I’ll do a solo show at an Obama fundraiser on Sunday August 31st. It’s a garden party in Silverlake, Los Angeles, held by a woman named Jane Cantillon with a reputation for putting on great parties. Jane and her husband Dick are a lot of fun, and it’ll be a good time for a fine cause.

I’ll also be playing with Madame Pamita at the Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena on Tuesday the 19th. This is a cabaret style event where I’ll be playing in Pam’s band and doing a solo song.

For what it’s worth, the reason why I’m posting this modern music on this blog is that it’s a case of open and participatory music, parlor style.

I got to know this song well by transcribing it, which is a great thing about transcription. The engine of the song is the way that she handles variation. The left and right picking patterns are closely related but clearly distinct; for example they have contrary motion within a narrow range of pitches to produce enough complexity to keep the song from sounding like a Joan Baez accompaniment. The melody is about balance between repetition and invention. Economy is a big issue. The thinking in this piece me of Morton Feldman’s piece “For Bunita Marcos.” If you listen to the MP3 of the MIDI of the vocal line by itself, as if there wasn’t supposed to be anything else, it sounds a *lot* like that.

At first my least favorite line in the lyrics was “your new moguls: trees”, which struck me as trying too hard. Now it’s my favorite line because it’s funny.

• MIDI of the vocal line, for remixers.
• MP3 of the MIDI, using a piano sound to get a reasonably uncrappy tone. This is for humans who want to listen.
• PDF of the lead sheet, for players who want to perform the song.
• Sibelius source file, for people who want to modify the sheet music.
• WAV of the vocal line, for remixers who just want to sample. This uses a reasonably ok piano patch.
• PDF of the guitar picking patterns, for people who want to do something close to the original. I don’t think this is accurate. These patterns are subtle and I had a hard time grabbing them.

Here’s what the sheet music looks like:

Here’s the cover sheet for their scan of the 1899 cakewalk Smokey Mokes:

The Scorch-O-Matic

I put together a lead sheet of the 1920s classic “He’s in the Jailhouse Now” because I needed it to rehearse a biggish band, and there’s no reason to keep it to myself.

According to Roosevelt’s Blues, the song has been traced back to at least 1917, but the use of the abusive term “coon” in the lyrics may point to an earlier origin, perhaps around the turn of the century. The song’s origins were probably in the medicine show circuit, according to Songsters and Saints. Ernest Rogers claimed to have sung it over the radio as early as 1922. In 1924 it was recorded by the jug band leader Buford Threlkeld - “Whistler” - as “Jail House Blues”. The veteran medicine show entertainer Jim Jackson recorded it in 1927. Earl McDonald’s Original Louisville Jug Band recorded recorded an almost identical version in 1927. Again in 1927, Blind Blake recorded a version with a medicine show banjo player named Gus Cannon. There was another version, in 1930, by the Memphis Sheiks, aka The Memphis Jug Band. And the best known and most enduring early version was made in 1927 by the proto-country singer Jimmie Rodgers, who had a background in the medicine show circuit.

All Music Guide, by the way, usually credits the song to Jimmie Rodgers, which goes to show something or other.

As old as this song is, the copyright status is less clean than with most of the music on this site. This is based most closely on the Memphis Jug Band’s version, which was recorded in 1930 and is not yet in the public domain in the US. Most of the words in that version probably come from sources now in the public domain, but there are also probably additions that are still under copyright, I just don’t know what they are. So caveat emptor if you record this. My own copyrightable contributions, including these files, are under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike license, which means you’re free to share and modify them as long as you give credit and extend the same courtesy.

For a printout grab this PDF version of the lead sheet. If you want to edit my version, grab the Sibelius source file. If you just need to change the key and don’t have Sibelius, you can use the Scorch-O-Matic to do it in the browser. And here’s the PNG:

Obscene Recordings from 110 Years Ago

The commercial recordings on this CD are the only known copies that Comstock’s men missed. They were preserved by long-time Edison Recording Manager Walter Miller and are now in the vault of the Edison National Historic Site. Scarcity and suppression have kept them silent for a century. They were stories told readily in the bar; yet they became legally actionable offenses when fixed in wax and played on a phonograph in that same bar. Brace yourself. Just because they are from the Victorian era does not mean they are tame by today’s standards—far from it.

Pioneer Recording Artist Goes to Jail

They are so indecent that Russell Hunting was imprisoned in 1896 for making and selling them. Up to that point Hunting had been doing a brisk trade selling his bawdy cylinders to the exhibitors on Coney Island who had certain “discriminating” customers. Although he recorded under pseudonyms such as “Charley Smith” and “Willy Fathand,” his voice was so well-known through his “Casey” routines that he was identified as the creator by aural evidence alone. Hunting’s recording career never fully recovered, and he left the U.S. in 1898 to make a fresh start in England.

These would not be safe for work in any way shape or form if your coworkers could figure out what they’re saying. You might have to listen 7-8 times to understand the details. “A Hard Head” is unbelievably funny and filthy, but it could take quite a while to figure it out. “Whore’s Union price list” is not far off and the recording is a lot more clear.

A Hard Head (MP3).

Whore’s Union price list (MP3)

To an enthusiast of historical American pop culture this stuff is mind boggling for the way it brings those times to life. Topics reserved for dirty jokes are important, and the lack of them in the historical record makes those times abstract and distant. You know intellectually that the texture of life was the same then as now, pretty much, but no amount of imagination can fill the gaps like verbatim potty talk and gross-outs.