TAXI.com

Here is a listing that is confusing.

New Listing MEMPHIS BLUES SONGS and INSTRUMENTALS a la Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, etc., needed by a successful Music Placement Company that is very TAXI-friendly. They want to hear authentic sounding Memphis Blues compositions, please do not send in Texas, Delta or Chicago Blues styles. Performances must be top-notch and must also evoke the real, gritty, gutsy feel of this style. Remember, your track will be used to add authenticity and feel to a scene. Original songs and instrumentals only please Ð DO NOT send in cover versions. Broadcast quality is needed (excellent home recordings will work, too). Please submit one to three songs online or per CD, include lyrics. All submissions will be screened and critiqued by TAXI and must be received no later than Thursday, May 19, 2011. TAXI #S110519BL.

Howlin' Wolf lived in West Memphis, Arkansas with his brother in law Sonny Boy Williamson II. These guys went to Chicago, signed with Chess Records and along with Willie Dixon wrote a whole bunch of blues songs that are standards. Sonny Boy had a radio program - King Biscuit Hour - in Memphis and when he went to Chicago took a lot of his sidemen with him. Sonny Boy did not record much at all in Memphis. Even Memphis Slim went to Chicago to perform and record with Willie Dixon and Matt 'Guitar' Murphy after the end of WWII.

Question - are the tunes written in Chicago representative of the Memphis sound? The songs definitely had their roots in the south. I am going to submit "Good Bye Baby" and "Weatherman"(on my taxi page).

Well it also says no Delta music and Memphis is in the delta, I think they are probably wanting blues in the style of Sun Records, stopping short of Elvis Presley. In other words, Howlin Wolf and B.B.King,lol! Of course Otis Redding was at Stax in Memphis, but he was considered more soul than blues, of course if you do some Howlin Wolf vocals, you won't have a voice left and then can do a B.B. King instrumental,lol!

Hookjaw the two songs sound great, but I have to say "Weatherman" was definitely Chicago blues. It might ice in Memphis, but snow??

hmm Len surely has a point about the snow line...but then again ...what was the weather like during that particular year?

Youse guys gave me a good chuckle!!

So I looked it up........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBoSmZamcIY

January 2011.

You noticed I never said it never snowed. Probably all this global warming. At least Atlanta has a couple snow plows, I got stuck in Birmingham once while we waited for the road graders to plow snow off the interstate. I suppose if you wanted to make the song a contemporary Memphis blues song, you could call it, "Global Warming Weatherman"!

Hee....!

You just made my mind throw out a lyric.

"I want to go where it never snows
and my baby stays hot all the time"

Good one, no doubt it's not Chicago!lol!

Hehe, where do you live, Hook?

To me Good Bye Baby sounded close to Memphis style blues in my ears. I would call that a la Howlin' Wolf, mostly due to the vocals. Weatherman sounded a little bit closer to Chicago style, mostly due to the vocal style and the heavily featured harmonica, I think.

Usually I think of Chicago blues as a little more edgy with rock undertones (Buddy Guy), sometimes using harmonica as the idiomatic feature, and Memphis style as slightly more smooth, sometimes with jazzy undertones, also with horns as the idiomatic feature.

But it IS really hard to pin down specific genre divisions like that, as reality is much more nuanced and not as carved out in carbon. The genre interpretations are often made from a cliché standpoint (from an imagination of what a non-blues audience would percieve as blues from those specific rural areas).

Wondered if you guys submitted to the Memphis Blues listing?
I always considered Wolf to be more Chicago than Memphis.
If your still active on this I would always welcome your thoughts on my submission.
A' the best,

Tom

www.taxi.com/tomanderson

'Under Your Thumb'