They Got The Blues

Introduction

I was listening to an album on the roots of Jimi Hendrix and the first song on was "Killing Floor" by Howlin' Wolf. Then I thought that Blues singers often had such excellent alternate names. Mckinley Morganfield became Muddy Waters although is real name was something special too.

Then I thought this could be a brilliant plagiaristic poem, using the artist's name and a song they sang.

Then I could follow it with a playlist.

They Got The Blues

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Howlin' Wolf Was Down On The Killing Floor

Muddy Waters Was Just A Mannish Boy

Lightnin' Hopkins Said Baby Please Don't Go

Black Ace said I Am The Black Ace, Enjoy

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Captain Beefheart Was a Hard Workin' Man

Lead Belly Asked Where Did You Sleep Last Night

Blind Lemon Jefferson Sang Black Snake Moan

Howlin' Wolf Saw Trains Gush Smokestack Lightning

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Bumble Bee Slim Fattenin' Frogs For Snakes

Pink Anderson Sang I Got A Woman

Floyd Council Runaway Man Blues, It Shakes

Washboard Sam Says Yes I Got Your Woman

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Shakey Jake Harris, An Angry Lover

Tail Dragger Jones You Can Go, It's Over

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The Blues They Got

Howlin' Wolf - "Killing Floor"

Chester Arthur Burnett

Muddy Waters - "Mannish Boy"

McKinley Morganfield

Lightnin' Hopkins - "Baby Please Don't Go"

Samuel John Hopkins

Black Ace - "I Am The Black Ace"

Babe Kyro Lemon Turner

Captain Beefheart - "Hard Workin' Man"

The rhythm on this was provided by a car body printing press.

Don Van Vliet

Leadbelly - "Where Did You Sleep Last Night"

Huddie William Ledbetter

Blind Lemon Jefferson - "Black Snake Moan"

Lemon Henry Jefferson

Howlin' Wolf - "Smokestack Lightning"

This is a favourite riff of mine and I love the story of how he came up with the title.

Wolf said the song was inspired by watching trains in the night: "We used to sit out in the country and see the trains go by, watch the sparks come out of the smokestack. That was smokestack lightning."

Bumble Bee Slim - "Fattenin' Frogs For Snakes"

Admirl Amos Easton

Pink Anderson - "I Got A Woman"

Pinkney Anderson

Floyd Council - "Runaway Man Blues"

The reason I included Pink Anderson and Floyd Council is that Syd Barret used their forenames to come up with the name "Pink Floyd"

Syd Barrett, of the English psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd, created the band's name by juxtaposing the first names of Council and South Carolina bluesman Pink Anderson, having noticed the names in the liner notes of a 1962 album by Blind Boy Fuller (Philips BBL-7512), written by the blues historian Paul Oliver: "Curley Weaver and Fred McMullen, ... Pink Anderson or Floyd Council—these were a few amongst the many blues singers that were to be heard in the rolling hills of the Piedmont, or meandering with the streams through the wooded valleys."

Washboard Sam - "Yes I Got Your Woman"

Robert Clifford Brown

Shakey Jake Harris - "Angry Lover"

James D. Harris

Tail Dragger Jones - "You Gotta Go"

James Yancey Jones

The Plagiaristic Poetry Concept

Essentially this is where you take a lot of existing related worlds and put them together in a poem. The "Plagiaristic" part is a jokey play on the concept of plagiarism which is unacceptable. But here I am taking something that already exists and making something new.

Every word that you use in everything that you write has already been used somewhere else, so does that make us all plagiarists? It doesn't, unless those words stretch into sentences, paragraphs and complete stories.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading and listening, this was meant to be a short piece but it turned out to be a fourteen song playlist as well.

I hope you enjoyed it