Blues Mandolin Man: The Life and Music of Yank Rachell PDF
Preview Blues Mandolin Man: The Life and Music of Yank Rachell
Blues Mandolin Man Blues Mandolin Man The Life and Music of Yank Rachell Richard Congress University Press of Mississippi Jackson American Made Music Series Advisory Board David Evans, General Editor Barry Jean Ancelet Edward A. Berlin Joyce J. Bolden Rob Bowman Susan C. Cook Curtis Ellison William Ferris Michael Harris John Edward Hasse Kip Lornell Frank McArthur W. K. McNeil Bill Malone Eddie S. Meadows Manuel H. Peña Wayne D. Shirley Robert Walser Charles Wolfe www.upress.state.ms.us Copyright © 2001 by University Press of Mississippi All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 4 3 2 1 ∞ Photo on page ii by Patrick Schneider, courtesy of the Indianapolis Star. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Congress, Richard. Blues mandolin man : the life and music of Yank Rachell / Richard Congress. p. cm. — (American made music series) Includes bibliographical references (p. ), discography (p. ), and index. ISBN 1-57806-333-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-57806-334-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Rachell, Yank. 2. Blues musicians—United States—Biography. 3. Afro-American musicians—Biography. 4. Blues (Music)—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series. ML419.R36 C66 2001 781.643'092—dc21 [B] 00-047729 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available To Helen This page intentionally left blank Contents Foreword ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction xv Blues Mandolin Man 3 Appendix 1 Comments on Yank Rachell’s Mandolin Style 89 Rich DelGrosso Appendix 2 Comments on Yank Rachell’s Guitar Style 93 David Evans Appendix 3 Interviews 97 Appendix 4 Musicians 125 Appendix 5 Brownsville Lynching 139 Discography 143 Selected Song Lyrics 159 Bibliography 177 Index 179 This page intentionally left blank Foreword The decade of the 1990s saw a severe diminution of the ranks of blues singers and musicians who had been active in the years before World War II. In fact, only a handful are now left as we enter the twenty-first century. While many interviews of early blues artists have been published over the years, only a few of these figures were fortunate to be able to tell their own stories in a book-length format. This usually required that the person be someone of significance in blues history, someone of great achievement as a singer, in- strumentalist, songwriter, or interpreter, usually someone with a major record- ingcareer who influenced the music’s stylistic development and interacted with other important musical figures. There can be little doubt about the importance of James “Yank” Rachell in the history of the blues. He is one of only two major blues mandolinists and the only one to carry that instrument to any degree into the blues revival scene from the 1960s onward. The mandolin is not a soloist’s instrument, and its player therefore requires one or more musical partners. Rachell’s story is rich in musical associations, and it reveals for the first time at some length ix
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