By Candice Ludlow
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-900793.mp3
Memphis, TN –
This week is a big week for the Blues in Memphis. Inductions into the Blues Hall of Fame, Blues Music Awards at the Convention Center, and Muddy Waters' sons played at train stations from New Orleans to Chicago as part of the Mississippi Blues Trail. Gus Cannon was honored on Beale Street with a Brass Note and he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. Candice Ludlow has more.
A small crowd gathered in front of the Old Daisy on Beale Street to give tribute to Gus Cannon and His Jug Stompers.
Gus Cannon was born September 12 in the early 1880's on a plantation in Red Banks, Mississippi. At 12, he moved to Clarksdale.
"While in Clarksdale, Cannon was influenced by many local musicians and was so impressed with the fiddle player in the WC Handy Band that he decided to learn the fiddle and took it up himself," Maria Muldaur said. She began her career in 1963 playing in a jug band. Her new CD, Maria Muldaur and Her Garden of Joy: Good Time Music for Hard Times! celebrates jug band music.
Muldaur continues, "Alex Lee, a local guitar player, taught Cannon his first Blues, which was Poor Boy Long Ways From Home, and showed him how to use a knife blade as a slide. A technique that Cannon adapted to his banjo playing giving his unique slide signature sound. Not too many people play banjo with a slide, but you knew it was him when you heard that sound."
Cannon's musical skill came naturally, says Muldaur.
"He taught himself using a banjo that he made himself from a frying pan and a raccoon skin. However, I've read some other stories that say he made a banjo from a guitar neck and a bedpan. We know that he got his first real banjo when at the age of 15 when he ran away from home and began his career entertaining at sawmills and levee and railroad camps in the Mississippi Delta region, right around the turn of the century."
His great niece, Rose Echols, and her daughters, Elvecca Otto and Dr. Jackson came all the way to Memphis to honor their great uncle with one of his songs.
2010 Blues Music Award winners:
Acoustic Album of the Year
David Maxwell & Louisiana Red - You Got to Move
Acoustic Artist of the Year
Louisiana Red
Album of the Year
Joe Louis Walker - Between a Rock and the Blues
B.B. King Entertainer of the Year
Tommy Castro
Band of the Year
Tommy Castro Band
Best New Artist Debut
Monkey Junk - Tiger in Your Tank
Contemporary Blues Album of the Year
Tommy Castro - Hard Believer
Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year
Ruthie Foster
Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year
Tommy Castro
DVD
Delmark Records It Ain't Over! Delmark Celebrates 55 Years of Blues, Live at Buddy Guy's Legends
Historical Album of the Year
Chess - Authorized Bootleg (Muddy Waters)
Instrumentalist-Bass
Bob Stroger
Instrumentalist-Drums
Cedric Burnside
Instrumentalist-Guitar
Derek Trucks
Instrumentalist-Harmonica
Jason Ricci
Instrumentalist-Horn
Deanna Bogart
Instrumentalist-Other
Buckwheat Zydeco (accordion)
Pinetop Perkins Piano Player
Eden Brent
Rock Blues Album of the Year
Derek Trucks Band - Already Free
Song of the Year
Cyril Neville & Mike Zito - 'Pearl River' (Pearl River--Mike Zito)
Soul Blues Album of the Year
Johnny Rawls - Ace Of Spades
Soul Blues Female Artist of the Year
Irma Thomas
Soul Blues Male Artist of the Year
Curtis Salgado
Traditional Blues Album of the Year
Super Chikan - Chikadelic
Traditional Blues Female Artist of the Year
Debbie Davies
Traditional Blues Male Artist of the Year
Duke Robillard
The
Performers:
Lonnie Brooks
Charlie Musselwhite
Bonnie Raitt
W.C. Handy
Gus Cannon and Cannon's Jug Stompers
Amos Milburn
Non-Performers:
"Sunshine" Sonny Payne
Peter Guralnick
Classic of Blues Literature
The Bluesmen by Sam Charters
Classic of Blues Recording
Single/Album Track
"Key to the Highway" Big Bill Broonzy (Okeh, 1941)
"All Your Love (I Miss Loving)" Otis Rush (Cobra, 1958)
"Fever" Little Willie John (King, 1956)
"Match Box Blues" -- Blind Lemon Jefferson (OKeh and Paramount, 1927)
"Spoonful" -- Howlin' Wolf (Chess, 1960)
Album
Strong Persuader by Robert Cray (Mercury LP/CD, 1986)
Hung Down Head by Lowell Fulson (Chess LP, 1970; CD, 1996)
Hear Some Blues Downstairs by Fenton Robinson (Alligator LP, 1977; CD, 1991)