Obscure Musical Stuff I Know

And Things I Think That You Should Know Too...


Have I mentioned that I spent a good deal of my life with a Trumpet in my hands a long time ago?

Probably not, because I never really mastered the instrument beyond a tolerable level of competence although I played it through junior high, high school, and into college in the GT Naval ROTC band.

In fact, the first time I went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans I was actually IN Mardi Gras, trumpet in hand, as our band was invited to march and play in three major parades--Bacchus, Edymoyn and Poydras (I think)--on Canal Street and in the Superdome.

Any way, today I currently own an old Holton B flat trumpet and a cheap Chinese Fluglehorn like Chuck "Feels So Good" Mangione plays, but best intentions aside they spend most of their time in their cases these days as my lips have lost their finely tuned pucker as a result of disuse. (By disuse I mean that talking and eating don't qualify for keeping your skills using an instrument with a mouthpiece in tune...)

I also have a real Australian Didgeridoo, a genuine Hawaiian Ukulele, and a whole box full of Horner and Lee Oscar Harmonicas laying around in my office at any given time, and I can make strange noises with my armpits and wet my hands and make funny fart like sounds and wait a minute...I lost my train of thought here...

...wait...

...I've got it...

...I know, what I was saying was that I consider myself to be sort of a musical person on and off through the years, and I pride myself in carrying fairly high standards when it comes to the music I listen to because I find silence or the roar of a power tool to be vastly superior to much of the stuff put out on CD since they stopped making 8 track tapes and vinyl records.

Any way, I've been working on singing the Blues when we do our karaoke nights out the past half year and you already saw the Elvis Presley's "Tryin' To Get To You" and some other stuff I've put up here in the past.

Tonight I present for your enjoyment a man I greatly admire--Big Joe Turner --who's career spanned 60 years from the 1920's until he died in 1985.

As I understand it, Big Joe started out singing without a microphone or electricity in taverns and juke joints and a result became famous not only for his singing but for belting out his lyrics at a HUGE volume, with no amplification.

I'm a fan of his work and if you Google him or go to Best Buy and check out the blues section you'll be surprised of the volume of his work and the songs he did that other people like Elvis covered in later years.

Here's a couple of links to YouTube showing Big Joe doing what he did best at the Apollo Theater in about 1954:




...then about ten years later in 1965:





And if you haven't had enough, listen to this:



I find it to be comforting to find stuff like this recorded for posterity on YouTube...maybe some day a hundred years from now people will see me singing Big Joe's hits at the local karaoke bar...

Then again...Probably not, but that will be all...for now...