“Danville Girl”

Happy Banjo Friday, all!  Hope you’re in the mood for some great old-time banjo playing, because that’s what we're featuring today.

Since I’ve been showcasing some of my favorite banjo tunes, & also have been focusing recently on old-time players who picked “up” on the strings rather than striking down on them (as in frailing), I’m really excited to feature perhaps my favorite old-time banjo player, Dock Boggs.  Hearing Dock Boggs on the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music was a major motivation for me wanting to learn the banjo back in the late 90s.

If you know “old-timey” music much at all, you probably know Dock Boggs’ music.  If you’ve never heard him before—well, prepare yourself to be amazed, if not transported!  You can read an excellent biography of Dock Boggs at this link, but in brief: Boggs began learning the banjo around 1910, which would have been around the time he was twelve; he was also at that time already working the coal mines around Norton, Virginia.  His interest in music grew as his playing proficiency increased, & by the mid to late 1920s he was serious enough about his music to try & get a recording contract—& in fact, he was signed on by the Brunswick label, & he recorded eight songs for Brunswick in 1927.  He also formed a band called Dock Boggs & His Cumberland Mountain Entertainers.  & in 1929, he recorded an additional four songs for the Lonesome Ace Recording Company.  But various issues conspired against a music career for Dock Boggs.  There was apparently domestic strife, as his wife Sara was very devout, & considered Dock’s music & musical lifestyle sinful; the Stock Market Crash & the Depression hit the recording industry hard, & there were far fewer opportunities for either Appalachian or African American musicians to record than in the 1920s; & he also ran afoul of the law over bootlegging charges.  Boggs eventually pawned his banjo & went back to a miner’s life.

Of course, the fact that Harry Smith included two of Boggs’ recordings on the Anthology (these were “Sugar Baby” & “Country Blues”—chilling & unforgettable performances) piqued the interest of folk revivalists, & Boggs was one of the many “re-discovered” musicians who had a second career in the 1960s, when he also recorded for Folkways.  Sadly, the most recent edition of Boggs’ 1920s recordings, which was issue3d by the Revenant Label is out of print (I thank my lucky stars I have one), & going for $30 & up used online.

“Danville Girl” is one of Boggs’ 1920s recordings, & if you know a version of “Danville Girl” either by Bluegrass musicians or folksingers, be advised that this is a whole other kettle of fish!  Boggs played a lot of songs in D using variations on the so-called “Graveyard Tuning” (which will seem appropriate once you hear him!)  Boggs’ variations, however, sound even more strange than “Graveyard,” which is an open D chord tuning as follows (from 5th string to 1st): F#DF#AD.  The fact that the F# is a drone string makes “Graveyard” sound more modal than some open tunings—but the tuning Boggs uses on “Danville Girl” (& some of his other songs) is F#DGAD.  Substituting the G for F# on the 3rd string produces all sorts of possibilities for very juicy discords & makes this a haunting tuning—Boggs also used this F#DGAD tuning for his famous version of the old murder ballad “Pretty Polly.” 

By the way, if you’re interested in learning about lots of old-time banjo tunings, you should really check out the page at this link (also, as with the Boggs’ bio, on the Zepp Country Music site); you’ll find over 120 tunings!  In the meantime, hope you enjoy “Danville Girl.”

Writers Talk with JoAnne McKay

Greetings!  Thursday is upon us, & I’m so happy to say that we have a new installment of Writers Talk today, posting simultaneously (thu the magic of Blogger) both here & on the Writers Talk blog.

& a wonderful interview to get Writers Talk started back up, indeed—today’s guest is poet JoAnne McKay.  Some of you may know Ms McKay from her blog Titus the Dog; she also has published two collections of her poetry.  Both of these books are available directly from her blog.

JoAnne McKay was born in Romford, Essex in England, the fourth child of five & the only girl. Her father owned a slaughterhouse & wholesale butchers in Romford, which unusually began halal slaughtering in the 1960s to cater for the increasing Muslim population of south east London. She went to Bristol University, & then joined the Avon & Somerset Constabulary & latterly the South West Regional Crime Squad. Her police career took her on operations throughout the UK, & in Scotland she met a policeman she fell in love with. Fortunately, he fell in love back, & upon marriage JoAnne moved to a very small village in South West Scotland. She has two grown-up stepchildren & twin boys who are still at primary school.

JoAnne’s poetry & prose has been published in numerous literary magazines, both print and online. She has published two poetry pamphlets, The Fat Plant & Venti & has appeared at The London Poetry Festival, The Wigtown Book Festival & at Glasgow’s Aye Write literary festival. She is currently studying for an MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow.

JoAnne McKay’s poetry evinces an eye for detail & precise image as evidenced in her two poems that accompany the interview (one from each collection—see the post below); these poems also show her versatility—contrast the more free verse narrative of  “Diamond People” with the beautifully realized Italian sonnet, “The Magdalene Fleur-de-Lis,” & with the wonderfully reflective “Moment.”

& now—Joanne McKay!

When did you first realize your identity as a writer?

Aha! That old trick of starting with the hardest question first. I genuinely can’t answer this one. Tediously, my identity consists of so many more necessary things – wife, mother, daughter, sister, work colleague etc – I don’t identify myself as a writer. Possibly it’s yet to happen.  I  believe I have a coherent voice. It is more cerebral than emotional, meaning I spew my guts quite happily but do think hard about how I’m doing it.

Describe the creative process involved in any one piece you’ve written—this could be book, a story, a poem, an essay, etc.

I have a poem, ‘Moment’ which is about how I felt on seeing a lump of rock. The rock in question was an Olduvai Core, arguably the oldest artefact left by the first hominins, our ancestors in the homo genus. I had dreamed of seeing a Core for years, and back in the 1990s I wandered into the Royal Academy on Piccadilly in London to view a major art exhibition – Africa: the Art of a Continent. In the first room I saw a lit, glass cabinet and I could tell from a distance of 40 feet that there was an Olduvai Core on display. It was my Holy Grail, when I least expected it. For about 10 seconds I genuinely couldn’t breathe.

I wanted to capture the feeling of those seconds - my wonder, and the reason for it – in a poem. As I tend to the long narrative I deliberately set out to write a sonnet to keep myself brief and as focused as I had been when the incident happened. I always write to the Petrarchan form – abbaabba then the sestet cdecde – as I can’t be doing with the rhyming couplet at the end. It often sounds too pat to my ears.

And I struggled, and struggled, and realized I couldn’t do it. Nothing I was trying within the strict form was conjuring what I wanted. So I abandoned the sonnet idea, and wrote a short poem that ended with not one, but two of the rhyming couplets I so disdain!. It’s a poem I’m still very pleased with, and that’s something I rarely say. I suppose the important point is that it would not have come into being had I not worked and worked at it as a sonnet. Doing that crystallized the points which were most important. I’m usually an over-punctuator too, and this poem ended up without any.  Sometimes what works is not what you least expect or aim for.
Anyway, here it is;

Moment

for a heartbeat there is no heartbeat
between the hominid and me
she holds it steady hand like mine
I hold it steadfast in my gaze
and will not look away till I can bear the weight
for this is it this rock
the birth of homo habilis who bears me
these two million years past imagine
what happens in her mind that makes her reason
if I hit this with that then other will result
and I can use it glass-cased before me
is the Olduvai Core of Prehistory
and I can’t use language in order to grasp
this the moment of the start of our past

Olduvai Core: Africa: The Art of a Continent, Royal Academy, December 1995

Could you describe your relationship to the publishing process? (this can be publishing in any form, from traditional book publishing to blogging, etc)

I only went ‘public’ with my writing three years ago, but now I enjoy being read and therefore I have to get work in view somehow. My blog is a favourite method, primarily because of the delicious immediacy. I do submit to magazines but have not yet got this to the art it should be – I have favourites, whose processes I understand, though I really could do with branching out more. But it’s such a faff remembering what you’ve sent where; I admire the writers who pursue this with more diligence than I do at present. I’ve also been anthologized, which is nice.  I self-published my first two pamphlets and it really could not have been a more joyous ride.

The Fat Plant I did online, through Lulu, and I was very pleased with the result, reviews and sales. Venti was handmade, at home, on my own printer, and an enormous labour (really) of love. It’s had good reviews, and last month was runner-up in this year’s Callum Macdonald Memorial Award, administered by the National Library of Scotland, which was an honour and a surprise. And incredibly fattening – there was a huge dinner afterwards for the judges and shortlisted poets and publishers.

I’m not yet ready, or even in a position really, to begin the long slog of approaching publishers with a view to a collection. Primarily because my writing is not yet of sufficient quality. I’d like to feel I’m very good before I start down that road. A few years maybe.

How has being a writer affected your relationships?

In no way whatsoever that I can think of. This probably relates to my inability to answer the first question; I am JoAnne McKay, wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, colleague all day.  The writer only comes out long after midnight when everyone else is at work or in bed.

How would you describe the community of writers you belong to—if any?  This may be a “real” or “virtual” (in more than one sense) community.

In one word, interesting. I am a member of Crichton Writers, which is closely affiliated to the University of Glasgow Crichton campus in Dumfries, and thus local to me. The group is made up of poets and prose writers of very different levels of experience, and meets monthly. I can usually get to one meeting in three. It’s a group that achieves things but it is also delightfully relaxed and encouraging, and I’ve made genuine friends amongst its members.
You can find us here.

The online community (and it does feels like a community to me) is also important – I’ve found poets I like and admire through my blog, and even better, I can communicate with them. It’s loose, fluctuating, incredibly informative and often very funny. I cannot think of a downside to it.
 
Finally, I live four doors away from a very fine Scottish poet, Hugh McMillan. He generously agrees to edit my work, and his wife Jane is my proof-reader.  Brilliant community for me; I’m not sure what they get out of it!

What are your future goals in terms of writing?

It is the same goal as when I started. To write things I still like six months after they’re written.
 
All the nice stuff, like readings (which I adore) and getting published mean very little if you can’t achieve that. It happens to me only very occasionally at the moment.

Bonus Question: If your writing were a musical instrument, what would it be?

Whilst I’d love to say Jimmy Page’s twelve-string guitar, I’m afraid it’s probably more of a kettle drum. I am overfond of going for the big bang.

Two Poems by JoAnne McKay

From The Fat Plant
 

Diamond People

There was a shooting once in Bristol
on a brilliant shining august day.
Unsurprisingly, I can remember
the name of the killer: Crackhead Trevor.
The man who died?
His name? His name I have forgot,
but not his roles: jewellery shop manager,
victim, nor the golden hair still gleaming
on the remaining side of his head –
it was a shotgun job, you see.

And there were others too that blinding day
whose names… whose names I have forgot.
The woodentop, recently excised
from collator’s office where he had sat
amongst paper shadows and bad men’s names
for far too many informing years,
he had the brains to grab the witness
and drive her straightway to St. Pauls
to tour the area to see if he,
the suspect (name unknown then) could be found.

And that witness was a youngish woman
with a daughter dressed in sparkling blue
who she gave away to a passer-by
older woman, but stranger still
trusting child’s life to an unknown other
to seek the killer of an unknown man.

She found him, by the way, and I was there.

And we chased Trevor in our escort
and knocked him down and he got up
and we jumped out and ran and got him
and as I held him, found I was holding still
the cigarette lit as we left the scene
tiny comet trail sparks on bloody jeans.

Once he was safe at the station and swabbed
I returned to shining Park Street,
where the sunlight bouncing off the stone
made the whole rising street heavenly.
When another woman walked up to me
and handed over an eternity ring
worth fifty-seven thousand pounds, 
and she looked so sad that a man had died,
so she did her bit, for this could be
important, unsoiled, evidence.

Trevor had been emptying his pockets as he ran
and in the following hazy days
many others, nameless now
handed us precious, shining jewels
whose glints made hard certain that we’d found
the route Trevor ran down to get to ground.
All these people, these good, good people
and the only name I can now recall
is that
of Crackhead Trevor.

JoAnne McKay

© 2009-present

From Venti


The Magdalene Fleur-de-Lis

Call me Iris. Call me Lily. Your flower.
I’ll keep the boys’ chins up in wartime,
French letters and kisses a lover’s mime
that only costs them three francs for an hour.
It’s memory of me that lends them power,
yellow flag on an azure bed through time
of all the symbol whores I reign sublime;
meanings bloom with every passing shower.
Bas-relief in Babylon, carried by kings,
my spear-head as sceptre shines divine right,
the splayed sepal structure inside me cries
to the Three-In-One whose salvation sings
from within to those who can hear the light:
I split as prism before your rainbowed eyes.

JoAnne McKay

© 2009-present

"Ask Alice"

[Barbie Angell gives us her unique take on Wonderland in words & pictures.  Please feel free to "feed your head!"]

Ask Alice


The Hatter is mad
and sadder than that
the dormouse is asleep in the tea

And the glass holds the past
Will the memory last?
Will Alice come looking for me?

The words in my mind say I’m too undefined
No stories will capture my name.

While the White Rabbit screams
I’m alone in my dreams
Never to live what I’ve gained.

The Cheshire Cat
must know right where I’m at
‘cause his grin’s always over my head

But I’m on the run
since croquet is no fun
when the Red Queen assures me I’m dead

The White Knights slips by
with a smile in his eye
and says I must live to be free

And the Unicorn asks
if we’ve met in the past
he finds his belief within me.


Barbie Dockstader Angell
© 2009-present

Any Woman’s Blues #11 - Geeshie Wiley

It appears Monday has caught up with us once again!  & if you need some music to get the week started, you’re in the right place—some very fine old-time blues right here on the Monday Morning Blues.

Today’s featured artist in the Any Woman’s Blues series is Geeshie Wiley, who recorded with last month’s featured artist Elvie Thomas.  Wiley & Thomas recorded a total of six songs  at two separate sessions in Paramount’s Grafton, Wisconsin recording studio (where such better known Delta artists as Charlie Patton, Willie Brown & Son House also recorded around the same time).    

Wiley's signature song is “Last Kind Words,” a masterful if lyrically bleak song about a soldier in World War I.  Wiley’s singing & the guitar work on this song have both received high praise.  As far as I can determine the song is played as tho the guitar were in standard tuning & the song were being played in E, but the guitar is in fact tuned down a semitone (or possibly a bit more) so the song’s actual key is E flat (or a rather flat E/rather sharp D.)   In any case, you can read more about the guitar playing on “Last Kind Words” here on the Acoustic Guitar Forum. 

Not much is known about Geeshie Wiley’s biography, tho there’s a bit more information about her than about her partner Elvie Thomas.  Interestingly, the name Geeshie (or Geechie) is often associated with the Gullah, who historically have lived in South Carolina & Georgia.  Here’s a dime store description of their culture from Wikipedia:

The Gullah are known for preserving more of their African linguistic and cultural heritage than any other African-American community in the United States. They speak an English-based creole language containing many African loanwords and significant influences from African languages in grammar and sentence structure. The Gullah language is related to Jamaican Creole, Barbadian Dialect, Bahamian Dialect, and the Krio language of Sierra Leone in West Africa. Gullah storytelling, cuisine, music, folk beliefs, crafts, farming and fishing traditions, all exhibit strong influences from West and Central African cultures.

Ishman Bracey, a Delta bluesman of some note, claimed to have known Wiley & said she was from Natchez, Mississippi.  Bracey also claimed that she was linked romantically with Charlie McCoy, the great mandolin & guitar player who partner with Bracey & Tommy Johnson.  Bracey said Wiley “could play on the guitar as good as on that record,” that she also played ukulele, & that she had performed in medicine shows.  The great Memphis-based blues guitarist Robert Wilkins also had some recollection of Wiley.

Sadly, we have only six songs by which to judge Geeshie Wiley’s & Elvie Thomas’ talents, tho it seems clear from those songs that those talents were considerable.  Why so few songs?  It’s impossible to say for sure, but 1930 & 1931 were the beginnings of the Great US Depression, & the recording industry was very hard hit by this.  The so-called “race records” boom of the 1920s went bust in the Depression, as labels that relied on these recordings either went under or turned to types of music that would produce more reliable income.  It’s also true that—with the notable exception of Blind Lemon Jefferson—so-called “country blues” artists simply didn’t sell as many records back in the day as either the classic women blues singers like Bessie Smith, Ida Cox et al, or more urban & “smooth” musicians like Lonnie Johnson & Leroy Carr.  Elijah Wald discusses this in his excellent book, Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson & the Invention of the Blues;Wald produces playlists from various Delta jukeboxes in 1941—with fascinating & surprising results.

By the way: a bit off topic, but please consider swinging by the Ms. Magazine blog today & checking out my good friend (& occasional Robert Frost's Bano contributor) Audrey Bilger's follow-up interview with Twitter sensation Feminist Hulk (@feministhulk.)  Audrey interviewed this big, green, purple-shorts-wearing, Judith Butler-reading phenomenon last year, & the interview was the second most popular feature on the Ms blog in 2010.  This time around, we're all hoping Audrey & Feminist Hulk are #1! 

In the meantime, hope you enjoy Geeshie Wiley’s great music!

Photo of the Week 6/19/11

Cattle Grazing Near Goodrich Road

Adams County, Idaho

Friday 6/17/11

Pirate Goat's Adventures Day One & Two

Welcome back! We continue today with Pirate Goat’s log which records the island adventure shared by Mouse Fairies, animals, Pioneer Woman, and Sir Hickory this past summer. But first I thought I’d introduce Piggles, since she came up in Goat’s log last time (Where To Begin.) Piggles arrived at Big Bed Land many years ago during a very hard time in Monster E’s life, and luckily was already very old and very wise (although you might not guess it if you saw her dancing parts of the Nutcracker Ballet, as she loves to do at times.) In fact she is known as the Keeper of Faith and Reason and all animals recognize her loving rightness as easily as monsters recognize natural laws like gravity. They might try to evade her on occasion (Goat knows that if Goat gets too enthusiastic about having enemies walk the plank after a pitched battle at sea, Goat will eventually have to go and talk with Piggles) but none of the animals actually minds talking with Piggles; she always calms them down. I introduce her now because she is a quiet but very important part of life in Big Bed Land! And now, on with Goat’s Log!

Goat Day 1

It turns out the monsters here are OK. Some of them disappeared earlier today. Now I think I know why. This island is haunted by ladybugs, mostly invisible. A worthy foe.
Goat Day 2

The monsters here climb trees, this is useful. We swarmed up the rigging of a tall one. I explained to everyone that this highest place was called the Crows Nest. I saw to my satisfaction that a good supply of limes has been laid in against the Scurvy. Later we saw 4 moons and Jupiter. I might go there sometime. An explorer called Gallylayo (POCKETNOTE from BINK: actually spelled “Galileo”) was the first one to go to these moons—perhaps he is a distant cousin of mine. But before I do anything else I must make a strategy about the ladybugs.