Randogs Pick Of The Day, Nov.2 Robt ShawThe Ma Grinder Texas Barrelhouse Piano-Arhoolie CD 377 When Chris Strachwitz Arhoolie Records celebrated their 20th Anniversary (the notes here say 1981) I had not been long in Mr. Strachitz employ, and was only beginning to enjoy that unique musical universe.There was an amazing party held to mark the occasion, and Mr. Shaw, the featured artist here, who had ridden a Greyhound from Austin TX, was an unexpected and largely unknown guest. He had left the music business many years prior to become a successful grocer and barbecue entrepreneur, but had been recorded by folklorist Mac McCormick in 1963 in a style that was archaic even then. Those recordings made up the Arhoolie album that Chris later released, and they, along with some later things Chris recorded at Roberts home, make up this CD reissue. The songs and tunes here are excellent examples of a regional variant of the barrelhouse piano sound called The Santa Fe group, and the music is alternately sedate and sophisticated, forceful and funky. Shaws singing voice is reminiscent of Skip James, and his playing is designed to, as he remembered the girls in the honkytonks exclaim,Oh, Daddy, put me in the alley... Mr. Shaw was confronted that night by the only piano provided for for the party, an electric, which he had never played before.Undaunted, he pounded out several examples of his repertoire, putting us in the alley, although we were in fact in the recreation hall (gym) of St. Marks Parish Hall in Richmond, Ca. It was quite a party (other performers included Clifton Chenier, Rose Maddox, Dewey Balfa, ao), but one of my enduring memories of the affair is of this middle aged man and his mesmerizing music.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 18:44:08 +0000
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