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H. C. SPEIR/ 2012
(  Satoshi Kinoshita )
| Series: | Prints on paper: Portraits 3 | | Medium: | Giclée on Japanese matte paper | | Size (inches): | 16.5 x 11.7 (paper size) | | Size (mm): | 420 x 297 (paper size) | | Edition size: | 25 | | Catalog #: | PP_0245 | | Description: | From an edition of 25. Signed, titled, date, copyright, edition in pencil on the reverse / Aside from the numbered edition of 5 artist's proofs and 2 printer's proofs.
"The Blues and the Blues singer has really special powers over women, especially. It is said that the Blues singer could possess women and have any woman they wanted. And so when Robert Johnson came back, having left his community as an apparently mediocre musician, with a clear genius in his guitar style and lyrics, people said he must have sold his soul to the devil. And that fits in with this old African association with the crossroads where you find wisdom: you go down to the crossroads to learn, and in his case to learn in a Faustian pact, with the devil. You sell your soul to become the greatest musician in history."
- Bill Ferris, American Public Media: The Story with Dick Gordon
H. C. Speir -
H. C. Speir (October 6, 1895 – April 22, 1972)[1] was an American "talent broker" and record store owner from Jackson, Mississippi. He was responsible for launching the recording careers of most of the greatest Mississippi blues musicians in the 1920s and 1930s. It has been said that, “Speir was the godfather of Delta Blues" and was "a musical visionary". Without Speir, Mississippi’s greatest natural resource might have gone untapped.”[2]
Biography:
Born Henry Columbus Speir[2] in Prospect, Mississippi,[1] Speir was a white businessman who ran a music and mercantile store on Farish Street, in Jackson's black neighborhood. In 1926, through selling blues records in his store, he began working as a scout for the record companies producing the records, such as Okeh, Victor, Gennett, Columbia, Vocalion, Decca and Paramount.
Using a metal disc machine in his store, Speir made demo recordings of the musicians that he sent to the labels, before arranging for more formal recording sessions. Word spread among blues musicians that Speir could help them make records, and many came to audition at the store. This audition process was recreated in Martin Scorsese's The Blues television series, which aired on PBS in 2003.
Among the numerous musicians whom Speir introduced to the record companies were Ishman Bracey, Tommy Johnson, Charlie Patton, Son House, Skip James, Robert Johnson, Bo Carter, Willie Brown, the Mississippi Sheiks, Blind Joe Reynolds, Blind Roosevelt Graves, Geeshie Wiley, and Robert Wilkins.[1] He also auditioned, but turned down, Jimmie Rodgers.
Speir retired from recording in 1936, and left Farish Street after a 1942 fire at his store. On April 22, 1972, Speir died at his home in Pearl, Mississippi after suffering a fatal heart attack. He is buried alongside his wife at Lakewood Memorial Park Cemetery, in Clinton, Jackson County, Mississippi. According to a living family member, Speir's "headstone does not recognize him for his accomplishment in the recording industry".[1][2]
Speir was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2005.[3]
References:
1. ^ a b c d Thedeadrockstarsclub.com - accessed July 2010
2. ^ a b c [1]
3. ^ Blues.org
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._C._Speir
Recording sessions on Robert Johnson -
Around 1936, Johnson sought out H. C. Speir in Jackson, Mississippi, who ran a general store and doubled as a talent scout. Speir put Johnson in touch with Ernie Oertle, who offered to record the young musician in San Antonio, Texas. At the recording session, held November 23, 1936 in room 414 at the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio[36][37][38] which Brunswick Records had set up as a temporary studio, Johnson reportedly performed facing the wall. This has been cited as evidence he was a shy man and reserved performer, a conclusion played up in the inaccurate liner notes of the 1961 album King of the Delta Blues Singers. Ry Cooder speculates that Johnson played facing a corner to enhance the sound of the guitar, a technique he calls "corner loading".[39] In the ensuing three-day session, Johnson played sixteen selections, and recorded alternate takes for most of these.
Among the songs Johnson recorded in San Antonio were "Come On In My Kitchen", "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" and "Cross Road Blues". The first songs to appear were "Terraplane Blues" and "Last Fair Deal Gone Down", probably the only recordings of his that he would live to hear. "Terraplane Blues" became a moderate regional hit, selling 5,000 copies.
His first recorded song, "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", was part of a cycle of spin-offs and response songs that began with Leroy Carr's "Mean Mistreater Mama" (1934). According to Wald, it was "the most musically complex in the cycle"[40] and stood apart from most rural blues as a through-composed lyric, rather than an arbitrary collection of more-or-less unrelated verses.[41] In contrast to most Delta players, Johnson had absorbed the idea of fitting a composed song into the three minutes of a 78 rpm side.[42] Most of Johnson's "somber and introspective" songs and performances come from his second recording session.[43]
In 1937, Johnson traveled to Dallas, Texas, for another recording session in a makeshift studio at the Brunswick Record Building, 508 Park Avenue.[44] Eleven records from this session would be released within the following year. Because Johnson did two takes of most songs during these sessions, and recordings of those takes survived, more opportunity exists to compare different performances of a single song by Johnson than for any other blues performer of his time and place.[45]
By the time he died, at least six of his records had been released in the South as race records.
References:
36. ^ San Antonio Express-News, November 30, 1986, "Blues wizard's S.A. Legacy", p. 1-J
37. ^ "The History of Dallas 1926–1950—1937: Robert Johnson Singer left mysterious legacy at 508 Park Ave" by Thor Christensen, 7/3/2002, The Dallas Morning News.
38. ^ Beal Jr., Jim (August 16, 2009). "Mellencamp honors the past at historic locale". www.mysanantonio.com. San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved March 22, 2010.
39. ^ "Ry Cooder – Talking Country Blues and Gospel". Jasobrecht.com. Retrieved 2011-12-30.
40. ^ Wald (2004), p. 131.
41. ^ Wald (2004), p. 132, 176.
42. ^ Wald (2004), p. 132.
43. ^ Wald (2004), p. 167.
44. ^ Eric Clapton – Sessions for Robert Johnson, 2004 documentary
45. ^ Wald (2004), p. 130.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson
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