We?re planning a party ? an old-fashioned blues house party ? for our next program on March 13 at the Washington Ethical Society Auditorium. Andy Cohen will come from Memphis to lead the festivities. His cohorts in country blues will be Eleanor Ellis and Walter ?Wale? Liniger. They all fell in love with the old songs in the old styles, learned from the masters, and have been telling the world about it ever since. Andy Cohen grew up hearing recordings of Dixieland jazz and blues. Seeing Rev. Gary Davis perform took him in a new direction. Andy began to absorb the old music of the American South. Then he mastered playing it, in part while doing fieldwork with several blues elders for his anthropology degree. He became lead boy for blind bluesmen Jim Brewer, Rev. Dan Smith, Brother Daniel Womack, and briefly, the very same Rev. Gary Davis. Other musical influences include Skip James, Bukka White and Brownie McGhee; and he?s worked and hung out with a ?who?s who? of the blues. Andy has about a dozen recordings, mostly vocal and guitar on the Riverlark label, four solo, including one featuring music played on the Dolceola (an early 20th-century zither-type instrument played with a keyboard) apparently the only CD of such music in existence; it?s mostly not blues.
One of Andy Cohen?s recordings also includes Eleanor Ellis. Born near New Orleans, Eleanor dabbled in bluegrass before moving to the DC area. By then she was smitten by the blues, and played guitar and sang. She soon began backing up street singer Flora Molton and later worked with Piedmont legend Archie Edwards. She was a founding member of the DC Blues Society and the Archie Edwards Blues Heritage Foundation. Eleanor?s first solo recording was self-released; her latest is on the Patuxent label. In the 1980s, Eleanor produced a video documentary, Blues House Party, which included several of her Piedmont blues heroes; its premiere was sponsored by FSGW. She also writes on blues topics and has been a regular performer at the Washington Folk Festival.
Swiss-born Walter ?Wale? Liniger fell in love with the blues via a Lightnin? Hopkins recording. After several years teaching school, he moved to the US, and worked with the University of Mississippi?s Blues Archive. A Mississippi Arts Commission Folk Art grant allowed him to apprentice with Delta bluesman James ?Son? Thomas, a relationship that lasted about seven years. He also backed Etta Baker on stage, with vocals, guitar and harmonica. Wale has been teaching blues courses at the University of South Carolina and the South Carolina Honors College, and he has taken the blues to concerts and workshops across Europe.
This is going to be a fun concert of fun music ? country blues played by people who fell in love with it, play it really well, teach it, write about it. They will proclaim it to you on Saturday, March 13, 8 pm at the Washington Ethical Society, 7750 16th St., NW, Washington, DC 20012. General admission is $15, free to Folklore Society members.
This program will also include an official membership meeting at the break, with a call for nominations from the floor for the 2010-2011 FSGW Board.
Andy Cohen will do a 2 hour guitar workshop at the Archie Edwards Blues Barbershop, 4701 Queensbury Rd, Riverdale MD, on Sunday, March 14, beginning at 2 PM. Admission $15. This coaching session will include thumb control, working up and down the neck, rhythms, neck tricks, and different kinds of right hand finger strokes. At the end of the session all of these techniques will be applied to learning a song, and Andy will also teach participants how to flip the guitar in mid-air without missing a note. For more information: www.acousticblues.com.
