Bluesyourself songs:
I'm tired of working. This little shuffle has been opening
our set for some time. Indeed we did record it on our first home made EP. We
decided it was time to record it again, so we could have it available to our
supporters.
Viola Lee. We have been playing this Cannon’s
Jug Stompers song for awhile. It’s quite a simple song. The only real problem
with the song it is that Viola Lee is not mentioned in the lyrics at all. I
suspect she is the reason for the jail term.
You’re gonna lose (Gambler’s Blues). I’d been meaning to write a gambling
song for awhile, but I had some music in my head that didn’t work for this, so
I got a rhythm and started working on it properly. The only ones that win are
the gambling companies, because they bet responsibly!
Tempted. Craig wanted a song to play his spoons
and harmonica on, so I came up with this standard progression and provided some
lyrics for today. It was a good opportunity to get that well known blues word
‘peccadillo’ into a song.
Nice time. This is our first political-ish
songs. It’s the first time you get to hear Craig’s vocals on some backing
singing/shouting.
What is it tastes like gravy? This is an old Tampa Red song. We
have been playing this since we got together and did record it for an early
EP. We thought we would like to make it
available to more people, so we recorded it again. Craig has been known to get
spontaneous applause for his one note solo.
Killing Floor. I enjoy playing this song and with
Craig taking the rhythm section on washboard it has proved to be popular when
we started playing it live.
In my time of dying. When we agreed that we should do
this song we went back to listen to what we thought was the original, but it
wasn’t there. It turns out that it was not a Blind Willie Johnson song as we
thought, but a Josh White song.
Craig plays this with a spoon a sliding bar and a guitar on his lap. It gives
it an altogether original sound. Craig had originally used a different guitar
and it just wasn’t coming together. He bought a Radio King Lap guitar and it
immediately worked.
That ain’t all. This is a little 8 bar blues love
song.
Won’t you please (So&So). Blues come in different styles; this
is a begging one. We have been trying this out for awhile. I wanted Craig to
play piano on this song. Craig’s piano is not tuned correctly so he has to play
in a different key.
Spinning Wheel Blues. We were originally just going to
record this Rossi/Young song as Jonathan on vocals and Craig on harp while we
were in the car travelling to gigs and put it on social media as a 30 second
thing, but in the end we added guitar and recorded it in its entirety.
Early Shift Blues Boy. These are lyrics about unrequited
love (lust). You know she is with someone else, but you would rather she
wasn’t.
Lonesome Lover. Some more unrequited love. When you
are young, you just don’t understand why the girls are attracted by the ‘bad’
guys.
20 yards behind. We started to play this when Wilko
Johnson was very ill, and we thought we would have it ready as a tribute.
Thankfully people don’t have to die before you can tribute them! We slowed this
down to a shuffle and it works well with a bit of distortion.