Track Listings
1. Shake 'Em On Down
2. I Am In The Heavenly Way
3. Atlanta Special
4. Drunk Man Blues
5. Army Blues
6. Aberdeen Mississippi Blues
7. Baby Please Dont' Go
8. New Orleans, Streamline
9. Parchman Farm Blues
10. Poor Boy Long Way From Home
11. Remembrance Of Charlie Patton
BUKKA WHITE BIOGRAPHY
White started his career playing the fiddle at square dances.
He claims to have met Charlie Patton early on, although
some doubt has been cast upon this; regardless, Patton was
a large influence on White. He typically played slide guitar,
in an open tuning. He was one of the few, along with Skip
James, to use a crossnote tuning in E minor, which he may
have learned, as James did, from Henry Stuckey.
He first recorded for the Victor label in 1930. His recordings
for Victor, like those of many other bluesmen, fluctuated
between country blues and gospel numbers. His gospel songs
were done in the style of Blind Willie Johnson, with a female
singer accentuating the last phrase of each line.
Nine years later, while serving time, he recorded for folklorist
John Lomax. The few songs he recorded around this time became
his most well-known: "Shake 'Em On Down," and
"Po' Boy."
Bob Dylan covered his song "Fixin' to Die Blues",
which aided a "rediscovery" of White in 1963 by
guitarist John Fahey and ED Denson, which propelled him
onto the folk revival scene of the 1960s. White had recorded
the song simply because his other songs had not particularly
impressed the Victor record producer. It was a studio composition
which White had thought little of
until it re-emerged thirty years later
Fahey and Denson found White easily enough: they wrote a
letter to "Bukka White (Old Blues Singer), c/o General
Delivery, Aberdeen, Mississippi." Fahey had assumed,
given White's song, "Aberdeen, Mississippi", that
White still lived there, or nearby. The postcard was forwarded
to Memphis, Tennessee, where White worked in tank factory.
Fahey and Denson soon travelled to meet Bukka White. He
and Fahey remained friends throughout White's life,] and
he recorded a new album for Fahey's Takoma Records. Denson
became his manager.
White was, later in life, also friends with fellow musician
Furry Lewis. The two recorded, mostly in Lewis' Memphis,
Tennessee apartment, an album together, Furry Lewis, Bukka
White & Friends: Party! At Home.
One of his most famous songs, "Parchman Farm Blues",
about the Mississippi's infamous Parchman Farm state prison,
was to be released on Harry Smith's fourth, never realized,
volume of the Anthology of American Folk Music. His 1937
version of the oft-recorded song,"Shake 'em on Down,"
is considered definitive, and became a hit while White was
serving time in Parchman.
Bukka White was heavily sampled by electronic artist Recoil
for the track, "Electro Blues For Bukka White,"
in 1992, which is essentially just his bluesy vocals over
a very clean electronic backing, blending the genres. The
song was reworked and re-released on the 2000 EP "Jezebel".
