Standin' At The Crossroads : Stefan Grossman - (p)1977-78 - How to Play Blues Guitar -Various Artists (C)Shanachie Records1990)

Σάββατο 1 Νοεμβρίου 2008

Stefan Grossman - (p)1977-78 - How to Play Blues Guitar -Various Artists (C)Shanachie Records1990)

* re-released 1990 on Shanachie CD 98001/2 "How To Play Blues Guitar"

This Cd album not be confused with the same title of Elektra EKL-324rec. 1966 by Stefan Grossman , Peter K. Siegel & Rory Block as 'Sunshine Kate'

*This is a collection of the 1977 Country Blues Guitar Festival album

Kicking Mule 145 [US]= Sonet SNKF 129 [UK]= Sonet 69056 [D]

& 1978 How To Play Blues Guitar, Vol. 2 album

Kicking Mule KM 151 [US]= Sonet SNKF 148 [UK]

Biography
Guitarist, educator and historian Steffan Grossman was a student of acoustic blues and gospel singer/guitarist Rev. Gary Davis. Beginning when he was 15, Grossman studied with Davis on weekends, spending eight to ten hours at his house in Harlem, absorbing all he could. After studying with Davis for eight years in high school and college, he learned and studied with other country blues guitarists: Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Skip James, Mance Lipscomb and Fred McDowell. Other early influences for Grossman included Elizabeth Cotten, Sam McGee, Willie Brown and Charley Patton.

In the early 1960s, Grossman formed the Even Dozen Jug Band and worked with the political rock band the Fugs before moving to Great Britain. In 1968, he co-founded Kicking Mule Records with Ed Denson, a label that showcased idiosyncratic acoustic blues and folk guitar styles. The co-founders dissolved their partnership in the mid-1980s, but Kicking Mule's catalog was purchased by Fantasy Records. Some of the vinyl sides have seen the light of day on compact disc. From 1967 to the early 1980s, Grossman lived in Great Britain, where he carved a reputation on the European blues and folk festival circuit, playing with British-raised acoustic guitarists like John Renbourn and John Fahey.

Grossman's solo discography goes all the back to 1966, when he recorded How to Play Blues Guitar for Elektra Records. Since the early 1980s, when Grossman began a long relationship with Shanachie Records of Newton, NJ, he has toured infrequently, but recorded extensively. Recent albums include Northern Skies, Southern Blues (1997), as well as Love, Devils and the Blues (1992) Guitar Landscapes (1990) and Shining Shadows (1988) for the same label. Grossman's sessionography includes recordings with the Even Dozen Jug Band (which also included such future luminaries as John Sebastian, Maria Muldaur and David Grisman), as well as albums by Paul Simon, John Fahey, Charlie Musselwhite and Happy Traum. He also helped Shanachie launch their Guitar Artistry imprint series, which showcases such artists as himself, Renbourn and Traum.Based in northwest New Jersey, Grossman concentrates his efforts these days on running his instructional video business, Vestapol Videos. His videos feature guitarists from Merle Travis and Chet Atkins to Dave Van Ronk and Brownie McGhee. He remains one of the world's foremost authorities on acoustic blues guitar. ~ Richard Skelly, All Music Guide

Jackson Browne, Tuli Kupferberg, Stefan Grossman, and Steve Noonan, 1967
the tracks

1 Yonder Comes the Blues 5:25 2 Police Dog Blues 1:50 3 Easy Street 3:46 4 Ragtime Mama Blues 1:58 5 Corrina, Corrina 2:40 6 It You Haven't Any Hay, Don't Get on Down the Road 2:40 7 Man of My Own 3:15 8 Assassination of John Fahey 4:17 9 Moon Going Down 3:52 10 Ragged and Dirty 1:46 11 Crow Jane 1:50 12 Pallett on Your Dirty 2:22 13 Mississippi Blues No. 3 Traditional 3:27 14 New Pony Blues 3:03 15 You Got the Pocket Book, I Got the Key 1:48 16 Someday Baby 3:24 17 Juicy Lucy 2:53 18 Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues 4:02 19 Belzona Blues 3:21 20 Oh, Babe Ain't No Lie 3:09 21 Special Rider Blues 4:07 22 Weeping Willow 3:25 23 Wake up Mama 2:39

Sam Mitchell, Mike Cooper & Stefan Grossman

Released during the peak of the mid/late-'60s folk boom, Stefan Grossman's debut, How to Play Blues Guitar, finds a young guitarist paying his respects to the music that inspired him. A student of Reverend Gary Davis (and later Skip James and Mississippi John Hurt among others), Grossman learned his blues from the source. Here, his fluency is proven through a tour of country-blues melodies and themes from standard fare like "Corrina, Corrina" to three James numbers and Grossman originals rooted in the tradition. He is joined by an amicable cast of instrumentalists and vocalists that share the stage on the majority of the material. The most suited of the group is multi-instrumentalist Sam Mitchell who fleshes out Grossman's effortless, syncopated fingerpicking with ever pertinent melodies from his own mandolin, fiddle, and slide guitar. The vocal tracks that make up the bulk of the performances are fine, though rarely more than reverential, ranging from the authentic replications of Jo ...Ann Kelly to the dry but steady work of Mike Cooper and Mickey Baker. The notable exceptions are the contributions from Delta blues great Son House on "Yonder Come the Blues" and "New Pony Blues." Essentially a remake of "Walking Blues," the former proves that, over 30 years after he made his first recordings, the singer was still capable of wringing new emotions out of a well-worn theme. Occasional instrumentals represent Grossman's early attempts at incorporating the blues vernacular into a six-string style of his own. Though one might not know what to make of a title like "Assassination of John Fahey," the composition finds Grossman closest to achieving those ends. Though the album's 23 performances may fail to cohere as an album per se, they serve as a document of the guitarist's roots while pointing the way to his future explorations.(Nathan Bush, All Music Guide)@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Stefan Grossman plays "God Moves On The Water." Filmed in Sweden in 1972, this clip is from the DVD "Stefan Grossman: A Retrospective 1971-1995