Djordje, I hope you find some. Most Honky Tonk stuff I've done I've figured out myself with a slowdowner. Johnny Paycheck has some great harp in his songs and are a good honky tonk sound.
I think a lot of people mistake country music with "Old Susanna" and things like that.... not good old Honky Tonk or good "real" country (Turnpike Troubadours have some good harp).
I think there isn't as much understanding of how close honky tonk and country music with harp are to blues.
We'll keep looking for some good tabs. Do you have some songs you are looking for?
Last Edited by LumberjackShark on Oct 30, 2018 3:02 PM
He means "Honky Tonk" by Wild Bill Doggett, I believe, the well known jazz blues instrumental. ---------- Harpeaux Edwards
Last Edited by Gareth on Oct 31, 2018 3:29 AM
I can't argue with Adams version. He kills it - not a song where I'd want to be a one man band because there's so much to fill in. But I thought I'd pass along the James Cotton version. This is a real nice example if you're doing the song as part of a band. Of course it helped that Cotton's band (Luther Tucker, gtr; Alberto Gianquinto, pno; Francis Clay, drm; Bobby Anderson, bs) could provide such a rich texture. Cotton's harp solo starts at about 1:34. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxTUaBrEDDE Lot's of call and response with guitar and harp.
Honky Tonk has a funny story behind it which I heard from one of the "co-writers", Berisford "Shep" Shephard. Bill Doggett's band was in the studio, the clock was running ($$$), and Bill Doggett hadn't shown up. The session producer wanted the band to record something. Their manager asked Shep, drummer and arranger for the band, ""Why don't you play that honky tonk thing you were fooling with a couple of weeks ago?" It was just a riff they were playing around with at a practice. Shep remembered it and they started playing, Bill showed up, started playing along, and that became the hit song, "Honky Tonk". In looking Shep up I see he's apparently still around, 101 years young. ---------- BnT
Last Edited by BnT on Nov 06, 2018 10:40 AM
Thanks for the Cotton recording, BnT. I've never heard that. I really like the opening chorus.
My story about this is funny. On my third or fourth foray into the jazz clubs of Harlem back in the late fall of 1985 and early months of 1986, I stopped by Showman's for the second or third time. Jimmy "Preacher" Robins was on organ. When he saw me come through the door, he said, "Hey everybody, here comes Adam. I bet Adam knows Honky Tonk."
I did NOT know Bill Doggett's song "Honky-Tonk" at that point. I assumed that honky tonk was was Lumberjack Shark thought it was: a generic term for country music.
I figured out pretty quickly that I'd made a mistake! And I went home, licked my wounds, and then subwayed down to Tower Records and found a record by Bill Doggett with both parts of "Honky Tonk" on it. I worked out a harmonica version. Ah: I actually found it first on an album by Steve Gadd and the Gadd gang. A cassette.
And next time I went back to Showman's, I was ready for the Preacher. You better believe it.
Edited to add: When I think about this episode, decades later, I think that Preacher probably WAS having some fun at my expense. Why would I, a young white man, know "Honky Tonk"? I mean, of all bluesy songs, why would he "bet" that that's the blues I would know? He never said "Honky!," but everybody laughed when he said "I bet Adam knows 'Honky Tonk," and I think that's why. He was signifying on my white a**.
I remember when I started out in the 70's, EVERY blues band played this, usually as a set warm up number and I had to learn all the horn parts and years later, thanks to a guitar tablature of the Billy Butler guitar part, I was able to play that part on both harmonica and guitar. What Luther Tucker plays here is like the way most bands play the Billy Butler part, almost note for note because it's THAT iconic. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
With all due respect to all the great harp versions of Honky Tonk mentioned above , I think it’s best as a sax tune and nothing comes close to Bill Doggett’s Honky Tonk Part 2 ! That being said I would love to get more tips on playing real country Honky Tonk, harp. As in Bakersfield sound,that is.
U guys GOT my curiosity going--Kinda confused as to which version is which
This one, has sax and really soulful, nice guitar' Im going to give this to the Sax and trumpet player in the band Im in---to give them more ideas- Im putting this my archive of horn lines to learn
Here's a tune from Frank Frost featuring Little Arthur Williams on harp on a tune called Harpin' On It, which is a medley of Honky Tonk and another Bill Doggett tune called Slow Walk (both of those tunes appears on the Bill Doggett LP Everybody Dance To The Honky Tonk).
---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I think my first contact with Doggett's material was "Big Boy" that Carlos Del Junco recorded. Since then I collected many albums from him. I think that is that kind of sound LW pursued. Very cool !!!
