Bukka White
Encyclopedia
Booker T. Washington White (November 12, 1909 – February 26, 1977), better known as Bukka White, was an American
Delta blues
guitarist
and singer. "Bukka" was not a nickname
, but a phonetic misspelling of White's given name
Booker, by his second (1937) record label
(Vocalion
).
and Houston
, Mississippi
, White was the second cousin of B.B. King. White himself is remembered as a player of National
steel guitar
s. He also played, but was less adept at, the piano
.
White started his career playing the fiddle
at square dance
s. He claims to have met Charlie Patton
early on, although some doubt has been cast upon this; Regardless, Patton was a large influence on White. White typically played slide guitar
, in an open tuning. He was one of the few, along with Skip James
, to use a crossnote tuning in E minor
, which he may have learned, as James did, from Henry Stuckey
.
He first recorded
for the Victor Records label in 1930. His recordings for Victor, like those of many other bluesmen, fluctuated between country blues
and gospel
numbers. His gospel songs were done in the style of Blind Willie Johnson
, with a female singer accentuating the last phrase of each line.
Nine years later, while serving time for assault, he recorded for folklorist John Lomax
. The few songs he recorded around this time became his most well-known: "Shake 'Em on Down
," and "Po' Boy
."
Bob Dylan
covered his song "Fixin' to Die Blues
", which aided a "rediscovery" of White in 1963 by guitarist John Fahey
and ED Denson
, which propelled him onto the folk revival scene of the 1960s. White had recorded the song simply because his other songs had not particularly impressed the Victor record producer
. It was a studio composition of which White had thought little until it re-emerged thirty years later.
White was at one time managed by the experienced blues manager, Arne Brogger. Fahey and Denson found White easily enough: Fahey wrote a letter to "Bukka White (Old Blues Singer), c/o General Delivery, Aberdeen, Mississippi
." Fahey had assumed, given White's song, "Aberdeen, Mississippi", that White still lived there, or nearby. The postcard was forwarded to Memphis
, Tennessee
, where White worked in a tank factory. Fahey and Denson soon travelled to meet White, and White and Fahey remained friends through the remainder of White's life. He recorded a new album
for Denson and Fahey's Takoma Records
, whilst Denson became his manager
.
White was, later in life, also friends with fellow musician
, Furry Lewis
. The two recorded, mostly in Lewis' Memphis apartment
, an album together, Furry Lewis, Bukka White & Friends: Party! At Home.
One of his most famous songs, "Parchman Farm Blues", about the Mississippi State Penitentiary
(also known as Parchman Farm) in Sunflower County, Mississippi
, was released on Harry Smith
's fourth volume of the Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol. 4
. The song was covered by The Traits/aka Roy Head
and the Traits with Johnny Winter
in the late 1960s. His 1937 version of the oft-recorded song, "Shake 'Em On Down," is considered definitive, and became a hit while White was serving time in Parchman.
White died in February 1977 from cancer
, at the age of 67, in Memphis, Tennessee
. In 1990 he was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame
(along with Blind Blake
and Lonnie Johnson
).
by electronic artist Recoil
(mostly a one-man effort by Alan Wilder of Depeche Mode) for the track "Electro Blues For Bukka White" on the 1992 album Bloodline. The song was reworked and re-released on the 2000 EP, "Jezebel".
On January 26, 2010, Eric Bibb
released Booker's Guitar (TEL 31756 02) through Telarc International Corporation
after becoming inspired by the hidden stories Bibb felt through holding White's famous guitar.
White's song "Parchman Farm Blues" was recorded by Jeff Buckley
, which was released posthumously on the bonus disc of Buckley's album, Grace: Legacy Edition.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Delta blues
Delta blues
The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...
guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
and singer. "Bukka" was not a nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
, but a phonetic misspelling of White's given name
Given name
A given name, in Western contexts often referred to as a first name, is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name...
Booker, by his second (1937) record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
(Vocalion
Vocalion Records
Vocalion Records is a record label active for many years in the United States and in the United Kingdom.-History:Vocalion was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Piano Company of New York City, which introduced a retail line of phonographs at the same time. The name was derived from one of their...
).
Biography
Born between AberdeenAberdeen, Mississippi
Aberdeen is a city in Monroe County in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The population was 6,415 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Monroe County....
and Houston
Houston, Mississippi
Houston is a city in and one of two county seats of Chickasaw County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 4,079 at the 2000 census. The land on which Houston, MS resides was donated to the city by Judge Joel Pinson on the condition that it would be named for Sam Houston, a childhood...
, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, White was the second cousin of B.B. King. White himself is remembered as a player of National
National String Instrument Corporation
The National String Instrument Corporation was a guitar company that formed to manufacture the first resonator guitars.-National resonator guitar designs:...
steel guitar
Steel guitar
Steel guitar is a type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument. Developed in Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a steel guitar is usually positioned horizontally; strings are plucked with one hand, while the other hand changes the pitch of one or more strings with the use...
s. He also played, but was less adept at, the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
.
White started his career playing the fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
at square dance
Square dance
Square dance is a folk dance with four couples arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, beginning with Couple 1 facing away from the music and going counter-clockwise until getting to Couple 4. Couples 1 and 3 are known as the head couples, while Couples 2 and 4 are the side couples...
s. He claims to have met Charlie Patton
Charlie Patton
Charlie Patton , better known as Charley Patton, was an American Delta blues musician. He is considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", and is credited with creating an enduring body of American music and personally inspiring just about every Delta blues man...
early on, although some doubt has been cast upon this; Regardless, Patton was a large influence on White. White typically played slide guitar
Slide guitar
Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
, in an open tuning. He was one of the few, along with Skip James
Skip James
Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter, born in Bentonia, Mississippi, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
, to use a crossnote tuning in E minor
E minor
E minor is a minor scale based on the note E. The E natural minor scale consists of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. The E harmonic minor scale contains the natural 7, D, rather than the flatted 7, D – to align with the major dominant chord, B7 .Its key signature has one sharp, F .Its...
, which he may have learned, as James did, from Henry Stuckey
Bentonia School (blues)
Bentonia School, a style of guitar-playing sometimes attributed to blues players from Bentonia, Mississippi, features a shared repertoire of songs, guitar tunings and chord-voicings with a distinctively minor tonality not found in other styles of blues music....
.
He first recorded
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
for the Victor Records label in 1930. His recordings for Victor, like those of many other bluesmen, fluctuated between country blues
Country blues
Country blues is a general term that refers to all the acoustic, mainly guitar-driven forms of the blues. It often incorporated elements of rural gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and dixieland jazz...
and gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
numbers. His gospel songs were done in the style of Blind Willie Johnson
Blind Willie Johnson
"Blind" Willie Johnson was an American singer and guitarist, whose music straddled the border between blues and spirituals....
, with a female singer accentuating the last phrase of each line.
Nine years later, while serving time for assault, he recorded for folklorist John Lomax
John Lomax
John Avery Lomax was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist and folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk songs...
. The few songs he recorded around this time became his most well-known: "Shake 'Em on Down
Shake 'Em on Down
"Shake 'Em on Down" is a country-style blues song recorded by Bukka White in 1937. It is his best-known song and "became part of the repertoire of Chicago blues".-Background:...
," and "Po' Boy
Poor Boy Blues
"Poor Boy Blues" or "Poor Boy, Long Ways From Home" is a traditional blues song of unknown origin. As with most traditional blues songs, there is great variation in the melody and lyrical content as performed by different artists...
."
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
covered his song "Fixin' to Die Blues
Fixin' to Die Blues
Fixin’ to Die is a blues song written by Mississippi bluesman Booker T. Washington White, generally known as Bukka White. Initially released on Okeh Records, catalogue OK 05588, it is unique amongst blues “dying” songs in that its main focus of concern is how death affects the surviving family, as...
", which aided a "rediscovery" of White in 1963 by guitarist John Fahey
John Fahey (musician)
John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...
and ED Denson
ED Denson
Eugene "ED" Denson is an American music group manager, producer, record label owner, and - later - lawyer, who has made notable contributions to folk, blues, and early San Francisco rock.-Biography:Denson was born in Washington D.C. in 1940...
, which propelled him onto the folk revival scene of the 1960s. White had recorded the song simply because his other songs had not particularly impressed the Victor record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
. It was a studio composition of which White had thought little until it re-emerged thirty years later.
White was at one time managed by the experienced blues manager, Arne Brogger. Fahey and Denson found White easily enough: Fahey wrote a letter to "Bukka White (Old Blues Singer), c/o General Delivery, Aberdeen, Mississippi
Aberdeen, Mississippi
Aberdeen is a city in Monroe County in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The population was 6,415 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Monroe County....
." Fahey had assumed, given White's song, "Aberdeen, Mississippi", that White still lived there, or nearby. The postcard was forwarded to Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, where White worked in a tank factory. Fahey and Denson soon travelled to meet White, and White and Fahey remained friends through the remainder of White's life. He recorded a new album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
for Denson and Fahey's Takoma Records
Takoma Records
Takoma Records was a small but influential record label founded by John Fahey in the late 1950s.. It was named after Fahey's hometown, the Washington, D.C. suburb of Takoma Park, Maryland.-History:...
, whilst Denson became his manager
Management
Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...
.
White was, later in life, also friends with fellow musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, Furry Lewis
Furry Lewis
Furry Lewis was an American country blues guitarist and songwriter from Memphis, Tennessee. Lewis was one of the first of the old-time blues musicians of the 1920s to be brought out of retirement, and given a new lease of recording life, by the folk blues revival of the 1960s.-Life and...
. The two recorded, mostly in Lewis' Memphis apartment
Apartment
An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...
, an album together, Furry Lewis, Bukka White & Friends: Party! At Home.
One of his most famous songs, "Parchman Farm Blues", about the Mississippi State Penitentiary
Mississippi State Penitentiary
Mississippi State Penitentiary , also known as Parchman Farm, is the oldest prison and the only maximum security prison for men in the state of Mississippi, USA....
(also known as Parchman Farm) in Sunflower County, Mississippi
Sunflower County, Mississippi
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 34,369 people, 9,637 households, and 7,314 families residing in the county. The population density was 50 people per square mile . There were 10,338 housing units at an average density of 15 per square mile...
, was released on Harry Smith
Harry Everett Smith
Harry Everett Smith was an American archivist, ethnomusicologist, student of anthropology, record collector, experimental filmmaker, artist, bohemian and mystic...
's fourth volume of the Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol. 4
Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol. 4
Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, Volume 4 is a two-disc compilation of twenty-eight American folk recordings originally released on 78 rpm records between 1927 and 1940, issued in May 2000 on Revenant Records, catalogue #211...
. The song was covered by The Traits/aka Roy Head
Roy Head
Roy Head is an American singer, best known for his hit "Treat Her Right."-Career:Head achieved fame as a member of a musical group out from San Marcos, Texas known as The Traits. The group's sponsor landed their first recording contract in 1958 with TNT Music in San Antonio, Texas while they were...
and the Traits with Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter
John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters...
in the late 1960s. His 1937 version of the oft-recorded song, "Shake 'Em On Down," is considered definitive, and became a hit while White was serving time in Parchman.
White died in February 1977 from cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, at the age of 67, in Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
. In 1990 he was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame
Blues Hall of Fame
The Blues Hall of Fame is a listing of people who have significantly contributed to blues music. Started in 1980 by the Blues Foundation, it honors those who have performed, recorded, or documented blues.-1980:*Big Bill Broonzy*Willie Dixon*John Lee Hooker...
(along with Blind Blake
Blind Blake
"Blind" Blake was an American blues and ragtime singer and guitarist.-Biography:...
and Lonnie Johnson
Lonnie Johnson
Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson was an American blues and jazz singer/guitarist and songwriter who pioneered the role of jazz guitar and is recognized as the first to play single-string guitar solos...
).
Legacy
The 1963 recordings of White's song "Shake 'em on Down" and spoken-word piece "Remembrance of Charlie Patton" were both sampledSampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
by electronic artist Recoil
Recoil (band)
Recoil is a musical project created by former Depeche Mode member Alan Wilder. Essentially a solo venture, Recoil began whilst Wilder was still in Depeche Mode as an outlet for his experimental, less pop-oriented compositions...
(mostly a one-man effort by Alan Wilder of Depeche Mode) for the track "Electro Blues For Bukka White" on the 1992 album Bloodline. The song was reworked and re-released on the 2000 EP, "Jezebel".
On January 26, 2010, Eric Bibb
Eric Bibb
Eric Bibb is an American acoustic blues singer-songwriter. He is based in London and launched his career in Europe. Today he lives in Finland.-Biography:...
released Booker's Guitar (TEL 31756 02) through Telarc International Corporation
Telarc International Corporation
Telarc International Corporation is an independent record label, based in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, and founded in 1977 by two classically trained musicians and former teachers, Jack Renner and Robert Woods...
after becoming inspired by the hidden stories Bibb felt through holding White's famous guitar.
White's song "Parchman Farm Blues" was recorded by Jeff Buckley
Jeff Buckley
Jeffrey Scott "Jeff" Buckley , raised as Scotty Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was the son of Tim Buckley, also a musician...
, which was released posthumously on the bonus disc of Buckley's album, Grace: Legacy Edition.