I have mentioned him. I lived with a woman from Louisiana whose boyfriend was jimmy spruill at the time he recorded fannie mae. He came home from a session and gave her the buster brown lp, which he played guitar on. Spruill also played on kansas city by wilbert harrison (who taught me the 1 man band). She had it all those years and gave it to me. This woman and her husband had 3 houses on this property in santa rosa ca. The front house was a sort of nursing home, the middle one where I lived with their 2 daughters taffy and candy, and the back house they lived in. The middle house I lived in was basically a crack house and the front house was a source for needles. the hells angels would come by and pay taffy 10 bucks to shoot them up. They couldn't be carrying stuff as they rode because the cops were always pulling them over. I almost got killed there when taffy's boyfriend got out of san quentin and suprised her. He thought she was sleeping with me and he came in my room and put a shot gun to my head as I slept. He told me the next morning he would have blown my head off if she was in that bed. Luckily I had no woman with me that night or I might have been dead..... the fleas were so bad in that house you got bit even when taking a shower.
Buster brown was a saving grace for me. I paid 25 bucks a month rent and would sit and play along with and listen to that album all day. It was the only one I had and there was a funky old record player in the house. His harp playing blew me away. Kind of a sonny terry meets a hard driving/swinging blues/r&B based band. I ended up giving that record to fast floyd. Floyd played with guys like howling wolf in the early 60's and then with mink deville and the spiders. Floyd was my guitarist on and off for a few years thanks to his younger brother doug getting us together. Doug and I have played together on and off for 30 years. Dougs band with his sister teresa - teresa and the brewers, featured doyle brahamal II, who is now with clapton. Anyway that buster brown sound has had a big influence on my playing. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
What about him? Sounds like you've already learned everything about him that you need to know and have passed judgement.
By the way, Fannie Mae was #1 on the R&B charts. Buster Brown is yet another artist who proved you don't have to be a great technical player to do well.
Joe_L: You got it. It doesn't take great technical ablity to get people grooving. Buster brown had a simple groove that drives big time. A lot of the stuff I watch on this site is full of high brain technical stuff, but never gets me grooving or wanting to dance. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
I actually found a cd of him burried at the back of a shelf. I bought this cd well before I became interested in harp, and re-discovered it just today with different ears.
Walter, maybe it's because the name didn't ring a bell for me until today. I should have guess that you mentioned him somewhere ;-)
Joe_L, "Juke" has also been #1 in R&B charts some years earlier. Was it because it was considered R&B, or because there was no charts for blues ?
saregapadanisa: Boy that is a hard name to type! Buster Brown gets very little mention. It excited me to see his name here. He was a country blues harp player much like sonny terry, that got with the R&B sounds of the 50's. He was raw and repetitive, but like jimmy reed, did it in a way that really gets you hooked. He was a powerful singer too! Walter
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Walter & Nacoran, don't complain, to be absolutely correct my name should be one syllable longer : saregaMApadanisa. Upon request, I'm prepared to accept shorter versions, like "sare" or "sarega", or "hey you" in cases of dire emergency. ;-)
