Sleepy Eyes Nelson – A Bottle of wine at the Bellgrove Hotel
The production retains a scratchy retro feel, but is more punchy this time round. He has an eye for detail and on a few tracks, notably ‘I’m gonna get my Knife’ it really adds to the brooding atmosphere. His playing is top notch too, the aforementioned track giving a nice example of picking a heavy bass and filling in the detail at the same time. I love it when one guy sounds like two! ‘Cheap Wine Blues’ plays this out to great effect, with Sleepy pining ‘I gave the devil all my money, devil all my blues, and my good girl she took my heart’ over the strutting bass notes. It really is quite something to hear this quality of picking and sliding from a hometown boy. There ain’t many guys doing authentic acoustic blues about these parts and it may seem a strange choice but i read an interview in which he commented ‘… most of my numbers are about gambling, death and drinking so i reckon Scotland is the perfect country for the blues. There’s so much sadness here….how many happy people do you see walking round? Scotland knows all about it…’ And to that end he’s right, I suppose what is surprising is the amount of mousy, lightweight twee garbage Scotland has shat out over the years. Certainly, Sleepy’s credo is evident on the final closing tracks, Pinebox Blues and Bellgrove Hotel. The latter in particular is an excellent tune, and does the job of hammering the blues firmly to Glasgow’s creaking door.
Bloodstains on the wall
Bloodstains on the Wall
It seems today that any blues artist worth a shit has been anthologised to death. Records you would have killed for years ago are now available at the press of a button. We know just about everything about anyone that mattered, fights, divorces, jail terms and, when it comes to the music, all sorts of out takes and versions 1 2 and 3 etc etc….. So when it comes to a song that apparently only appears on one anthology and seems to be the only recording known by the artist, the ears perk up. That song is the spooky mystery that is Honeyboy’s “Bloodstains on the Wall,” a genuine chilling slice of urban blues. Honeyboy has a mess to deal with, the aftermath of some terrible event. What, why and how is never explicitly addressed, all we seem to know is that something happened and the guy is pissed. The title makes the listener think of abattoirs, a mess (or one that will do until a real mess comes along). The guitar sputters over a sleazy barrelhouse blues piano, is the singer a pimp or a messed up working man who finds out strange things are happening when his back is turned. No matter what, the detectives are coming and he has his alibi.
Honeyboy is not to be confused with Honeyboy Edwards but is instead Honeyboy Frank Patt (go on, Google him). According to what I could find about him he was born in Fostoria, AL on Sep. 1, 1928 and he sold about 50,000 copies of this single so there should be some attics somewhere that have this gem lurking underneath the boxes, detritus and cobwebs of someone’s life. Recorded for the Speciality label this is a sleazy, murky piece of work with a dense claustrophobic sensibility. If you don’t believe me ask Bob Dylan who included it in one of his recent radio shows.
T Model Ford is a crazy bastard
There can sometimes be an image of the bluesman being a kindly old gent who is a bit too partial to wreck the hoose juice, always down on his luck but generally satisfied with his poor lot in life.
Screw that, Claude.
T Model Ford plays filthy scuzz blues meant for drinkin’ dancin’ fuckin’ and fightin’ The 84 year old (or 85, he cant quite remember) ex trucker, ex farm hand and ex con (Murder. 10 years. Out in two, if you’re wondering) didn’t start playing till he turned 58 and started recording at 74, on fat possum records. By all accounts this hard livin’ pensioner still plays for hours outside his house and on Nelson Street, Greenville Mississippi. “People were rough on Nelson Street. I fought a couple of times up there, but I didn’t get whupped. I win!”
Check out his page at fat possum for details of the 5 releases so far. T Model reckons he’ll keep going till 110 years old, so there’s plenty of life left in the Old Taildragger yet!
Click Play to hear She Asked Me So I Told Her