If you were on Beale Street, in Memphis, TN, any time in the last
quarter of the 20th century, odds are that you heard Uncle Ben play. If
you were a budding musician, chances are you sat in with him for a few
tunes, and if he liked the way you played, you may even have become one
of his many "nephews."
It would be impossible to keep track of
the scores of kids who sat in with Uncle Ben under those trees in Handy
Park (before they gutted it, put a fence around it and started calling
it the "Pepsi Pavillion"). He graciously allowed pretty much anyone to
play a tune with him, whether they were seasoned professionals passing
through or lilly-green amateurs who didn't know a thing about the blues.
Playing
the blues, year after year, for the motley assortment of tourists,
winos and derelicts that congregated in Handy Park, Uncle Ben had
learned a thing or two about how to deal with crowds. For those that
came under his tutelage, it was an advanced course, not only in how to
handle yourself on the street, but also about how to really make blues
your
life. Uncle Ben had been
down there, banging away on that cheap guitar and hollering those same
songs as long as anyone could remember. He was the real deal.
This
post collects what is - as far as I know - Uncle Ben's complete
recorded output, minus the bit of him that you can see in Robert
Palmer's "Deep Blues" film. The first eight tracks are from a demo that
he recorded sometime in the 1980s, I believe. I know it was already a
few years old when I got it from Ben in 1992. This was a cassette-only
release by some little local outfit called "Alley Way Records." Clarence
Covington joins him on 2nd guitar, and also handles the vocals for a
couple of tunes. There are also two cuts (recorded live on Beale Street)
from the High Water "Deep South Blues" record, and one other song that
I found on one of Brad Webb's records.
This music is probably
not for everyone. It's badly recorded and mixed, the guitars are out of
tune, and it's basically raggedy as hell. But I heard Ben play these
songs hundreds of times, and I'm really glad to have this musical
memento of those days. I figured there might be others out there who
feel the same way. Amazingly, for a guy who made such a mark on the
Memphis music scene, this small handful of tunes is all we have to
remember Uncle Ben by. So, I wanted to put it out there for whoever
might appreciate it.
The above piece has been taken from the defunct blog Glad Rags. It is the only item I could find that has some bearing on the tapes provided by HM.
Boogie Woogie:
https://www57.zippyshare.com/v/dJUtQT6q/file.html
Memphis Blues:
https://www57.zippyshare.com/v/zonr0LeW/file.html
