- Joined
- 06 Nov 15
- Moves
- 41301
@sonhouse saidWow! I've never heard of that guy. It's as if he's channeling Robert Johnson. Sounds like you were blessed to have learned from an under-sung legend. Thanks for the introduction.
@WOLFE63
Some 25 minutes with Blind Reverand Gary Davis, who taught me some of his tunes,
[youtube]4fpPgo4Deo4[/youtube]
I've always appreciated "The Blues". Especially because of my natural interest in their history and painful origins. But I must admit that most of my exposure has been limited.
I guess I'm late-in-life escapee from my own generation.
@WOLFE63
My main teach ATT was Mike Stewart AKA Backwards Sam Firk.
He got that moniker because of his initials, Michael A Stewart. MAS. His buddy Tom Hoskins, his blues name, Fang, noticed it was SAM spelled backwards🙂
So he was Backwards Sam. Then someone dangled Firk at the end and THAT stuck, now and forever more, he was Backwards Sam Firk🙂
His recording buddy was Stephan Michaelson, AKA Delta X and Gene Rosenthal from Adelphi Records in Maryland recorded their albums.
Long story of how I ran into Firk but I ended up his student and he gave me a copy of his album, with Delta X, and when I got home and played it. I had to play it about 3 times through for it to register in my head just how FUKKING GOOD he was! Both of them. When I finally figured out they were playing like I never heard before I went back as his student totally humbled.....
Tom Hoskins, AKA Fang, and Firk, knew of a great Delta blues player and singer named Mississippi John Hurt and they hunted around for old maps because one of Hurt's songs was Avalon Blues, "Avalon is my home'' was in the song and using that hint they finally found a map of Mississppi with Avalon on it. So Tom drove down there and here he is, a white man in a black town, he asked around if they knew Mississippi John Hurt, "Sure, down the road till you see that blue shuttered house' and so he went down there knocked on the door and asked if John Hurt was home, they were suspicious, didn't have white folks come to their town much but Fang had an old 78 they had collected from around 1926 and showed him, and John just broke out in a big smile and the rest is history.
Tom called Mike and Mike drove from his house in Tacoma park Maryland to Avalon Mississippi and they drove back to Mike's house where John Hurt stayed for about 3 months and mike learned a lot of tunes from John. I wish I had been his student ATT but I came on the scene around 1968 or so and Tom and Mike rediscovered John in 1963 and John had a great 5 years till he died in 1968 too late for me to have met him.
But Firk was such a blues sponge, he bought and sold old 78's and as opposed to most collectors his goal was to learn every lick on every frigging record! And he did for the most part.
Tom and Mike are both dead now so an era for me was over.
but I never forgot the lessons from that acoustic blues genius, Backwards Sam Firk.
