Filthy Blues of the 20′s and 30′s: Your Grandparents Aren’t as Innocent as You Thought.
I normally don’t much care for blues and jazz, save for a few exceptions here and there, but the histories of both are something I find deeply interesting. The reason for this is because both they’re wrapped in all sorts of rumor and unverified word-of-mouth that’s both somewhat well-documented and at once seedy. The legend of Robert Johnson’s sale of his soul to the devil comes to mind.
Another aspect of blues I’d known about for quite some time but really haven’t looked at at all is the music that came out of after-hours adult clubs of the time. I’m thinking of those night club scenes in 20′s-30′s period movies where the super-hot girl sings the song, only it’s crazy god-damn dirty. And a lot of the music from these joints is dirty enough to make Luther Campbell blush.
One of the more famous names from this club circuit is Lucille Bogan, who also recorded under the name Bessie Anderson and pretty clearly had a colorful sexual life. Here’s a lil’ tune called “Till the Cows Come Home.” For the record, during this time, the word “Cock” was AAVE for ladyparts. So, yeah. NSFW language in this and pretty much every song:
Lucille Bogan Till the Cows Come Home
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Here’s “Shave ‘em Dry,” which has a similar, though a bit less braggadocious, theme:
Lil Johnson, whose early life is less well-documented than Bogan’s, recorded material that was just as bawdy in some ways, but it was significantly more playful both in tone and language. You’ll most likely recognize “Get ‘em From the Peanut Man (Hot Nuts),” as it’s something of a novelty song that’s lived on through the years:
“Push My Button” is a little bit less playful and more in-your-face in terms of tone, but there’s still quite a bit of playfulness when it comes to language–which means fewer occurrences of the word “Fuck,” but more things like “Put your hot dog in my bun.” Yep.
There’s an outside chance that your grandfather heard this and said to himself, “Hell. YES.” Think about that for just a second.
There’s really no end to this kind of blues, and it’s certainly representative of a time in this kind of music that’s gone by. Really, though, it’s transferred to other genres, lyrically speaking. 2 Live Crew comes to mind–and there are countless rappers who’ve taken the torch since then. But the whole thing didn’t start with 2 Live Crew, as lots of folks (like me, previously) seem to think.
In fact, you can find a compilation cd chock full of this type of blues right here. Wild.
To round things out, here’s “Rubbin’ On the Darned Ole Thing.” Yes, it means exactly what you think it does.
Posted: October 29th, 2010 | Author: maoglone | Filed under: Music | Tags: blues, Copulation Blues, dirty, Lil Johnson, Lucille Bogan, Music, NSFW, sex | No Comments »
