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Pray to Your Lord

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Blues Song Week

This isn’t necessarily a very old song. I wrote it back in January of this year and posted it as a new song. But it’s a really good example of a blues song, so I figured I just repeat it and ya’ll could hear it again.

It’s called Pray to your Lord. Probably this one could also be in the category of gospel tune, but only if you had a good sense of humor.

I patterned the guitar parts after a progression and melody that Blind Boy Fuller plays in a lot of his songs. Especially a song like “Step It Up and Go.” That’s a really great song. And a really great example of a blues song style. I truncated it a little, so I don’t know if Pray to Your Lord is officially in the blues style, but I also don’t know what the official blue style is, if there is one.

The words are completely made up in this one. It’s not one of those subtle blues songs about some guy getting his lemon squeezed or someone wiping it off. It’s about bending down and giving thanks to the Lord Almighty for what He has giving unto you.

Do you know how to pray to your lord?

 

Bless.

This song (probably) will appear on a full-length album that I just finished recording yesterday. The album will (most likely) feature about 13 cuts…two from about one year ago, one from about 2 years ago, and the rest from the last 6 months. So, if you went back and listened to all the tunes posted in 2010 so far, you’d have a good sense of what the album will be like. It’ll be a companion to the “It’s Chicago!” album I’ve also recorded. Both will come out on the same day. That is to say that I’ll receive both of them in a shipment from some giant CD producer on the same day. Anyway. I hope to have the CDs by August first.

Chicago Song, Listen

Post Nasal Drip Blues

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Blues Song Week

Here’s another of my blues songs. It’s called Post Nasal Drip Blues. It has the word blues in the title so it has to be a blues. It sounds a little more ramshackle than that to me though and I don’t think the pattern is really a blues song pattern, but oh well.

I wrote the song a long time ago…about 3 and a half years, back in the winter of 2007, probably in January or February. It’s one of the first songs I wrote. Or, at least, one of the first that I wrote that I felt was pretty good and could get behind singing and liked singing. And then I sung it into the ground, so I don’t sing it anymore. Probably haven’t for a year and a half or so. It hurts my throat to even think about sining a song that way.

Anyway. So I wrote this at the beginning. When I was first starting to go out and perform around the city. I was hitting a lot of open mikes then, in late 2006 through 2007. That’s how I kinda found out what to do up there all alone. I played a lot at the Grafton Pub open mike. That one is gone though. They don’t have it anymore. There’s other things on Monday nights now. Like Jonas Friddle’s Old Time and Jug Band jams. You should check those out.

Okay…the Post Nasal Drip Blues. I wrote it while sitting by the fireplace in the Grafton after downing a couple pints. It was one of those bad-cold, but still wet and sloppy winter nights in Chicago. I wrote the song in probably 3 minutes and then didn’t add or change anything. This recording is from December 2007 (so one year after I wrote it), but it’s still exactly as how I wrote it. It’s not any other melody. Nothing stolen. It’s just fast and choppin along. It’s gettin out of the cold quick and movin to a warm place somewhere.

One side note…I did suffer from post-nasal drip back during that winter and a doctor prescribed some sort of addictive nose spray that I have since discontinued using. Instead, I’ll, from time-to-time, use a neti pot to get that drip a-flowin and a-bubblin. Here’s what post-nasal drip looks like:

 

Diagram of post nasal drip.

See ya, friend.

Chicago Song, Listen

The Talkin’ CTA Blues

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Blues Song Week

Here’s a song that I wrote about 3 years ago, I think. It’s about an actual event. I think most blues songs are about actual events.

Now, this is a talkin blues. It’s called “The Talkin’ CTA Blues.” The talkin blues style has been around for a long long long time…songs like “The East Texas Talkin’ Blues” and a host of others. Talkin blues were more recently made famous by Woody Guthrie, who wrote about a thousand talkin blues songs about every subject. Fishing. Dams. War. Children. Fighting. Death. Scabs. Rats. Heroes. Hats. Then Bob Dylan went and made them even more famous, but didn’t write nearly as many as Woody or as people probably think.

Anyway, my song is about the Chicago Transit Authority. This makes it a regional song because not many people outside Chicago will understand the event going on or many of the references to specific peculiarities that occur in the Chicago subways and el stations (or the city at large). Maybe someone from New York might understand. Or San Francisco. Or London or Paris. Or maybe everyone would understand at least the theme of the song. Or maybe just get a laugh out of it, cause it’s a pretty funny song and situation.

Here’s what the Blue Line looks like in the subway tunnel at the Clark and Lake station, for those of you who have never been to Chicago.

image

This song, though, is set deep underground, near the Grand station, a little further west.

So, to get on with it, talkin blues are just blues songs about pretty much anything. They do not need to have a defined rhyme scheme or even a hard-nosed pattern. They just kinda go. They come out and then they’re gone. It’s like a conversation. The CTA Blues is me talkin with my old guitar and my mouth harp. Just burpin along. Rollin and bumpin. Takin a train ride.

Talkin’ CTA is gonna be on an album I’m working on right now called “It’s Chicago!” It’s going to be a collection of songs (probably 5 or 6) I’ve written about this sloggin city that I live in. I should have the recording done (hopefully) by the end of this week. Then I gotta send it off to get printed up all professional. It’ll be on sale for 5 bucks when it’s all done.

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Southland Blues

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Blues Song Week

Okay…I know it’s late, but I don’t care…it’s still Monday, officially…so here’s the brand new song. It’s called Southland Blues. It’s in the key of A Major. I wrote it down in Starkville, Mississippi last Thursday. It was God-awful hot, at least to me and my sweat glands. I was just sitting outside, enjoying a beer, noodling around on the guitar box I had down there, and I just started singing this one. It’s not patterned after any song in particular. And I’m not even sure it’s officially a blues song, but I put the word “blues” in the title so that makes it a blues song.

Really, all my songs are blues, or most of them, probably…I’m not counting them up. This is how Blues Song Week is gonna go:

  1. I post a new song on Monday (today) and talk about it a little
  2. I post a song each day following Monday from my archive of recorded songs
  3. Maybe I’ll re-record one or two of those if I deem it necessary
  4. I’ll question whether each of these songs is a blues song or not
  5. I’ll then wait for your responses

So, is this one a blues song?

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On the Banks of the Old Rio Grande

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Protest Week

Here’s the Final Installment of Protest Week in honor of National Protest Week. The song for today is On the Banks of the Old Rio Grande. This song is patterned after the traditional tune On the Banks of the Old Tennessee, which I learned from Old Paul Tyler.

There wasn’t a whole lot of re-writing to do with this one, just changing a couple words here and there. It’s a song I’ve performed live a lot, both as a slower version, as recorded here, and as an uptempo piece. This recording was done on June 18, 2010 during a giant storm arching its way across the city. I went out on my back porch, hit record, and sang into the small mic of my computer. One take.

This song doesn’t have a whole lot to say, doesn’t try to tell you what to believe, ain’t trying for to persuade you about anything. It’s just a song. Just someone singing.

I wrote this one a couple years ago. It was one of those really easy ones to sing and I’ve never quit on it like a lot of the tunes I’ve written and then stopped enjoying or stopped understanding. I get this one loud and clear. I know why I wrote it and I know why it’s gotta be said.

Anyway, that’s the end of protest week. I think National Protest Week just keeps on grinding along all through the year, but I gotta move on to something else. I think next week, starting on Monday, June 28 is gonna be Blues Song Week. I’ll post a new blues song I wrote yesterday down here in Mississippi. Then each day I dig back through some old songs and old recordings and post one and write about it in relation to the blues, which I don’t know a whole lot about, but maybe by the end of the week I’ll learn something.

Also, don’t forget that the Barehand Jugband is playing at the Old Town School of Folk Music on Saturday 6/26. We’re opening for Jim Kweskin and Geoff Muldaur. The show starts at 8pm. Before that, in the afternoon, around 12pm we’ll be playing a few tunes and sitting for some questions on the radio show Somebody Else’s Troubles. You can find that at 88.7fm on your dial or at WLUW’s website. Either way you get to listen for free. I won’t be at either of those, because I’m in the south, but both will still be really okay.