by Art Chantry:
here’s an odd thing i learned yesterday. i was reading a book by an old pal named roger stolle. roger left a great paying important coprorate design job in st. louis in order to go live in clarksdale, mississpppi (“birthplace of the blues”.) he fell in love with the country blues. so, he moved to the heart of the blues country to do what he could to help keep the blues alive. he now runs a shop called “cat head gallery” that sells blues records and outsider art. he’s also become a major booster, promoter, DJ and historian of the blues in clarksdale. he even wrote a small book called “the hidden history of mississppi blues” (the history press, 2011).
—artchantry.com—
this slender book may not be the exhaustive detailed TOME of blues history that you may want if you are a beginner. but, roger knows his stuff and he filled in a lot of holes in my own knowledge base with this effort. so, i highly recommend this engaging fun read. the oral histories with still living blues artists in the back of the book are worth the (modest) price alone! amazing stuff!
one of those tidbts of informaton that i never encountered before (more due to my limited studies rather than obscurity, i think) is about a device that virtually all famous old blues artists seemed to have started their musical lives playing. it was a crude simple poor child’s play thing, really. but, many a young person kept it up and some even played it all their lives.
this odd device is a very very simple structure. it’s a wire (or a stout cord) nailed into the side of a building, a tree, even a loose handy board. under one end you place a snuff bottle (or coke bottle or tin can or whatever you have laying around). then you simply pluck the string while pressing down in assorted spots to create MUSIC. it’s a very primitive stringed instrument!
this strange device also has a remarkably familiar name – even to us upper class rich white folks. in fact, it’s actually so familiar that i laughed when i heard what it was called. these things were developed as a toy for the kids to occupy themselves while the parents were out working the fields. a “babysitter” of sorts. usually it’s built by a bored grandfather playing with the grandkids. he pounds it together, and starts to pluck away, playing a familiar song the kids know. eventually, the kids will want to try it, too.
from that point on, it’s a very simple step to adding more strings, then removing it from the wall and building it onto a handy cigar box (as a sound amplifying gizmo) and making a crude “guitar”. it’s only matter of time before those kids become accomplished blues guitarists. so many famous bluesmen started out on a this device that it’s become almost a “gateway drug” for the blues.
so, what’s this gizmo called? it called a “DIDDLEY BO”.
COMMENTS