Backwater Blues and Amazing Grace

As I'd blogged below, I played two songs with the Contra Costa Performing Arts Society on September 28. It was a lot of fun, although kind of scary, and I was nervous. But it was a great group of performers, and a wonderful audience! I'd love to post the video of all the performers, but need their permission first :).

I played two songs. One is my arrangement of "Backwater Blues," by Bessie Smith. This song is (accidentally) one of the anthems of the great Mississippi River flood of 1927. That flood is associated in many people's minds with the flood in Louisiana that Randy Newman sang about, and there is a connection, but it's a weird one. In April 1927, New Orleans had a huge rainstorm, and the pump that was supposed to pump water out of the city broke, and the city flooded. At the same time, the Mississippi was flooding upriver, and the powerful men of the city decided (unnecessarily) to breach a levy in Lousiana to protect New Orleans. The whole thing was a disaster, and mostly an unnecessary one. The PBS "American Experience" documentary about New Orleans had a great explanation of all of it: one well worth watching.

Coincidentally, Bessie Smith (the highest paid black entertainer of her era) had written and recorded "Backwater Blues" just before the Mississippi River Flood, so the song became an anthem for that flood. The original version had James Johnson on the piano, playing an accompaniment that's very cool, and has a bit in it that later Ray Charles used as the baseline for his song "Low Society." There's a great video on YouTube of the original version with images from hurricane Katrina and folk art from the 1920s. Here's that video:

The other song I played, "Amazing Grace" is one I've blogged about below, and one I really love having learned to play! I like it not just because of its history, being associated with the end of the Atlantic slave trade, but also because I find the concept of grace fascinating, even for a relatively non-religious person like myself. It's a meditative and hopeful song. And this version (which is partially my own arrangement, but borrowed from a version by Charles Brown) is so very slow and soulful.

Both versions obviously need work, but here is the video of both songs (you can also watch it on YouTube, at www.youtube.com/swamus).

Performance this Friday @ 1:30 in Lafayette

It's been a long while since I posted: life's gotten complicated. But I've been playing and practising. This Friday, I'll be taking a little baby step in the direction of playing in public: playing and singing a couple of songs as part of a performance by the Contra Costa Performing Arts Society at 1:30 PM in Lafayette (500 St. Mary's Road). The details are in the flyer to the right. If you can come, do! It'd be great to have supporters in the audience, and all the musicians are great!

The two songs I'll be playing are a version of the Bessie Smith classic, "Backwater Blues," which became, by accident, one of the anthems of the great Mississippi River Flood of 1927. The other is a version of "Amazing Grace."

I'm quite nervous, but also excited. :). I'll post video afterwards if I can.

From the Onion: "Blues Singer's Woman Permitted To Tell Her Side"

This article, from the Onion, is hilarious if you're a blues-lover (maybe more so if you're a blues-hater :).

"Despite what Mr. Jackson would have you believe, I am not an evil-hearted woman who will not let him be," Dobbs told reporters. "I repeat: I am not an evil-hearted woman who will not let him be. To the contrary, my lovin' is so sweet, it tastes just like the apple off the tree."

I can just imagine the country music equivalent:

"While Mr. Johnson claims to miss his Ford F350 more than he misses his wife, I believe his relationship with his Ford was far from loving," said Billy Joe Smith, Mr. Johnson's mechanic. "I can say from personal knowledge that his treatment of the Ford was downright abusive."

:)
Swami

Vadakanchery Ulsavam (Festival)

Some of you know the middle V in my name stands for Vadakanchery (pronounced Vud-uh-kun-jay-ree), the village in Kerala from where my father grew up (my mother's from the nearby town, and district capital, called Palghat).

Every year, on the day after Dussehra, there's a big festival (Ulsavam) in Vadakanchery, with a procession of elephants and a traditional Kerala musical ensemble called Pancha Vadyam. Gracie, my sister Shyamala, and I were in Vadakanchery last October for the festival, and this video was recorded then (Oct 3, 2006). I made this edited version from that footage.

The procession starts at the temple at the top of the Gramam (Tamil Brahmin village) in Vadakanchery, stops in front of my aunt's house (where this video ends), and then continues on to the second village temple, at the bottom of the hill.

Dussehra, also called Vijaya Dasami in Tamil, is one of India's two major Hindu festivals. The day afterwards is called Eka Dasi, or the "eleventh day after the new moon."

Pancha Vadyam (or "five instruments") is one of Kerala's great folk art forms, called Pancha Vadyam. Featuring three different types of drum, horns, and the conch shell (and the bells that are common in Hindu religious music), it really shows off the great syncopated rhythms of south Indian music.

The video is below, or you can view it on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNuv79As1QY

Nobody In Mind

This is a version of the song by the great blues "shouter" Big Joe Turner (vocals) and Pete Johnson (piano). It's a simple 8-bar blues, but a hard song to get worked out and play with the right groove to it. This is getting close.

The lyrics are kind of strange at the end, but it's a cool song as long as one doesn't take the lyrics too seriously.

Swami

Georgia On My Mind - Updated

It's taken a long time to work out this arrangement of the Hoagy Carmichael song (based on Ray Charles' chord changes). Coming up with an arrangement that worked for solo piano and vocal was hard, but fun. I like this result. Lemme know what you think.

I posted a rehearsal of this earlier, last year. This is much more polished. Still not quite done, as you can see :)

Swami

Amazing Grace

It's always been my favorite Christian hymn, but it wasn't until recently that I learned the history of the song, written by a reformed English slave-trader named John Newton. My daughter's also named Grace, and that makes it an even more special song for me.

I've been working on arranging and learning a version based on Charles Brown's version of this song, from his album "These Blues." It's been almost a year, but I finally got it figured out, and then sat down to record it at Jennifer's last Thursday. Good timing too, since the movie "Amazing Grace" came out Friday, and it's the story of the end of the British slave trade (which ended Feb 23, 200 years ago).

Here's the video of the session. I hope you enjoy it. Do let me know what you think.

Swami