I started listening to Mance when I was 19 (in 1986). It started when I bought Exile on Main Street when i was 17 & started working my way backwards to the blues. I moved to Dallas after college and immersed myself into Texas Blues. Good times!
Please remember that Mance Lipscomb never called himself a blues singer but a SONGSTER! He began also singing blues when they became popular in the 1920s - but he always enjoyed ALL kinds of songs that told a story which he called in the pre-blues era Billets or Reels!
Yeah, many people assume that guys like Mance only played Delta or some style of blues particular to the region where they grew up, but in truth, if they wanted paid work as musicians, they had to learn popular tunes of the day, things being played on the radio or from best-selling records. I used to have a book of collected interviews with some of the classic old blues guys where Mance and Jesse Fuller in particular both spoke about this. The reason that the 1920's to 1940's recordings are mostly blues is because when some guy (most likely white) showed up with portable recording equipment and a few dollars in a paper sack, and asked for "race music", the musician said "yes suh" and complied. I write this for the benefit of others, but you, Chris Strachwitz, assuming you're the real Chris Strachwitz, obviously don't need me to tell you this! I am fully in agreement with what you said in the documentary film: "I don't need no mouse music!"
So good to see an acknowledged authority state this. I've seen so many songsters referred to as "King of the Blues" etc,some of whom, Mississippi John Hurt for instance, have only a small proportion of blues recordings. Perhaps it's a bit sweeping to say that it suggests to me, firstly, that the commenter hasn't heard many pre war black singers, and secondly that they can't actually distinguish a blues from a non blues song. If you want to call my bluff on that, we'll I'm not a musician and can't define the blues. But I sure as hell know what it sounds like. I've got a very interesting and convincing book "Escaping the Delta", forget the author offhand. Part history of Robert Johnson, part essay on the theory that MOST "blues" singers of the time were pretty much songsters.
Broke finger, piece of s*** Harmony Sovereign, and a $1 pocket knife. Try that folks. Unbelievable artist. This man gets six stars in my book out of a possible 5. He was in his own league.
Apparently not a pos guitar, id get one if they werent so damn expensive. Maybe ill get lucky and find a good one cheap, but they are like $500 or more
$1 pocket knife? Could be an Imperial. . . you could easily put a razor's edge on one of those & it would be as dull as a butter knife after slicing it through a piece of paper.
Harmony's are great and this is not a sovereign looks like a H 162 to me. solid spruce top and solid mahogany back and sides and that nice ladder braced punchy sound. You don't realize why he liked it so much do you ?
I started listening to Mance when I was 19 (in 1986). It started when I bought Exile on Main Street when i was 17 & started working my way backwards to the blues. I moved to Dallas after college and immersed myself into Texas Blues. Good times! My favorite Mance song is "Tom Moore Blues". It's kind of autobiographical. Also, check out Jimmie Vaughan's "Little Son, Big Son". His playing has a heavy Mance influence. Both are on RUclips and my channel.
Tom I lived 10miles from Mance during his last years and used to go visit him all the time. I once brought him over to my grandpa's house to introduce them to each other. Grandpa was 6 months older than Mance and they grew up in the same community at the same time - one white and one black. They had a great visit and later in the afternoon my grandfather felt sick so Mance and I drove him to the hospital over in Navasota where they took care of grandpa but kept him there a couple of days. During those days Tom Moore and his wife came to visit grandpa as Tom's wife was my grandma's niece. During that time grandpa was starting to feel pretty good and enjoying his visitors and he told Tom that I had brought Mance over to his house and Mance played the guitar for him and made him sick ! Of course that wasn't what had happened at all but I later related that story to Mance and he just laughed ! Mance always asked about how my grandpa was every time I'd go visit him after that !
Mance I could only wish I could be as cool as you are at the age you were in this old video, A buggered up finger and playing slide with a pocket knife and sounding great ......Love yeah man your one of the greatest
Huh when you talk blues these old dudes will never be outdone they really knew what it took to mix the salts and soils from just trying to live and gave them a flavor that became the blues with a few chords bending notes on old beat up guitars. With a hammer on and a pull off they taught how to love and appreciate what you have by being real i think every modern music star should have to sit down and watch these old clips and learn about the reality. Of this is where all American music comes from not big time recording companys but from the heart of the blues
When he was at Reed College around 1972 he did 3 consecutive versions of C C Rider but totally different arrangements. He also told me that he played on Lemon Jefferson's grave.
A true story about Mance: He was asked by a New Orleans dentist to play at his wife's garden party, but Mance told him that he couldn't sing because his false teeth were stolen. So the dentist made him a set of false teeth that not only had gold stars on the upper front two, but had Mance" engraved in gold script on the upper plate. Mance showed them to me one time.
(Steve E. using his partner's RUclips ID) This was at a performance at a church in Cambridge MA in 72 or 73 (I think). Mance and Joseph Spence, maybe 20 people in the audience. I was a street musician hanging with a girl from Quebec. She'd met Mance when he played in Montreal and he'd told her the story. After Mance and Joseph played, she introduced me and Mance told me the story himself. Then Mance eyed my guitar case and suggested I take it out. So I sat and played with Mance and Joseph Spence for an hour or so. Mance didn't have the finger problem then and he was playing a pretty new looking Gibson, which was't anywhere near as loud and projecting as the 30s Kalamazoo I played at the time. One thing: Mance played murder ballads and was totally straight and gentle. Joseph played christmas carols and had a flask of whiskey at the ready.
Ha ! I remember those teeth ! Mance was so proud of them he used to pull them out and wipe them off with a paper towel then hand them to you so you could get a close look at them ! I'd go over to his house to visit often as I lived 10 miles from him during the last part of his life. One of my favorite memories was during the wee hours of the night when it was just Mance and me in his front room and he'd gotten into a playing groove with me hanging on every note. I got up and went into his bathroom to pee and while standing at his toilet i looked down on the top of the tank and saw those gold teeth sitting in a bowl soaking for the night ! 🤗
played Jack O' Diamonds slide style with a pocket knife. i had a stack of his ablums in 74', and he passed in '76. lots of stories about him now. some may be true. some are made up. not many use his thumping low E bass line style today. Never be another man like Mance. that's true. Mance is short for Emancipation.
RIP Chris Strachwitz. You may not have had the talent of some of the musical giants you recorded, but without those recordings we would never have heard them. 10 May, 2023
" piece of s*** Harmony Sovereign" you say? Bull**** say I. They were a great cheap guitar, lots of bass, better than a lot more expensive guitars for the purpose.
i think his tuning is fine, and sounds great. if hes a little flat or sharp or whatever its okay because hes tuned the strings all relative to each other. this style of music doesnt pertain to super precise tuning anyway.
David Stutz, one other possibility ---- Acoustic guitars, whether cheap or well built, didn't hold up well under heat and humidity, and/or under the tension of cheap strings, and as the neck bowed (probably didn't have a truss rod) and the soundboard and bridge bellied upwards, the string action got progressively higher and higher, which meant that pushing the strings down to the frets from a great height actually stretched the strings sufficiently to pull them a little sharp. Most modern guitarists would probably find these guitars virtually unplayable, but the old blues men were often manual laborers who picked cotton and did farm work and anything else they could to make a living, and they probably had a hand grip like an iron vise!
The value of recordings like this is beyond measure.
These GREAT old bluesmen!!! Enormous!!! And a wounded? finger doesn’t bother.
The groove deeper than into the bone!Peet the Swede
Just listening to Mance speak and describing his music is a gift, let alone hearing Mance play. How the world needs a good man like Mance.
Fact
Thumbs up if you're under 25 and listening to this...... there's hope for you
thnx pal
This is the shit thats why. Nothing to do with age
I started listening to Mance when I was 19 (in 1986). It started when I bought Exile on Main Street when i was 17 & started working my way backwards to the blues. I moved to Dallas after college and immersed myself into Texas Blues. Good times!
I'm 20, and I recognize that crumb drawing ya got there.
If one doesn’t like real deep music, one doesn’t like/love this!! Peet the Swede
9:28 the way he tuned that guitar and pop a knife as a slider. The best kind of guitarist:)
Please remember that Mance Lipscomb never called himself a blues singer but a SONGSTER! He began also singing blues when they became popular in the 1920s - but he always enjoyed ALL kinds of songs that told a story which he called in the pre-blues era Billets or Reels!
Yeah, many people assume that guys like Mance only played Delta or some style of blues particular to the region where they grew up, but in truth, if they wanted paid work as musicians, they had to learn popular tunes of the day, things being played on the radio or from best-selling records. I used to have a book of collected interviews with some of the classic old blues guys where Mance and Jesse Fuller in particular both spoke about this. The reason that the 1920's to 1940's recordings are mostly blues is because when some guy (most likely white) showed up with portable recording equipment and a few dollars in a paper sack, and asked for "race music", the musician said "yes suh" and complied. I write this for the benefit of others, but you, Chris Strachwitz, assuming you're the real Chris Strachwitz, obviously don't need me to tell you this! I am fully in agreement with what you said in the documentary film: "I don't need no mouse music!"
So good to see an acknowledged authority state this. I've seen so many songsters referred to as "King of the Blues" etc,some of whom, Mississippi John Hurt for instance, have only a small proportion of blues recordings. Perhaps it's a bit sweeping to say that it suggests to me, firstly, that the commenter hasn't heard many pre war black singers, and secondly that they can't actually distinguish a blues from a non blues song. If you want to call my bluff on that, we'll I'm not a musician and can't define the blues. But I sure as hell know what it sounds like.
I've got a very interesting and convincing book "Escaping the Delta", forget the author offhand. Part history of Robert Johnson, part essay on the theory that MOST "blues" singers of the time were pretty much songsters.
Emancipation Lipscomb. Unbelievable treasure.
big fan of mance listening to only him since past few years
Wow. You've posted some amazing treasures. Thank you for sharing brother. I hope to be wherever he is and all the other greats when I die.
wow real blues music and songs for a rainy valentines day in north east england top mance ##
robby dawkins
Read about this guy 40 years ago and tried to play a tune of his from tab and chords. So great to finally stumble across this. Incredible.
I love his smooth voice so melodic...his playin....wish I could have heard of while he was still alive...everyone needs to know bout him...lol...
The Godfather of a lot of fine musicians including Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, etc.
Broke finger, piece of s*** Harmony Sovereign, and a $1 pocket knife. Try that folks. Unbelievable artist. This man gets six stars in my book out of a possible 5. He was in his own league.
Apparently not a pos guitar, id get one if they werent so damn expensive. Maybe ill get lucky and find a good one cheap, but they are like $500 or more
@@KrazyKuul111 Mance up'd the price
@@woolymhon405 I've got a Sovereign and it is a cannon, as they say. It needs a neck set but it's great for slide. Very resonant.
$1 pocket knife? Could be an Imperial. . . you could easily put a razor's edge on one of those & it would be as dull as a butter knife after slicing it through a piece of paper.
Harmony's are great and this is not a sovereign looks like a H 162 to me. solid spruce top and solid mahogany back and sides and that nice ladder braced punchy sound. You don't realize why he liked it so much do you ?
open tuning pocket knife slide blues on Jack of Diamonds at 9:39. wonderful!
I started listening to Mance when I was 19 (in 1986). It started when I bought Exile on Main Street when i was 17 & started working my way backwards to the blues. I moved to Dallas after college and immersed myself into Texas Blues. Good times! My favorite Mance song is "Tom Moore Blues". It's kind of autobiographical. Also, check out Jimmie Vaughan's "Little Son, Big Son". His playing has a heavy Mance influence. Both are on RUclips and my channel.
Tom I lived 10miles from Mance during his last years and used to go visit him all the time. I once brought him over to my grandpa's house to introduce them to each other. Grandpa was 6 months older than Mance and they grew up in the same community at the same time - one white and one black. They had a great visit and later in the afternoon my grandfather felt sick so Mance and I drove him to the hospital over in Navasota where they took care of grandpa but kept him there a couple of days. During those days Tom Moore and his wife came to visit grandpa as Tom's wife was my grandma's niece. During that time grandpa was starting to feel pretty good and enjoying his visitors and he told Tom that I had brought Mance over to his house and Mance played the guitar for him and made him sick ! Of course that wasn't what had happened at all but I later related that story to Mance and he just laughed ! Mance always asked about how my grandpa was every time I'd go visit him after that !
Wow! Thanks for sharing.
@@BlindWillieJackson sure ! I loved that guy ! One the most outstanding people I have ever had the privilege to call my friend !
Another great find, love him,
Mance I could only wish I could be as cool as you are at the age you were in this old video, A buggered up finger and playing slide with a pocket knife and sounding great ......Love yeah man your one of the greatest
You gotta be an Aussie too...
I'm really enjoying these old videos, these are like a window into the past.
Brand new here...mind already blown,,...great musicianship
Huh when you talk blues these old dudes will never be outdone they really knew what it took to mix the salts and soils from just trying to live and gave them a flavor that became the blues with a few chords bending notes on old beat up guitars. With a hammer on and a pull off they taught how to love and appreciate what you have by being real i think every modern music star should have to sit down and watch these old clips and learn about the reality. Of this is where all American music comes from not big time recording companys but from the heart of the blues
well said
"With a hammer on and a pull off they taught how to love what you have" yeah man I feel you a lot
@@taurtue to "love the one your with."
Great feel and groove!!
Reminds of bassplayer Marcus Miller .. same look .. Peet the Swede
Dude this guy is a beast.
What a great voice - outstanding
The last track is incredible!
When he was at Reed College around 1972 he did 3 consecutive versions of C C Rider but totally different arrangements. He also told me that he played on Lemon Jefferson's grave.
...night time is the right time if it's the one you love - killer track and the sentiments resonates more as l age...
A true story about Mance:
He was asked by a New Orleans dentist to play at his wife's garden party, but Mance told him that he couldn't sing because his false teeth were stolen. So the dentist made him a set of false teeth that not only had gold stars on the upper front two, but had Mance" engraved in gold script on the upper plate. Mance showed them to me one time.
wow ,you knew Mance? Was this in Texas? Cool story!
Replying late by 3 years but none the less what a great story laughed out loud.
(Steve E. using his partner's RUclips ID) This was at a performance at a church in Cambridge MA in 72 or 73 (I think). Mance and Joseph Spence, maybe 20 people in the audience. I was a street musician hanging with a girl from Quebec. She'd met Mance when he played in Montreal and he'd told her the story. After Mance and Joseph played, she introduced me and Mance told me the story himself. Then Mance eyed my guitar case and suggested I take it out. So I sat and played with Mance and Joseph Spence for an hour or so. Mance didn't have the finger problem then and he was playing a pretty new looking Gibson, which was't anywhere near as loud and projecting as the 30s Kalamazoo I played at the time. One thing: Mance played murder ballads and was totally straight and gentle. Joseph played christmas carols and had a flask of whiskey at the ready.
Ha ! I remember those teeth ! Mance was so proud of them he used to pull them out and wipe them off with a paper towel then hand them to you so you could get a close look at them ! I'd go over to his house to visit often as I lived 10 miles from him during the last part of his life. One of my favorite memories was during the wee hours of the night when it was just Mance and me in his front room and he'd gotten into a playing groove with me hanging on every note. I got up and went into his bathroom to pee and while standing at his toilet i looked down on the top of the tank and saw those gold teeth sitting in a bowl soaking for the night ! 🤗
thank you ,,,, there are no words .. totally enjoying this wet Sunday Afternoon FolkSeatle
Este tipo es de otro planeta!
played Jack O' Diamonds slide style with a pocket knife. i had a stack of his ablums in 74', and he passed in '76. lots of stories about him now. some may be true. some are made up. not many use his thumping low E bass line style today. Never be another man like Mance. that's true. Mance is short for Emancipation.
Did he cut any vinyl or anyone's know he cut a few heads
Love the casual way he tips his hat at 9.30. If I tried that it would just fall off.
ridiculously good
ahh the good ole jack-knife blues...
RIP Chris Strachwitz. You may not have had the talent of some of the musical giants you recorded, but without those recordings we would never have heard them. 10 May, 2023
Jayzus, the man is good.
Oh come on man!..."See Your Mama" in F?...Have mercy!
I was thinking the same thing! F for frig sakes
Pure Music
Fantastic 😊
Thanks for sharing this
Who needs a $20 metal or glass bottle neck from Guitar Center. That knife works fine
What a gun!
9:36 All guitarists thumbs up if you tune your guitar in 20 seconds.
comment inet==With his broke old finger
And his bandaged hand
This tune gonna linger
Longer than a rock'n'roll band.
A lost art. We are evolving? These stories . The same thing happening today.
I've dedicated my life to its study. Paleo Blues, that is.
Hypnotic
2 of my fingers broke? i got another 2 and a thumb!
❤❤❤✌💙
7.56...9.17 jeezus wept
thanks to les blank for sending me here
Dear God: Keep Jesus. Send Mance back instead.
" piece of s*** Harmony Sovereign" you say? Bull**** say I. They were a great cheap guitar, lots of bass, better than a lot more expensive guitars for the purpose.
no shit
I noticed Mance doesn't tune his guitar that well and plays slightly out of tune.
i think his tuning is fine, and sounds great. if hes a little flat or sharp or whatever its okay because hes tuned the strings all relative to each other. this style of music doesnt pertain to super precise tuning anyway.
David Stutz, one other possibility ---- Acoustic guitars, whether cheap or well built, didn't hold up well under heat and humidity, and/or under the tension of cheap strings, and as the neck bowed (probably didn't have a truss rod) and the soundboard and bridge bellied upwards, the string action got progressively higher and higher, which meant that pushing the strings down to the frets from a great height actually stretched the strings sufficiently to pull them a little sharp. Most modern guitarists would probably find these guitars virtually unplayable, but the old blues men were often manual laborers who picked cotton and did farm work and anything else they could to make a living, and they probably had a hand grip like an iron vise!