Blues Artists - Tumblr Posts
Furry Lewis (1893-1981) c.1960s
Hi! Your "talking about wheelchair blues" post made me curious if you know any disabled folk singers?
Yea, there are actually tons!
in the early blues, there were many blind artists.
Blind Blake (1896-1934) Blind Willie Johnson (1897-1945) Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893-1929) Blind Willie McTell (1898-1959) Bo Carter (1893-1964) Sleepy John Estes (1899-1977) Blind Boy Fuller (1907-1941) Cortelia Clark (1906-1969) Rev. Gary Davis (1896-1972) Roosevelt Graves (1909-1962) Sonny Terry (1911-1986)
there's also cisco houston, whose eyesight was so poor that it rendered him legally blind by the end of his life.
and then, of course, there was woody guthrie who suffered from Huntingtons disease.
A LOT of traditional folk singers were disabled but that fact about them was not mentioned or only mentioned as an afterthought, or it isn't considered a disability. it would be very hard to compile all of these people.
and, as classic artists like pete and peggy got and get older, they both talked more about disability rights and how they affect them, peggy seeger is 89 currently and still making music. both she and Pete have either performed songs like disability in solidarity with disabled people or made music about how being disabled relates to them.
THEN, there's the Disabled In Action (DIA) singers. much like the Freedom Singers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Disabled in Action singers were a musical group that made and covered songs that were about disability rights and disability made upof members with from the DIA organization. the DIA is a grassroots civil rights organization focused on ending discrimination against Disabled people, founded in 1970, in NYC.
the folks of the Disabled in Action Singers were not very well known, and the only one who was, was Sis Cunningham, who joined the group in her eighties.
luckily for us ! they have all their recordings available on their website.
here's some fun live performances i found as well of songs either by the DIA singers or by other people about disability
There is definitely more and I'll reblog this whenever I find more disabled folk artists. if anyone knows any contemporary disabled folk artists feel free to reblog this as well. I know that people in the folk-punk scene have been making music about disability.
Song of The Day
"Salty Dog Blues" Mississippi John Hurt, 1965 (?)
Salty dog Blues is a song that had existed comfortably in the public domain in the early 1900s (I couldn't find any research of it being a traditional song however) until it was first recorded in 1924 by Papa Charlie Jackson. Which was.. adapted for Broadway?
The Interesting thing about this song is its versatility. It has been performed in a plethora of related but distinct genres. Like:
Bluegrass (Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, 1967) Blues (Clara Smith 1926) Country 1 (Morris brothers 1937) Country 2 (Johnny Cash 2000) Jazz 1 (Freddie Keppard's Jazz Cardinals 1926) Jazz 2 (Pat Hawes 2000)
The meaning of salty dog in this context is unclear. It could be a sexual innuendo, a term for a sailor who has been at sea for too long, or even a local beverage, maybe even a combination of all 3.
I like Mississippi John Hurt's cover the best, his voice is very relaxing and soothing which adds another layer to the fun song.