The structure switches to 12 bar for the 2 verse solo.
Melody for the vocal is taken from the spritual "This Train". LW's original, unissued version of "My Babe", recorded 6 months prior was a more plodding one chord affair, but still with the vocal melody following "This Train", called "Mercy Babe".
Willie Dixon was the writer.
Last Edited by on May 27, 2011 12:49 PM
everytime you turn around you'll find willie dixon as the writer of a chicago blues song. pick a muddy tune, pick a wolf tune, etc. his contribution to post war blues cannot be under-estimated ----------
MP doctor of semiotics and reed replacement.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
Indeed Dixon was a colossus in the post-war Chicago blues scene, as a musician, writer, talent scout, arranger, producer...but it's also worth noting that, for instance, Muddy recorded dozens of tracks of his own material for Leonard Chess for 5 years before Dixon gave him Hoochie Coochie man. Post war Chicago blues also has other pivotal key players/lynch pins like the Chess brothers, Vee-Jay owners the Carters & Bracken, Bill Putnam @ Universal studios, Malcolm Chisholm (close personal friend of Dixon's) who worked for Putnam & later for Chess...it's a looong roll call when you start to join up the dots.
Last Edited by on May 27, 2011 4:08 PM
I am resonably sure that Willie Dixon is the only one from the above named that is a record producer AND a Grammy winner. Next to Muddy,he was responsible for shaping what would become the Post WWII Chicago sound. He was also responsible for the birth of Rock and Roll,contributing heavily on Chuck Berry's early recordings.
Last Edited by on May 27, 2011 4:40 PM
@ TMF714 "He (Dixon)was also responsible for the birth of Rock and Roll, contributing heavily on Chuck Berry's early recordings."
True...but Berry's early recordings were done at Putnam's Universal, engineered by Chisholm (who was handling the Chess account for Universal at the time)...they all contributed, it's all interlinked.
JOB, Vee-Jay, Chess all used Universal, Putman still continued to consult for Chess after they had their own studio. If any one person is most responsible for capturing the sound of post war Chicago blues (as well as the other genres they recorded) it's probably Putnam. Putnam was also a Grammy recipient.
Some feel that Rocket 88 was the first rock & roll record, me? It (RnR) is just a label.
Last Edited by on May 27, 2011 5:12 PM
Still does not change the facts-Rock and Roll was born in the good old USA-it's not just a label,it's a feeling-it's a mix of blues,country,jazz and gospel. British rock has a distinct "flavor" if you will-if that's your idea of rock,it's not even close to what we had here.
Last Edited by on May 27, 2011 5:16 PM
saw willie dixon @ blues concert on vanderbilt campus in about 1980 talked to him after the concert he was a class act and said "the blues are the facts of life" so true
@TMF714 "Still does not change the facts-Rock and Roll was born in the good old USA-it's not just a label,it's a feeling-it's a mix of blues,country,jazz and gospel. British rock has a distinct "flavor" if you will-if that's your idea of rock,it's not even close to what we had here."
I've got to say, I have no idea what prompted this comment? What is the relevance of this to RnR, post-war blues, or the price of eggs? How does it reflect anything written in my posts?
My point was that music that sounded pretty much the same as RnR was recorded prior to the phrase becoming coined and a "new" genre being accepted, as Jr Wells once said, "If Arthur Crudup sings That's all right mama, it's the blues, but if Elvis sings it, that's rock & roll...what's the difference?"
I'm not aware that there was any debate about where blues, RnR, (jazz & soul for that matter) were "born"? I think your "zeal" is getting the better of you...again. You could have an argument with yourself if there was no one else to do it with.
Last Edited by on May 28, 2011 6:11 AM
YOU GUYS ARE A ROIT LMAO. i love coming back home after a gig and seeing all these comments. aww i do have i Bb harp just not a sp20 one i have a golden melody Bb harp so i will be tackling this song after i take a nap. i had to spend the night at larrys after the gig last night it was 1hr 45mins away from my house so i slept there. we got paid 100 each!!!!!!!! plus got to eat for free and i drank had a good buzz most of the night lol. anyway larry has a lot of cats so that kinda sucked but larry is a awsome dude very good hearted guy. thank you guys for the quick responses i love LW
Only in MBH forum land could a question about a song key turn into an argument over Willie Dixon's place in Rock and Roll/Blues History... whether Rock and Roll is a "label" or a "feeling", and where Rock and Roll's "birth" took place.
The MBH forum is better than Monty Python's argument clinic.
Oh yeah, My Babe...love it.
Last Edited by on May 31, 2011 5:22 AM
5F6H is right about the switch in chord progressions, more or less. I believe that "This Train" is considered a gospel song, not a spiritual, and that's not an insignificant distinction. Spirituals such as "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" and "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" were antebellum in derivation and were first popularized by the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Gospel emerged in the 1920s and early 1930s; it was a fusion of black religious music with blues feeling and blues rhythms, instigated primarily by Thomas Dorsey (former bluesman turned gospel propagator); it was spread north by black southerners, and it was taken as a threat by the mainline black churches up north. They preferred their spirituals, which were more sedate and more "white," in a manner of speaking. Gospel blues (as the fusion was called) was aggressive, bluesy, and it seemed to conjure up too much enthusiasm, too much dancing in the aisles.
"My Babe" clearly derives not just from "This Train," but more generally from what had by LW's time become THE standard 16-bar gospel blues progression. Ray Charles later used it in "I Got a Woman." It's the same 16-bar progression used in "Poor Boy" (Howlin' Wolf's version, which I cover on KICK AND STOMP.)
With all the focus on 12-blues as a template for harp players (and other blues players), and 8-bar blues as the occasional alternate chordal universe (and there are at least three different 8-bar blues patterns, as I make clear in a lesson for sale on this website), the 16-bar pattern deserves to be a part of every harp player's study. In a minor key, it's the progression for Stanley Turrentine's "Sugar." It's all over the place. Harp players need to master it.
And it's used in "My Babe." And the solo section definitely switches to a 12-bar. If you're performing the song live, it would be good to discuss with the band whether you want to make that switch, or whether you want to play over the 16-bar portion.
Last Edited by on May 31, 2011 6:43 AM
