Blues singers named "Pigmeat"

Pigmeat Markham


Pigmeat Markham, "How Long Blues" 1945 BLUE NOTE

Pigmeat Markham was better known for his "Here Comes the Judge" comedy routine which became a meme in the sixties. He performed at the Apollo Theatre (sometimes appearing in blackface long past the age of Vaudeville), on The Ed Sullivan Show and in race films. His popularity finally transcended the chitlin circuit when Sammy Davis, Jr. performed Markham's routine on "Laugh-In" and wove "here comes the judge" into the wider cultural fabric.

The success of Davis's appearance led to Markham's opportunity to perform his signature Judge character during his one season on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.^[7] Archie Campbelllater adapted Markham's routine, performing as "Justus O'Peace," on the country version of Laugh-In, Hee Haw, which borrowed heavily from the minstrel show tradition.

Dig this popular 1968 proto-rap version.

Pigmeat Markham, "Here Comes the Judge"

Pigmeat Terry, "Black Sheep Blues"

Pigmeat Terry was one of many singers who were "[b]iographical ciphers emerged from their anonymous dark, made 78 rpm recordings, and were promptly swallowed up by darkness again" according to the description John Fahey's  Revenant label gave them.  AMERICAN PRIMITIVE V. 2 was Fahey's final curatorial effort for the label her started, and it comtained this song, haunted by Pigmeat Terry's otherworldly voice.


Pigmeat Terry, "Moaning the Blues"



Pigmeat Pete & Catjuice Charlie, "On Our Turpentine Farm"

All I know about Pigmeat Pete is that it was a psuedonym used by Harry McDaniels, as told by Eugene Cadbourne's biography of Wesley "Catjuice Charlie" Wilson on Allmusic.com.

 The origins of the name Catjuice Charlie are unknown, but speculation is certainly encouraged. Pigmeat Pete's real name was Harry McDaniels. Wesley Wilson played both organ and piano and was extremely active as a songwriter with his wife, their most famous creation being the demanding anthem "Gimme a Pigfoot," a song strongly associated with classic blues queen Bessie Smith.

Pigmeat Pete Smith, "The Devil Makes Work of Idle Hands"

Pigmeat Pete Smith was a latter-day English blues performer seduced by the blues of all the pigmeat singers that came before him. Adam Blake has a touching tribute on his blog.

The last time I saw him play was at a festival where Errol and the Blues Vibe were booked to play on the main stage. Pete was doing a solo set on the acoustic stage. Errol, Richard Rhoden and I went along to watch. Pete unfolded his tunes, told his stories like the masterful raconteur that he was, revealing once again his love and devotion to the memory of Max Miller and then, at the end of the set, launching into a fast one-chord boogie shuffle at a tempo so punishing that Errol, Richard and I glanced at each other with trepidation: “he’ll never be able to keep that up”, was the unspoken comment between us. Well Pete kept it up, and sang himself hoarse, and left the stage to tumultuous applause. And we applauded and whistled and shouted right along with them because Pete’s rhythm was safe, safe as houses.

EDITED 5/17/2013 7:27 A.M. TO ADD: (Thanks to my good friend, Joseph Winterhalter)


Pigmeat Jarrett, "Freddie"

Pigmeat Jarrett. The info posted on this video says more than I could about this Cincinnatti bluesman:

Born 1899 James Pigmeat Jarrett played piano on Ohio River Riverboat Excursion boats - most notably the Island Queen between Cincinnati and Coney Island a local day resort on the River - He played the river, speakeasies, rent parties ----

He could change keys in the middle of a song - he was not a musician - he was music.

Allegorical images for the impending graduate

(1) A hatched or pecked open robin's egg lay on the sidewalk outside the geoscience building. (2) The normally bustling design building is an instant ghost town once the fall semester is over. I wish they'd at least keep the coffee shop open through graduation. (3) Baby raccoons gaze on unfazed in the bushes by the drug store. (4) This has been written on the underside of the steps of the architecture building for at least two years. (5) A stately palm gets some support outside Woodin Hall. A colleague and I walk by there everyday and just recently remarked that we have no idea what goes on in there.

All but (3) were taken by me this morning while walking across campus to my office. The raccoons were encountered on the way home yesterday.

lately

Sunset during the art walk in our neighborhood. It was actually more hoppin' than this photo might suggest but I really like the sky and the wire and the bloody smear of brake lights.


We decided Lazy Lester is the coolest portrait from the mural of Baton Rouge blues musicians being painted by the mighty Charles Barbier on the side of the pawn shop near my house. It's the one that spells it "jewerly" on their sign.


This house down the street has a sunroom filled with bottles. It has only taken me a full nine years in this neighborhood to walk by it at night with a camera and catch its true magic.


I at all this during the mother's day feast at Big Al's in Houma. ~$15, though my brain was too swollen with food to actually read the check.


This is a rare portrait of my sister Anne, my niece Luna, my daughter Maya, my Mom and Dad, caught at the Jolly Inn in Houma before the band kicked in. I didn't mind twisting my ankle throwing Luna around the dance floor. Literal throwing, like dancing with a giant sack of coffee beans wanting to be slung.

A few words on Wim Wenders

Life and death are nearly as meaningless as the concept of choice. Fun movie!

The slideshow contains links to full-length YouTube versions of ALICE IN THE CITIES, PARIS, TEXAS, and THE GOALIE'S ANXIETY AT THE PENALTY KICK.


See the whole thing on Storify, especially is the little wheel never stops spinning.

Here is the video of the Schwebenbahn in Wuppertal, should you just want to cut to the good part

The Music of 4/29/2013 - 5/2/2013

See the whole thing on Storify.

I'm behind in posting. As you'll see in the included slideshow, I had reasons.

The appeal of the drift

The semester has felt like this scene from Godard's O WOE IS ME vine.co/v/bQeLX6Fe6h9
— Alex V. Cook (@cookalexv) May 2, 2013

 Jean-Luc Godard, Hélas pour moi (Oh Woe Is Me), 1993.

Like most of Godard's late films, the ones of his "Second Wave" in the 1980s and beyond, they are impeccably beautiful, shot like Vermeer paintings made with micrometers and precision lasers. They also don't make a lick of sense to me. I'm thinking this to be the point: at once lampooning the stereotype of French ennui and fully embracing it. I think some people were supposed to be blind in the movie; possibly, someone died a couple of times. People kept walking into the water like they didn't notice. God was discussed in mathematical terms. The trains blow through town with astounding violence. People talk in stilted poems.

And this made world's more sense than the couple of minutes of Film Socialisme that I watched this morning. That one looks to be even more beautiful. There is some deal where the English subtitles are first translated into Navajo and then back to English, stripping out all the words that dont; translate, or something like that. Infuriatingly beautiful.

 
Aki Kaurasmaki, I Hired a Contract Killer, 1990.

Finland's finest, Aki Kaurasmaki is one of my favorite directors. Watch his Leningrad Cowboys Go America some time. It's the Blues Brothers for the "I hate the oldies" set.

I Hired a Contract Killer is a funny/not-funny/even-funnier-so piece of London noir involving a Bartleby-like, ennui-soacked Frenchie on the run from mobsters accompanied by a classic bombshell babe like they don't make anymore except in Facebook tattoo photos. They go to a bunch of really amazing looking diners and dive bars.

I watched this a week ago and cannot get the song from this Joe Strummer cameo out of my head.


Joe Strummer, "Burning Lights"

Maybe it's the wind-down of the semester, the threat of summer's onslaught, the encroaching deadline of my book, but all I want to do is watch really pretentious foreign films on YouTube and write brief synopses of them. Like I am doing now.

I had a good friend that described his life as "living like a French film." I assumed that he meant that it was populated by stunning women that didn't care for him and he in turn appeared to be more humorless than he actually was. But maybe he was onto something. The appeal of the drift is difficult to deny. The anchor of self-scrutiny keeping oneself harbored among a bay of loose barges containing mostly nothing.

I'd put a tidy ending to this but I just did my last class of Media Writing, where we encouraged people to eschew the tidy ending and let the facts peter out just like a French movie does, so there. Adieu.

The Music of 4/21/2013 - 4/26/2013

My moonchild story can be found within.