MDBG Delta Blues Guitar Lesson: Jazz, Django Reinhardt: TEARS

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Jean "Django" Reinhardt

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Tags: masters, of, delta, blues, guitar, mdbg, django, reinhardt, tears

MDBG Delta Blues Guitar Lesson: Hey Hey! Big Bill Broonzy Eric Clapton

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Big Bill Broonzy (26 June 1898 14 August 1958) was a prolific African American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played Country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the 30s and 40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences. In the 1950s a return to his traditional folk-blues roots made him one of the leading figures of the emerging American folk music revival and an international star. His long and varied career marks him as one of the key figures in the development of blues music in the 20th century. Broonzy copyrighted more than 300 songs during his lifetime, including both adaptations of traditional folk songs and original blues songs. As a blues composer, he was unique in that his compositions reflected the many vantage points of his rural-to-urban experiences.

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MDBG Delta Blues Guitar Lesson: Coffee Blues Mississippi John Hurt

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orn John Smith Hurt in Teoc, Carroll County, Mississippi and raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt learned to play guitar at age 9. He spent much of his youth playing old time music for friends and dances, earning a living as a farm hand into the 1920s. In 1923 he partnered with the fiddle player Willie Narmour as a substitute for his regular partner Shell Smith. When Narmour got a chance to record for Okeh Records as a prize for winning first place in a 1928 fiddle contest, Narmour recommended John Hurt to Okeh Records producer Tommy Rockwell. After auditioning "Monday Morning Blues" at his home, he took part in two recording sessions, in Memphis and New York City (see Discography below). The "Mississippi" tag was added by Okeh as a sales gimmick. After the commercial failure of the resulting records, and Okeh Records going out of business during the Great Depression, Hurt returned to Avalon and obscurity, working as a sharecropper and playing local parties and dances. In 1963, however, a folk musicologist, Tom Hoskins, inspired by the recordings, was able to locate Hurt near Avalon, Mississippi. Seeing that Hurt's guitar playing skills were still intact, Hoskins encouraged him to move to Washington, D.C., and begin performing on a wider stage. His performance at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival saw his star rise amongst the new folk revival audience.

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Tags: mississippi, john, hurt, coffee, bluesdelta, guitar, blues, finger, pick, style, acoustic, blues, master, of, delta, blues, guitar