Tuwa's Shanty and The Roots Canal

Monday, September 18, 2006:

Blind Willie McTell -- Dying Crapshooter's Blues

[Blind Willie McTell, with 12-string guitar, hotel room, Atlanta, Ga. Photo from The American Memory Collection]

Such a strange song--cadences flowing, changing paths, unpredictable yet non-negotiable--water running down an arid hill.

Blind Willie McTell -- Dying Crapshooter's Blues
Take one: young, hoarse, slow pace, melody like your grandfather's voice settling into a long story.

Blind Willie McTell -- The Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues (live)
Take two: Older, stronger, fiercer. Decades later, McTell in a casual concert, putting away a pint of bourbon.

Here's the long story, the song's background--a song written over the course of three years at the request of a friend shot by the police. The cadences (unpredictable, organic, non-negotiable) took some time to figure out. What do they want? What are they after? McTell didn't write the song; the song chose a venue to be written in. How many attempts at this did it take? How many bottles of bourbon am I listening to?

Both takes: bonus points for the funkky high-pitched strums which sound like NES sound effects.
[Atlanta Twelve String]
[Last Session]

...
Boingboing has an interesting post about This Film Is Not Yet Rated, a documentary about the MPAA's idiosyncratic and intermittently Puritanical ratings system.

...
Maybe it's the sci-fi aspect of this cartoon that distances it enough from current events to allow me to laugh at it.

...
The stolen election of 2004: a compelling report which is just as disgusting as it is enraging.

Labels: blues

posted by Tuwa @ 06:48 | permalink |