(6LP/CD)
BIOGRAPHY
Henry Thomas (born 1874, Big Sandy, Texas – died 1930) was an American
country blues singer, songster and musician, who enjoyed a brief but notable
recording career in the late 1920s.
Often billed as "Ragtime Texas", Thomas bridged 19th and 20th century
styles, providing the basis for what later became known as Texas blues
guitar.
Thomas was born into a family of freed slaves in Big Sandy, Texas in 1874
He began traveling the Texas rail lines as a hobo after leaving home in his
teens.
He eventually earned his way as an itinerant songster, entertaining local
populaces as well as railway employees.
Although the circumstances are not known, Thomas recorded twenty-three
sides for Vocalion Records between 1927 and 1929. The repertoire on these
cuts includes a combination of reels, gospels, minstrel pieces, ragtime
numbers and blues. Besides guitar, Thomas accompanied himself on quills, a
folk instrument fabricated from cane reeds whose sound is similar to the
zampona played by musicians in Peru and Bolivia. His springy guitar-playing,
probably inspired by banjo-picking styles, suggests that he performed for
dances.
Thomas's legacy has been sustained by his songs, which were revived by
musicians beginning in the folk music revival of the early 1960s. Among the
first of these was "Honey Won't You Allow Me One More Chance", which was
re-interpreted by Bob Dylan on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963 under the
title "Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance".
Dylan probably first heard of the blues musician through Harry Smith's
Anthology of American Folk Music, which ended with one of Thomas's
best-known tunes, "Fishin' Blues". Although Dylan re-worked the melody and
almost totally re-wrote the lyrics, he credited Thomas as co-writer on the
Freewheelin' release.
Thomas's song "Fishin' Blues" was recorded by the US folk-rock group Lovin'
Spoonful in 1965, appearing on their hit debut album Do You Believe in Magic
?. The song was recorded three years later, in 1968, by blues musician Taj
Mahal for one of his first albums, De Old Folks at Home and has since been
released on many of Taj Mahal's greatest hits compilations. The Nitty Gritty
Dirt Band also covered the song on their album Will the Circle Be Unbroken,
Volume III in 2002.
"Bull Doze Blues", another of Thomas's Vocalion recordings, remained an
obscure blues number until it was picked up by the blues-rock group Canned
Heat as the basis for the song "Going Up the Country". Though re-arranged,
the Canned Heat song is musically the same, down to a faithful rendition of
Thomas's quill solos by Jim Horn. Fellow band member Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson
re-wrote the lyrics entirely and received credit on the song's original
release in 1968 on Canned Heat's third album, Living the Blues.
The next year,the group played at the Woodstock Festival. Their live
performance of "Going Up the Country" was featured in the motion picture
Woodstock and appeared as the second cut on the soundtrack album.
"Don't Ease Me In" was covered by the Grateful Dead on their album Go to
Heaven; and Thomas's vintage recording of "Don't Ease Me In" is included on
the compilation album The Music Never Stopped: Roots of the Grateful Dead.
The Lovin' Spoonful recorded an original song entitled "Henry Thomas" on
their 1966 album Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful.
In 1993 the band Deacon Blue released a song entitled "Last Night I Dreamed
Of Henry Thomas" on their Whatever You Say, Say Nothing album. In addition,
his arrangement for "Cottonfield Blues" was performed by early Delta blues
musicians Garfield Akers and Mississippi Joe Callicott in 1929.
The whereabouts of Thomas after his last recording in 1929 have not been
chronicled. While one report places him in Texas in the 1950s, most
biographers indicate he died in 1930 when he would have been in his
mid-50s.
NEW!
1989-Texas Worried Blues (1927-29) (2LP) @192
