Busker Piedmont
Following in the Songster tradition, Busker Piedmont is a One Man Blues Band playing the multi-faceted music of Pre-War Country Blues. He simultaneously plays a National Duolian Resophonic Guitar, a Farmer Footdrum Deluxe, and occasionally adds a Harmonica or antique Kazoo. He lives in Hollywood and plays local shows when not on the road touring. This Album is inspired by the late 1930's Country Blues Recordings of Blind Boy Fuller, Big Bill Broonzy, & Robert Johnson.
In 1938, John Hammond was planning his infamous "From Spirituals To Swing Concerts" for Carnegie Hall. Mr. Hammond sent for Blind Boy Fuller, but he was unavailable while still serving prison time after gaining national headlines for shooting and wounding his wife. Mr. Hammond then decided to book Robert Johnson, whose poisoning death earlier in August of that year went unnoticed. Mr. Hammond would not learn of his passing for months. He liked Robert Johnson's music so much that his recording of Terraplane Blues was played on stage to the crowd at Carnegie Hall as the "Quintessential Country Blues." Big Bill Broonzy then became the designated hitter for Country Blues and played the gig in New York. John Hammond's From Spirituals To Swing Concerts attempted to get three of the best Country Blues Songsters of the late 30's on stage. That's exactly what I've tried to do with this album, Occupation: Songster. Thank you for the idea, Mr. Hammond.
This album is a Songster's study of the pre-war Country Blues that was inspired by the proto-blues standards being passed around that drew heavily on ragtime, minstrels, medicine shows and other pop music of the era. There is another side to the Blues that did not come from slave field songs driven by the voice of the slide on the guitar strings like the sounds of raw Delta Blues. It is sometimes forgotten that today's 12 bar progressions were not the epitome of the entire genre back then. Other types of blues drew upon popular sources, even white music standards of the day, and "Songsters" where in demand for both black and white audiences at picnics and dances. Here's some proof that Country Blues has many ancestors and like America, is a great melting pot of culture-Busker Piedmont.
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