Stefan · PDF fileand Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop. ... who once worked with Miles Davis...
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Stefan Grossman A Retrospective 1971–1995
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Transcript of Stefan · PDF fileand Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop. ... who once worked with Miles Davis...
StefanGrossman A Retrospective1971–1995
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Stefan GrossmanA Retrospective 1971-1995
In a sense, we have his father’s aversion to the saxophoneto thank for Stefan Grossman’s lifelong engagement with theacoustic guitar. It entered his life as his brother Karl, threeyears Stefan’s senior, took up the saxophone. After a fewsquawk-filled weeks, Herbert Grossman wasn’t happy. “Hewould have him practice in the closet because it was tooloud,” Stefan recalls. Like all kid brothers, Stefan wanted toimitate Karl, but wasn’t keen on practicing in a closet. Aquieter instrument – a guitar, for instance – would be lessgrating on paternal nerves. “My father got a guitar from aGoodwill Shop,“ Stefan recalls, “an old Epiphone.” The yearwas 1954. Stefan Grossman was nine.
Forty-two years later, Stefan’s name has become synony-mous with most aspects of the acoustic guitar experience.He’s a performer in varied styles who has always been pas-sionately engaged in teaching. In the thirty years since hisHow to Play Blues Guitar appeared on vinyl, Stefan has used allavailable media—books, cassettes, Lps, CDs, videos—in dis-seminating information to guitarists of all levels. “That’swhat life is all about,” he says, “getting information.” Alongwith playing and teaching, he has been active in recordingand championing a host of gifted guitarists worldwide. Andhis role as archivist of phenomenal filmed and videotapedguitar performances is evident in his Vestapol Video series
Stefan with C
harlotte and Sarah
3
and Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop. Stefan’s tirelessengagement with a range of guitar-related enterprises andexplorations has taken him a long way from the BrooklynGoodwill shop which supplied his first instrument. And theworld of guitar lovers is a far richer place for his father’saversion to saxophones.
Stefan was born April 16, 1945 to Herbert and RuthGrossman. (He and a sax-playing cousin, Steve Grossman,who once worked with Miles Davis and Elvin Jones, wereboth named for the same grandmother, Stephanie.) He wasborn in Brooklyn but raised in Queens, New York in anenvironment he describes as “middle-middle-class” in afamily which valued education and the arts. For a brief time,he tried to accompany Karl playing what he calls “1940soldies but goodies.” But he soon chafed at the songs of hisparents’ era and the formality of reading pop chestnuts fromstaff notation. “I was learning proper music notation frombooks,“ he recalls, “which is rather dry. To a kid of 10 or 11,learning how to play `Autumn Leaves’ doesn’t mean any-thing.”
Playing three-walled handball, however, was anothermatter entirely. For nearly four years, Stefan neglected theguitar while attending the all-male Brooklyn Technical HighSchool. Then, as he turned 15, the guitar once more raised itsvoice. “I started to play guitar again,” Stefan recalls, “firstbecause it was the thing for a social event – you’d go to a partyand play a guitar and meet girls – and, second, because I reallyliked the guitar.” It was during this time Stefan happenedonto the Washington Square Park `hoots’ which were in fullcry in 1960. They provided Stefan his initial connection withthe burgeoning folk revival. At the same time, his curiosityabout the music’s sources was piqued. “I’d got some old-timecountry records as well as recordings by Woody Guthrie andBig Bill Broonzy on the suggestion of my brother,” he recalls.“My parents thought the old-time music was very strange.They said it had been heavily sponsored in the 1920s and1930s by Henry Ford, meaning that it was very right-wingmusic, and my parents were very leftist. The Woody Guthrieand Big Bill Broonzy music were politically alright for them.The politics meant nothing whatever to me but the musicreally moved me.” Stefan's preference was for Broonzy’srecordings. “I liked the sound of instruments,” he says. “I wasstruck by Broonzy’s rhythmic, driving, phenomenal guitar. It
4
was always the blackmusicians that inter-ested me most.” Andthe one who had themost profound im-pact on him wasabout to enter hislife. “I started goingout with some girlsfrom Brooklyn Col-lege,” Stefan recalls,“and one of theirfriends, Bob Fox,said, ̀ You should gosee the Rev. GaryDavis,’ and I didn’teven know who Rev.Gary Davis was – Ihad no idea. Thatsame week I went tothe Folklore Centeron Bleecker Streetand Jack Prelutskywas there playing atune, ‘I Belong to theBand.’ I said,
`What’s that?’ He said, `That’s a Gary Davis piece.’ I said,`Oh,’ and things clicked. Someone had just told me to seeGary Davis and there was this piece I liked.”
Stefan got Davis’s address on Park Avenue in the Bronxand casually informed his parents he was going there forlessons. “My father was really scared because of this littlewhite kid, this white Jewish kid afoot in the worst crime areain the whole of America,” Stefan recalls. “My Dad drove methere for that first lesson on the pretense that he wanted tobuy shoes at a shop nearby! Once you got to the address youhad to go down an alleyway to a little tenement shack at theback which was Rev. Davis's home. You could see rats danc-ing in the shadows. I knocked on the door and this manopened up and said, ̀ You bring your money, honey?’ One eyewas totally missing and the other was bulbous with a cataract.He didn’t have his glasses on, he just had his long johns on.”
1961
on
the
stai
rs o
utsi
de
Rev
. Dav
is's
hom
e.
Pho
to b
y D
avid
Gah
r
5
Despite this off-putting introduction, Stefan remembersfeeling “totally charmed” by Rev. Davis. “I mean, he was anincredible genius as a teacher,” he says. “He was great if youwere a good student. Musically, we really hit it. Emotionally,I’d never had met my grandfathers as they died before I wasborn and Rev. Davis very much substituted for them. I wentout there every Saturday, also every Friday, Sunday, andevery school holiday that I could. I’d stay up there for 12hours at a time. Rev. Davis was a patient, exacting teacher. Hewould go over everything and help you with the accenting,the notes and variations. Man, he was always practicing! Healways said he wanted to keep one or two steps ahead of hisstudents, and he always did.”
While learning all he could of Davis’s vast repertoire ofsecular and sacred tunes, Stefan continued to hang out wherehe had first heard a Davis tune, the Folklore Center, warmlyremembered as “a place where you could always get togetherand pick. You’d go down there and see Bob Dylan and DocWatson just sitting and casually playing music. It was a greatatmosphere to get started in music.” Then, too, there wasWashington Square, where, Stefan recalls, “Everything washappening on Saturdays. After the park closed, you’d go toone of the kid’s houses in Brooklyn to pick. You’d meetpeople, some of them bluegrass people, some blues andragtime people...we got to be friends and would play.” Withhis friends Steve Katz and Eric Kaz, Stefan played blues as theshort-lived Gramercy Park Sheiks. He continued his tutelagefrom Rev. Davis, who, by 1962 had upgraded his digs with acolor TV (won in a church raffle) and a `No Smoking’ signvisible through the omnipresent White Owl cigar haze. Stefan
The E
ven Dozen Jug B
and at C
arnegie Hall, 1963
6
was also absorbing more vintage roots music via 78 collec-tors. “They were very hip to turn you on to music,” saysStefan. “It would take six months, but they would gently leadyou from the Memphis Jug Band to Charley Patton.” Theinfectiously funky jug band sound was naturally appealing tothe Washington Square ‘hoot’ crowd. 1963 was the year inwhich the Rooftop Singers scored a number one hit with anupdate of Cannon’s Jug Stompers 1929 waxing, “Walk RightIn.” Stefan’s stab at jug band stardom came as an organizer ofthe Even Dozen Jug Band, a loose ensemble which at timeshad as many as fourteen members, among them John Sebastian(“an incredible harmonica player,” says Stefan), Steve Katz,Peter Siegel, David Grisman, Joshua Rifkin, and MariaMuldaur. A scaled-down incarnation of the group made onealbum (Even Dozen Jug Band, Elektra EKS 724, 1964), butwrangling over its direction, coupled with college schedules,made it a short-lived burst of youthful energy. During this time Stefan was attending Cooper UnionArchitectural School, though his aims weren’t entirely aca-demic. “I was going to school basically to get meet girls,” herecalls, “and to stay out of the draft, like thousands of otherpeople.” While achieving those goals, Stefan witnessed theastonishing appearance of blues rediscoveries — MississippiJohn Hurt, Son House, Skip James, Bukka White — menknown from rare 78s seemingly rescued from a time warp. Helearned from them all and kept company with like-minded
Photo by Herbert G
rossman, 1965
7
contemporaries, both in New York and Washington, D.C.,where he acquired his ‘Kid Future’ nickname (from beingable to play Willie Brown's arrangement of ‘Future Blues’).Later in California, he encountered John Fahey, Ry Cooderand Steve Mann. “If you could play guitar,” says Stefan, “youwere accepted anywhere. I found that out. The first time Iwent to California and met all the good pickers there, I startedplaying the classic rags and fiddle tunes with counterpoint.As soon as they heard those arrangements I would have aplace to sleep that night.”
In 1965, Stefan and former girlfriend Rory Block (akaSunshine Kate) delivered How to Play Blues Guitar to Elektra.Along with the music, Stefan supplied tablature and notesabout blues musicians for the booklet. This pioneering in-structional recording led to an acoustic band venture on theWest Coast with Janis Joplin, Taj Mahal, and Steve Mannwhich, due to contractual conflicts, never got beyond therehearsal stage. Back in New York, Stefan spent a miserablefour months (September-December 1966) playing electricguitar with the legendary shock-rock band, the Fugs. (Stefangot the gig when head Fug Ed Sanders asked, “Are youcrazy?” and he replied in the affirmative). Early in 1967,Stefan found more convivial company playing in the rockgroup Chicago Loop. Mike Bloomfield and Barry Goldbergwere good friends of the group and after four months, theytold him: “You’re a fantastic and unique acoustic guitarplayer and you should stick to that.” Jobless, Stefan said to
Stef
an, S
teve
Kat
z &
Ry
Coo
der
, at t
he A
sh G
rove
, LA
, 196
4
8
himself: “I’ve been kicked out of school; I’m out of the draft.(With some difficulty, he got a 4F deferment). I’m going toEurope.” Before leaving, Stefan finished three books for OakPublications, Country Blues Guitar, Delta Blues Guitar andContemporary Ragtime Guitar. With detailed tablature, lyr-ics, and commentary on the musicians, these books werelandmarks in their field. “Grossman’s books were unique,”wrote Dale Miller nearly three decades later. “The conceptsand scope of his vision were much more ambitious than otherone-shot method books, and his tablature, though idiosyn-cratic, was extremely accurate. In addition, he explained howto capture the tone of the original work, advising that to playa Gary Davis tune one should wear a thumbpick andfingerpicks on two fingers just like Davis, to play a Missis-sippi John Hurt tune one should use the bare thumb and twobare fingers just like Hurt...and so on.”
In June 1967, Stefan arrived in England with a list ofcontacts provided by his friend, Marc Silber. “Just after I gotto London I went up to the Cambridge Folk Festival and Ifaced a big dilemma whether to enter a folk contest as anamateur or not,” Stefan recalls. “I was an amateur but theysaid I was too good an amateur. I met the High Level Rantersat the festival and I went up to Northumberland and I hung
Sam M
itchell, Mike C
ooper & Stefan, L
ondon 1975
9
out there. One of the big shocks of coming to England is thateveryone sings a lot, and it doesn’t make any difference, goodvoice or bad voice. So I did start to sing, and I went througha phase of writing songs because everyone else was goingthrough it, and then suddenly I found myself in what I dobest, which is to play the guitar with the occasional song. ButI play the guitar best, whether it’s my own or other people’scompositions.”
Stefan found a ‘parallel universe’ of sorts to the Americanfolk revival thriving in England. “The Young Tradition werefriends of Marc Silber,” Stefan recalls, “and they were livingin the same house as John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. Theywere really open-armed. I arrived when there was a realvacuum and people were thirsty for a new sound and I hadit....I just had this capacity to be able to play all these fancyragtime tunes and other stuff – Mance Lipscomb, Skip James,Fred McDowell, Rev. Davis, Son House – you name it, everyblack musician, I could play their styles to a T because I’dstudy it like a college professor and could play it...”
Folk Roots editor Ian Anderson remembers Stefan’s ar-rival on the British folk scene as akin to that of an aggressiveYank storming a beachhead: “He didn’t, to be blunt, set out inentirely the best fashion, “Anderson writes, “trumpeting hisarrival here with a Melody Maker interview which, basically,said that whilst these British guitar chappies of the Jansch/Renbourn ilk were jolly talented, they couldn’t play ‘real’blues. Thus he had come here to show us a trick or two.”Show ̀ em Stefan did, and his performances on the British folkclub circuit led to a recording contract with Fontana, then oneof Britain’s leading folk labels. His debut album, Aunt MollyMurray’s Farm, rated a `record of the month’ kudo fromMelody Maker in 1969, and his follow-up, Gramercy ParkSheik, appeared later the same year. The success of theserecordings cemented Stefan’s expatriate status and made hima unique fixture of the British and European folk scene. RobinDenselow, writing in The Electric Muse: The Story of Folkinto Rock, writes that Stefan “carried out the ideals andpromise of the folk blues revival with greater success thananyone else...What Stefan achieved with the blues is a musi-cal ideal that other folk musicians, working in different fields,might have followed if they’d had the skill or theimagination...He’s written everything from children’s songsto bleak, surreal ballads, and a whole variety of instrumen-
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tals. He moves from the traditional to the experimental, andback again, in a way that British traditionalists, with only oneor two exceptions, find quite unthinkable.” While absorbingtraces of a British musical accent via contact with Jansch,Renbourn, and Eric Clapton (who he had toured with whileplaying with the Chicago Loop) , whom he credits withteaching him the vibrato technique, Stefan found himselfsought after by Paul Simon. “I didn’t even know who PaulSimon was,” he recalls, “though of course I’d heard Simonand Garfunkel – this was 1969, and they were at their peak.Anyway, Paul was about to leave Art and was thinking aboutforming a band. He got in touch with me in October, and inDecember I met him in New York – he was staying in a housewhich belonged to Segovia’s former mistress. Paul gave upon the band idea, but over the next year we recorded fourtimes together. ‘Paranoia Blues’ appears on his first soloalbum with me playing slide guitar.” Ever restless, Stefan moved to Rome in 1969, continuingto tour not only the Great Britain but the rest of Europe aswell. Stefan’s impact on European guitarists in the late 1960swas prodigious: “To this day the woods of Europe are full ofStefan’s heirs,” says Dave Van Ronk. But Stefan’s love forinstruction and the `cause’ of exceptional acoustic guitaristswas about to lead him to forums beyond concert halls and folkclubs.
Mike B
loomfield
& Stefan, B
ologna, Italy 1984
11
In the early 1970s, responding to many requests, Stefan’sparents began marketing a series of their son’s audio instruc-tion tapes in the U.S. This was the onset of Stefan Grossman’sGuitar Workshop. At the same time, Stefan was seekingAmerican distribution of his Transatlantic label albums.“Transatlantic was never able to get a deal for me in America,”Stefan recalls. “I was really frustrated because I’m an Ameri-can and I knew my records could sell here.” Stefan contactedhis collector friend Nick Perls, who reissued the Yazoo bluesseries, but Perls wasn’t interested. John Fahey at Takomadidn’t even reply to Stefan’s query. Finally, ED Denson,Fahey’s Takoma label cofounder, expressed an interest inStefan’s work and they jointly founded the Kicking Mulelabel, Denson manning the American operation and Stefanholding forth in Europe. “All during the years my instruc-tional books had kept going,” Stefan recalls. “My parents hadrun that operation and had amassed a large mailing list andthat was the first 3000 names that we used for Kicking Mule.So there was a lot of mailorder and we started to sell in storesand we started to have some success.”
Though Kicking Mule’s initial raison d’etre was Americandistribution of an ambitious expatriate’s recordings, it quicklybecame a haven for a wide range of talented guitarists whomight otherwise have gone unrecorded. (Not all KickingMule acts were guitarists — Stefan vows the label’s finestalbum and the first released was by banjoist Art Rosenbaum.)For Stefan, his isolation in Italy was a further catalyst forproducing records of other guitarists: “I would go to therecord store in Rome and there was no record there that Icould learn from,” he says. For a man to whom “gettinginformation is what life’s all about,” this was untenable. If therecords weren’t there, Stefan would set about producingthem.
Thus began a decade of recordings with a dual musical-instructional focus. While anyone could enjoy the music, theKicking Mule Lp packages included booklets with tablaturefrom which aspiring guitarists could glean knowledge andattempt to replicate the recording. The Kicking Mule stable ofartists included several exponents of guitar adaptations of‘classic’ piano rags (Dave Laibman, Ton Van Bergeyk), Celticrevivalists (Dave Evans), leading lights of British folk guitar(John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, Davey Graham), and artistswho adroitly wandered the stylistic map (Duck Baker, Peter
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Finger and Leo Wijnkamp Jr.). The guitarists were an interna-tional cast – English, American, Dutch, German, Welsh – whoevinced individuality while sharing a common love of theacoustic guitar, usually steel strung and played solo. “Stefanwas the focal point for bringing together a whole lot ofmusicians – guitar players primarily – and giving them achance to interact with each other,” says Duck Baker.
Extensive interaction took place on the Kicking Muletours Stefan organized for his label’s acts. It was an excitingtime, says Stefan, of “cross-fertilization. We all learned fromeach other...” European wunderkinds like Leo Wijnkamp Jr.and veterans like Dave Van Ronk could be seen and heardtogether picking guitar rags in a way which bespoke acontinuity of tradition.
Like almost every renaissance, that of the fingerstyleguitar celebrated by Kicking Mule was short-lived. By 1983,Stefan and Denson were undergoing a “friendly divorce”effectively dissolving Kicking Mule as a haven for acousticguitarists. “We’re very good friends still,” says Stefan, “butED got involved in doing other types of music, not guitarmusic, which did not interest me at all....” In the late 1970s,Stefan toured and recorded extensively with John Renbourn,with whom he had first recorded in 1976 for Kicking Mule.New York Times reviewer Stephen Holden praised their “ex-ceptional rapport...matched by their understated virtuosity.”Of his duets with Renbourn, Stefan said simply, “It workswell because we’re friends, and because we really work on it.”
By the mid-1980s, Stefan had been working on the road
The A
ssassination of John Fahey & Stefan G
rossman, 1986.
13
for nearly two decades and was weary. Sidelined by a herni-ated disc, Stefan, based again in Rome, Italy, took stock of hislife and decided it was time to come home especially asShanachie Records had made him an offer he couldn't refuse.He had been back frequently to perform, but he returned tolive in the States in 1987, 20 years since departing at age 22.
His work at Shanachie Records involved CD reissues ofthe Yazoo catalogue, Shanachie’s acclaimed Guitar Artistryseries, which incorporated some Kicking Mule material, andthe vintage performance videos which were precursors ofStefan’s current Vestapol Video line. “When I hear him de-scribe the lengths he has to go to get this stuff,” Duck Bakeronce remarked of Stefan’s film footage sleuthing, “I realizethat if anybody else but Stefan was doing it, it just wouldn’thappen.”
After five years at Shanachie, Stefan left to devote him-self full-time to the varied enterprises presently occurringunder the umbrella of Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop.These include production of learning materials in all media– print, audio, and video. Aside from instructional books,cassettes and videos by Stefan and a host of other fine guitar-ists, there are the acclaimed Vestapol Videos of vintage andcontemporary blues, jazz, folk, and country guitar perfor-mances. All this activity leaves Stefan precious little time forperformances, though he professes not to miss them. He stilldoes the occasional gig and recording (Pepsi called him for acommercial last year), but Stefan, the product of what he calls
John Renbourn &
Stefan, 1987 Photo by Jo Ayres
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“a typical Jewish family, believing that the mind is verysacred and very holy,” believes what he’s doing through hisWorkshop is of far greater importance. Besides, he had twodecades of performing under his belt before the latest phaseof his career began. Now Stefan’s doing for other guitaristswhat Rev. Gary Davis did for him, only one needn’t brave aBronx tenement for his instruction. Nothing more formidablethan a VCR is required.
Thirty years have passed since How to Play Blues Guitarpointed the way towards a lifetime of passionate involve-ment with the preservation and perpetuation of guitarmusic, to paraphrase Malcom X, “by any means necessary.”Those who know Stefan unanimously vouch for his tenacityand intensity, qualities which have served him well in hissingle-minded pursuit of sounds as exciting as those emittedby Big Bill Broonzy’s “rhythmic, driving, phenomenal gui-tar,” a sound he first encountered when Eisenhower wasPresident and Stefan’s English counterparts were bangingaway in skiffle bands. The world has much changed sincethen, but one suspects Stefan’s drive to get at the sounds hewants and share them with the like-minded has not. It’s a rareknack, but then some guys will go to extraordinary lengths toavoid being locked in a closet with a saxophone.
Stefan, Bert Jansch &
Ralph M
cTell, D
enmark, 1979
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The PerformancesThis retrospective of Stefan’s career begins with two
performances from Denmark in 1971. “Roll & Tumble Blues”is the archetypal Delta bottleneck blues first recorded byHambone Willie Newbern in 1929. Robert Johnson revampedit in 1936 as “If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day,” and in1950 “Rollin’ and Tumblin’ Pt. 1 & 2” became Muddy Waters’final release on the Aristocrat label prior to its rechristeningas Chess. Stefan’s performance of this Spanish tuning (openG) showpiece with a jagged bottleneck suggests his directapproach to the sometimes arcane business of wresting thenecks from wine bottles. For him, a solid whack at a curbsidewith an empty gave him what he wanted. “I remember inDenver I was almost arrested one night in the back alley of theFolklore Center breaking bottles,” he recalls, “and I couldn’texplain to the policeman that what I was doing was a validexercise!”
“High Society” is an archetype of another sort. Based onSnooks Eaglin’s Folkways recording, this spritely guitar show-piece likely dates to the turn of the century, when guitarswere just becoming widely popular folk instruments andpiano ragtime was still in vogue. Just as a ragtime pianistmight imitate the sundry sections of a band, a guitarist,setting out from the favorite ragtime key, C, might readilyrecreate a pianistic imitation of the brass bands which werethen a fixture of American public life and thus enjoyed bysociety both high and low.
The next five performances occurred in Sweden in 1972.“Shake Sugaree” comes from the repertoire of ElizabethCotten. Cotten’s music came from a time and place whenblues was emerging but ragtime was still prevalent. What sherecalled from her childhood was a piquant blend. “ShakeSugaree,” like all her work, is sure but seldom showy. Thefancy picking Stefan adds towards the tune’s end suggestsother Southeastern guitarists more than Cotten.
“God Moves On the Water” is a Vestapol (open D) tuningbottleneck tour de force taken from the 1929 recording of thegreat guitar evangelist, Blind Willie Johnson. The song con-cerns the sinking of the Titanic, a theme used in several folksongs to illustrate God’s punishment for man’s hubris. ManceLipscomb’s version, also based on Johnson’s, appears in TexasBlues Guitar (Vestapol 13041).
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“Dallas Rag” comes from the Dallas String Band by wayof Dave Laibman, from whom Stefan learned this jaw-drop-ping arrangement. He remembers this as the ragtime show-piece which separated the men from the boys in the fraternityof early 1960s New York fingerstyle hot-shots.
“Friends Forever” is an original which almost – a fewchord progressions excepted – sounds traditional. “LenaAnne” is another original which shows the impact his contactwith English guitarists, especially Bert Jansch, had on Stefan’scompositions.
The next two performances were made in England in1974. “Hot Dogs” is Blind Lemon Jefferson’s rather uncharac-teristic contribution to the ragtime guitar idiom mixed withRev. Gary Davis’s “Cincinnati Flow Rag” and some of Stefan’sown ragtime touches.
“Memphis Jelly Roll” is an original Spanish tuning slideworkout which pits a Stella 12-string against a blues formatincorporating some unconventional (by strict blue standards)chord changes.
The next two performances are from Italy, 1977. This wasnear the apex of the Kicking Mule era, when a lot of freshideas and players were challenging young veterans likeStefan. “Bermuda Triangle Exit” is a logical result, a blues-based tune with some wry, whimsical twists which likelywouldn’t have seemed `right’ to Stefan a decade prior. Butthey were perfect for that moment in 1977.
Stefan & R
y Cood
er, Los A
ngeles 1964
17
“Danish Drone” epitomizes the best of the Kicking Mulestylistic symbiosis as Stefan is joined by Duck Baker in a fieryforay through fingerstyle funk. It was a heady hour foracoustic guitar adventurers.
The next half dozen performances come from a 1982American concert. If the previous Italian outings show Stefanpushing his generic envelope, here he returns to his roots.“Satisfied” is from the repertoire of Mississippi John Hurt,whom Stefan recalls as “the ideal elderly person...he came ingently, he left gently.” Hurt’s apparent innocence belied therisque edge of songs like this.
“Mississippi Blues” was learned from a Library of Con-gress recording by Willie Brown. “It’s the first time you reallyhear a blues guitar player doing a piano transcription,” saysStefan. “He does a Leroy Carr type of piano lick on that tune.It was a very sophisticated approach for 1942.” We also hearStefan quote Robert Johnson following his mention of 1930sguitar players.
“Cocaine Blues” learned from Gary Davis, was one ofseveral songs on the topic which probably date from the turnof the century, when cocaine was readily ingested via patentmedicine nostrums. The reference to the doping of race horsesalso occurs in Leadbelly’s “Take a Whiff On Me.” Davislearned this song in 1905, the year prior to the elimination,thanks to the Pure Food and Drug Act, of cocaine from itsnamesake, Coca-Cola.
The sweetly melancholy “Pretty Girl Milking a Cow” is apiece Stefan has introduced on stage as “a stunning melodyand a title quite absurd.” It was composed by the 18th centuryIrish harpist, Turlough O’Carolan. Stefan learned it from theplaying of Duck Baker.
“Tightrope” is as musically ambitious as any of the origi-nal compositions in this collection. Stefan’s impressionisticevocation of a Herculean hangover turns fresh stones but is,like most of his music, deeply rooted in the blues. Astute earswill even notice passing quotes from the blues guitarist Ste-fan calls “the governor,” Lonnie Johnson.
“Vestapol/That’s No Way to Get Along”is an ebullienttrain trip on the open D express. `Vestapol’ is a corruption ofSebastapol, the siege of which during the Napoleonic Warswas celebrated in a 19th century guitar piece in open D. Theopen tunings used extensively by early 20th century bluesguitarists seem to have come from popular `parlor guitar’
18
pieces of the previous century. “That’s No Way to Get Along”is the Robert Wilkins blues later revamped as “The ProdigalSon.”
The final two entries in this video retrospective return toSweden in 1988. There we find Stefan in the company of JohnRenbourn, with whom he had then been performing for thebetter part of a decade. “Spirit Levels” is a chunky, funky duetwhich New York Times reviewer Robert Palmer called “alovely, jazz-tinged ballad...with subtle string bending anddelicate embroidery...” As an exception to the rule, Stefandoes his stitching here with a flatpick. He says this staple ofGrossman-Renbourn performances was “different every time.We were always improvising.”
The closing duet selection, “Looper’s Corner,” is a lightchaser of a tune which refers back to the ragtime roots sharedvariously by Stefan and John. No matter where their musictook them, they always brought along sweetly accessiblesouvenirs from home.
The last two tracks come from a 1995 performance at theFreight and Salvage in Berkeley, California. Stefan combinedtwo night of concerts with daytime recording sessions withJohn Fahey and Pat Donohue.
— Mark Humphrey
Herbert &
Stefan Grossm
an
19
Photo by Herbert G
rossman
20
Discography & BibliographyThe following compact discs, books and videos are all
available. Detailed information regarding them can be ob-tained by writing Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop, POBox 802, Sparta, NJ 07871.
Compact DiscsLove Devils & The Blues (Shanachie 97001)
Guitar Landscapes (Shanachie 97010)
Yazoo Basin Boogie (Shanachie 97013)
Shining Shadows (Shanachie 97020)
How To Play Blues Guitar (Shanachie 98001)
Black Melodies On A Clear Afternoon (Shanachie 98011)
Instructional VideosFingerpicking Guitar Techniques (GW 901)
Bottleneck Blues Guitar (GW 902)
How To Play Blues Guitar (GW 903)
Country Blues Guitar Part One (GW 904)
Country Blues Guitar Part Two (GW 905)
Country Blues Guitar Part Three (GW 906)
Hot Fingerpicking Guitar Solos (GW 912)
More Hot Fingerpicking Guitar Solos (GW 913)
Advanced Fingerpicking Guitar/Blues Guitar (GW 928)
Advanced Fingerpicking Guitar/Ragtime Blues Guitar (GW 929)
Advanced Fingerpicking Guitar/Hot Fiddle Tunes (GW 930)
Fingerpicking Country Blues Guitar (GW 931)
Instructional BooksMasters Of Country Blues Guitar Series:
Anthology Of Country Blues GuitarRev. Gary DavisBlind Boy FullerLonnie Johnson
Mississippi John HurtBlind Blake
Complete Country Blues Guitar BookComplete Ragtime Guitar Book
Complete Celtic Fingerstyle Guitar BookFingerstyle Guitar/New Dimensions & Explorations
The Guitar Of John FaheyThe Classic Rags Of Scott Joplin
Complete Fingerstyle Guitar BookDeluxe Anthology Of O'Carolan Music For Fingerstyle Guitar
Complete Fingerstyle Guitar Exercises & Hot LicksLegends Of Country Blues Guitar
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The Roots Of Robert JohnsonFingerpicking Jazz Guitar Workshop
Beginner's Fingerpicking Guitar WorkshopPlay Ragtime Guitar
Play Country Blues GuitarCountry Blues Songbook
The Holy Blues/Rev. Gary DavisAnthology Of Blues Guitar:
Country Blues GuitarDelta Blues Guitar
Ragtime BluesRev. Gary Davis/Blues Guitar
Texas Blues GuitarGuitar Workshop Book Series:
Folk, Blues, Jazz & BeyondFingerpicking Blues Guitar Solos
Art Of Fingerstyle GuitarFingerpicking Guitar Solos
Classic Ragtime Guitar SolosBritish Fingerpicking GuitarBottleneck Slide Blues Guitar
Celtic Airs, Jigs, Hornpipes & AirsMasters Of Fingerpicking Guitar
Guitar Duets Of Stefan Grossman & John RenbournFingerstyle Guitar Solos In Open Tunings
John Sebastian, Stefan & D
avid G
risman
22
Guitars, Guitars & Guitarsby Stefan Grossman
I have been extremely fortunate to have owned and playedmany great guitars. Over the years I have searched far and wide forguitars in pawn shops, music stores, private homes, auctions andyard-sales. Just a few years ago my wife went to a furniture auctionin Sussex County, New Jersey and found herself bidding on a dirtyold parlor-sized guitar. The bidding started at $15.00 but no one wasinterested - the folks had come to buy furniture not guitars! Sheended up buying the guitar for $10.00. Once we got it clean wediscovered to our amazement that it was a Mauer made by the Larsonbrothers in 1905 at their Chicago shop. There are still treasures to befound but they are not as abundant as the 1950s or 1960s. Here's alisting of the guitars used on this video. Some I still own while othershave gone their way and are being picked by other players:
Denmark, 1971Roll & Tumble Blues
Martin 1956 D-28 refinished by Randy WoodsHigh Society - 1930 Martin OM-45
Sweden, 1972Shake Sugaree - 1939 Gibson Advanced Jumbo
God Moves On The Water - 1920s Stella Six StringDallas Rag, Friends Forever, Lena Anne
1939 Gibson Advanced JumboEngland, 1974
Hot Dogs - Euphonon (Maple)Memphis Jellyroll - 1920s Stella Twelve String
Italy, 1977Bermuda Triangle Exit and Danish Drone
Prairie State (Rosewood)U.S.A., 1981
Satisfied, Mississippi Blues, Cocaine Blues,Pretty Girl Milking A Cow, Tightrope and
Medley: Vestapol/That's No Way To Get AlongEuphonon (Mahogany)
Sweden 1988Spirit Levels and Looper's Corner
Franklin Jumbo Cutaway (Indian Rosewood)U.S.A. 1995
Struttin’ Rag and Blues For The MannFranklin Jumbo (Brazilian Rosewood)
Tab/Music TranscriptionsI have included transcriptions for some of the arrangements
presented on this video. Have fun!
23
&
#
4
4
VERSE
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Standard Tuning
SHAKE SUGAREE
24
&
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25
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26
&
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27
&
##
4
4
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##
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6
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Open D Tuning: DADF#AD
God Moves On The Water
28
&
##
4
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29
& 4
4
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Standard Tuning
Dallas Rag
30
&
G7
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31
&
B
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32
&
G7Œ œ
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33
&
##
#12
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&
##
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Regular TuningMississippi Blues
34
&
##
#D6
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35
&
##
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BOOGIESECTION
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36
&
##
#
j
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37
& 4
4
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‚
y
y
y
y
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Standard Tuning
Friends Forever
38
&
B
Am‰
œ
j
œ
j
œ œj
œ
œ
œ
œ
œ
¤‚ ⁄ ‚
‚¤
‚¤
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œœ
j
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œn
œ
‚‚
¤
›
¤
y
¤
&
D/F#
‰
œ
j
œ
j
œ œj
œ
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49
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50
&
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51
& 4
4
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52
&
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Denmark, 1971Roll & Tumble BluesHigh Society
Sweden, 1972Shake SugareeGod Moves On The WaterDallas RagFriends ForeverLena Anne
England, 1974Hot DogsMemphis Jellyroll
Italy, 1977Bermuda Triangle ExitDanish Drone (w. Duck Baker)
U.S.A., 1981SatisfiedMississippi BluesCocaine BluesPretty Girl Milking A CowTightropeMedley: Vestapol/That's No Way To Get Along
Sweden 1988Spirit Levels (w. John Renbourn)Looper's Corner (w. John Renbourn)
U.S.A., 1995Struttin’ RagBlues For The Mann
“Stefan Grossman has done justabout everything one can do in thefield of music. He has been, amongother things, a performer, a record-ing artist, a record company founder,a video producer, an A&R man, arecord producer, a student, a teacher and a music historian. But it is hissuccess in illuminating classic and contemporary country blues, ragtimeand other fingerstyle guitar techniques that has made him, in the wordsof guitarist Dave Van Ronk, ‘one of the most important people infingerpicking guitar in the history of the phenomenon.’” – Acoustic Guitar
Vestapol 13036Running Time: 75 minutes • Color
Nationally distributed by Rounder Records,One Camp Street, Cambridge, MA 02140
Representation to Music Stores byMel Bay Publications
© 2003 Vestapol ProductionsA division of Stefan Grossman's
Guitar Workshop, Inc.
ISBN: 1-57940-975-X
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