rendition of “Worried Man Blues” with Johnny Cash, himself.
(Maybelle is again using those Key of C fingerings but this time with her Gibson guitar in standard tuning and capoed at the 5th fret. Johnny is capoed at the first fret and fingering chords in the Key of E.)
There are dozens of cover versions of this song out there. My favorites are by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Lonnie Donegan. Check them out!
Stay safe, take good care and always, now more than ever, add some music to your day.
That line is from “Best Medicine” – a 2014 song by Maya de Vitry when she was with the wonderful acoustic trio known as The Stray Birds.
My thought behind this series is to offer up some songs that I’ve been thinking about, listening to and singing quite a bit these days. It is my hope that these small doses of musical medicine will be a source of comfort, joy, hope and sanity for you as they have been for me.
Give a listen and, if you’re so inclined, sing along!
“I Shall Be Released” was written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1967.
He first recorded it with The Band (though they weren’t called that yet) sometime during what have become known as TheBasement Tapes sessions. These legendary recording and songwriting sessions were held in a rented house called “Big Pink,” located in West Saugerties, New York, from June through October of 1967.
(The Basement Tapes recording of “I Shall Be Released” was not officially released until 1991. It was included in Bob Dylan’s The Bootleg Series, Vol.1-3 under the title “I Shall Be Released – Take 2.”)
The first commercially-released recording of the song was made by The Band at one of two studios in Los Angeles, California in 1968.
It serves as the stunning closing track of Big Pink, their extraordinary debut album, released by Capitol Records on July 1, 1968.
For the guitar players among you, this slow, stately rendering is in 4/4 time and in the Key of E. The chord progression goes: ||: E | F#m | G#m A B | E :||
The members of The Band and their contributions to that recording were:
Richard Manuel – Lead vocals, piano & harmony vocals
Rick Danko – Bass guitar & harmony vocals
Levon Helm – Drums & harmony vocals
Garth Hudson – Rocksichord organ
Robbie Robertson – Acoustic guitar
Bob Dylan finally recorded his decidedly more up-tempo rendition of “I Shall Be Released” on September 24, 1971. The location was Studio B at the Columbia Records Recording Studios in New York, New York. Accompanying Bob was his friend and fellow musician, Happy Traum.
This performance is in the Key of A. Dylan has his acoustic guitar capoed at the 2nd fret and fingers chords in G. ||: G | G | Am | Am | Bm | D | G | G :||
That recording of “I Shall Be Released” was included on the 2-LP set: Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits – Volume 2, released on November 17, 1971.
The musicians and their contributions were:
Bob Dylan – Acoustic guitar, lead vocals & harmonica
Happy Traum – Acoustic guitar & harmony vocals.
There are dozens of cover versions of this song by a wide variety of artists. My favorites are by Nina Simone, Joe Cocker and Bette Midler. Check them out!
Stay safe, take good care and always, more than ever, add some music to your day.
Avis Louise Foss Sinclair, my mother, was born on this day, March 8, in the year 1914.
Avis was the daughter of George P. and Stella Foss and grew up in Center Strafford, NH. She graduated from Austin Cate Academy – Center Strafford’s high school – in 1932. She played cello in the school orchestra and center for the girl’s basketball team. In 1936, she graduated from the Exeter (NH) Hospital Training School for Nurses, eventually becoming a Registered Nurse.
In May of 1941, she married Francis M. Sinclair, my father, in Exeter, NH.
My mom was very supportive of my musical endeavors, even in my junior high and early high school years when I played the drums. (I believe there should be a special place in heaven for the mothers of young rock & roll drummers.) When I became a guitarist, singer and songwriter, mom and dad would often come to my gigs, especially when I played on Sunday afternoons in the Fall at Applecrest Farms in Hampton Falls, NH.
One of my mother’s favorite songs of mine was “The Ladies of Fairburn.” It was a song I wrote after a trip I took to England in the summer of 1978. I recorded “The Ladies of Fairburn” in 1988 for my self-produced, cassette-tape album, Anytime.
Around that time, an AM radio station in Exeter started a weekend-mornings Folk music show with a DJ named Rick Parry. I’d listened to Rick throughout high school when he was on WBCN-FM, out of Boston. Rick was a big supporter of all of the Seacoast NH Folk musicians, readily giving them airplay and promoting up-coming gigs.
I told mom about the radio show and that they had a copy of Anytime and the DJ took requests from listeners. Well, that was all she needed to know. She started to call the station every weekend and request “The Ladies of Fairburn.” Rick always played it, even after he figured out who she was. This went on – I learned much later – for many months.
1992
Avis Louise Foss Sinclair was 87 years old when she passed away on Sunday, August 5, 2001.
As she would always say, “God love you!”
If you would like to hear “The Ladies of Fairburn,” please go to the first “take” of this post: “This Historic Day… My Mother.”
sixstr stories 