I thought of this song while i was noticing the empty feeling my various relinquished addictions have left me. the song really isn't about that at all. i just thought of the word "dissatisfied" and that took me to the song, so rather than dwell on itches (which can't be scratched without self-harm and will return as soon as the scratching stops anyway), i started contemplating the song.
interesting record in that it is i think the only known recorded example of Sonny Boy 2 playing a chromatic, although its likely a Koch and he plays it mainly like a diatonic, only utilising the slide on the 3 draw for a semitone dip from major to minor 3rd. i suppose you could say he is using the slide for the whole song though, as he is playing in Aflat and holding the button in
the harp part is simple enough, as are most of the words with the exception of the 1st line. I think there is just one word which i can't hear in the opening statement "i am dissatisfied and i'll ___ you to be to blame"
i'm struggling to hear "to blame" really, but it likely rhymes with "the same" and when i think it is "to blame" i can just about make it out.
but the opening "i am dissatisfied and i'll" sounds like "fort" or maybe "thought"
any thoughts? maybe its a dialectic thing which i haven't found before?
If you look at the pic above SBI had very bad teeth. That had to affect his pronunciation. I read someplace he had such dental nightmares he always kept a pint or half pint of medicine in his jacket. I grew up in the northeast so the speech pattern and usage was unfamiliar to me as well but somehow it just made sense. ---------- Music and travel destroy prejudice.
I think Bill is correct. He is saying found, but pronounces it as fount due to the lack of teeth as Jbone pointed out. ---------- Wisdom does not always come with old age. Sometimes old age arrives alone.
Last Edited by Sarge on Dec 27, 2018 5:42 AM
It is a great song and since my friend in Alabama sent me his late father-in-law’s 10 hole ‘chromonica’, which is tuned like a standard diatonic, same as the Koch, i am beginning to try copying what Sonny Boy did on this record. I think it can be done quite adequately on a Db diatonic probably but maybe they were not commonly available in the 50s?
It’s fun to use this old chromonica anyway. I did a rebuild and glued the original comb, which was quite clean but had the usual crack through the long slots. The reeds were quite clean. I discarded the windsavers and ‘half-valved’ it afresh. The mouthpiece is still in good shape with all the plating intact, (unlike my prewar 270 which is worn through to the brass)
At first i was a little disappointed with the result but i found the sharp plate plays much better than the C plate, so thats just fine for these “slide held in” songs.
The 2 songs i have found in the ‘blues canon’ which use such a harp are this and Little Walter’s “Oh Baby!”. Both pretty cool songs.
So I have a couple of C chromatics, one is a Chromonica II and one is a Hering low C. Maybe I can work something up too, ya think? ---------- Music and travel destroy prejudice.
Those are fairly different to my old chromonica, Jbone. If you don’t press the button on mine, it plays just like a standard C diatonic. If you hold the button in, it plays like a standard Db diatonic.
I half-valved the first 6 holes, so you can still bend it like a diatonic but it is not so leaky as a completely unvalved harp.
Really I think you’d find playing ‘Dissatisfied’ easier on a standard Dflat than on a standard (ie ‘solo tuned’) chromatic.
There is a kind of distinctive tone he achieved, particularly when he lets the button out on the 3 draw, but this really isn’t much different to just bending in the normal way. I think! I haven’t gone very far with it yet, just the intro. And I haven’t tried it on a Dflat, but it seems it should all be possible. Just the ‘dips’ will have a different character. I really don’t know, I’m just guessing that these harps were the easiest way to play in A flat using familiar 2nd position licks.
But I don’t know why he’d have wanted to play in Ab, unless the band had tuned flat for some other reason.
It's "I fault you to be to blame." The usage (non-standard) is the opposite of "I can't fault you for that." I seriously doubt that Williamson would have ever used the expression "I found you to be to blame."
