“I went to the mountains,
far as my eyes could see”
You can hear an audio version of this post here.
Today’s song is Come On In My Kitchen written by Robert Johnson (1911-38). Johnson is a blues legend (and more than most as in his case there actually are legends about him, selling his soul at a crossroads and so on). This means this song is probably one of the better known songs I’m looking at this month but there is still a link to my overall getting-to-know-different-music theme. Also there might not be a Montrose connection particularly but there is a link to the annual Glasgow winter music festival Celtic Connections that, fairly last minute, got the go ahead for at least some of its concerts this year (some are in person, some online and some postponed). You can hear one of Robert Johnson’s versions of Come On In My Kitchen here and there’s a whole Wikipedia page about where he might have got bits of the song. He first recorded it in 1936 (two takes, with some different lyrics between one and two) and well-known covers abound. A trip round YouTube or Spotify will play you versions by (for starters) George Harrison, Leon Russel and Eric Clapton (together live in 1971, and separately other times), Taj Mahal, The Allman Brothers Band, Cassandra Wilson, John Renbourn, Delaney and Bonnie, Larkin and Poe, Keb’ Mo’, the Steve Miller Band, Whitehorse and, well, Simply Red. However, none of these, including Johnson’s, are the version I first heard of this song.
I had heard music influenced by blues my whole life but I didn’t know much about early US blues artists until I started going to my local folk club in Montrose in 2004. In folk clubs (around the world, I imagine) musicians like Johnson, Lead Belly, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Big Bill Broonzy are spoken of in hushed reverent tones (as musical heroes) and their songs have never gone away. The Black American music generally called the blues was a big driver for pretty much all music scenes in the UK (and 20th Century folk very much included in that). Some of the artists I heard at the Montrose Folk Club that I’ve already written about (like Johnny Dickinson on Day 11 and Martin Simpson on Day 15) played a lot of blues as well as folk when they played at the club (if you can make the distinction clearly, it is debated sometimes). There were also guest artists who billed themselves more specifically as blues acts (mainly bands from around Scotland and England, often with an American somewhere in the ranks). The blues acts often attracted bigger crowds and there were blues-mad locals who played in the floor spot sections too (one in particular played a lot of Robert Johnson songs, although not today’s song that I remember). That local still has his own blues band called Georgia Crawl. Down the coast a little, the next town, Arbroath, even had an annual blues festival which was, in its early years at least, well organised and attended. Sandy Tweeddale is a Scottish musician already mentioned back on Day 20 who is often a big feature of Scottish blues festivals (playing in The Blue Hyenas or Blues’ N’ Trouble or solo). He often played at Montrose too (the folk club and MoFest).
As you can see, from the names so far, a lot of this music did tend to focus on (and consist of) male musicians but in more recent years there has been a general widening of focus and more attention given to early twentieth century women blues musicians too. As well as the movies (such as 2020’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), there have been books (Jackie Kay’s Bessie Smith, 2021), radio programmes (such as the Radio Two Blues Show, now with Cerys Matthews presenting) and live shows. In 2018 I saw Edinburgh musician Nicole Smit (with a band as Nicole and the Back Up Crew) who put on an amazing show in Dundee called Queens of the Blues (like a tribute show, but not a tribute band…). Nicole released a new single (Strong Woman EP) in December 2021. I’ve already heard it on the radio (courtesy of DJ/presenter Craig Charles), she’s got a bright future.
But back to the kitchen ... despite all the covers, as far as I’m aware, the first time I heard Come On In My Kitchen was in 2007 when I took my first trip to Glasgow’s Celtic Connections. I had been hearing about this music festival since I started going to the folk club in 2004 and was keen to try it. It takes place every January and attracts amazing musicians from Scotland and all over the world. It was my 40th birthday in January 2007 so Mark and I booked some tickets, arranged childcare at home in Montrose and headed west for a couple of nights. It was probably the furthest we’d been away from our daughter at that point, certainly it was for me. After pretty much living in nightclubs in the 1990s I didn’t get out much (at night) in the noughties (apart from the folk club).
On our first night in Glasgow we went to one of the big ‘big name’ events in the Concert Hall. It was good but a bit muted*. Then, on our second night, we more spontaneously booked to see a band we didn’t really know – a group of young musicians from the States playing at the ABC called Crooked Still (I say ‘young’, they were younger than 40 anyway). How we picked that gig I don’t recall. Maybe we listened to them on MySpace or something (it was 2007).
The first act was an Faroese artist called Eivør. She was brilliant and the night started well. The ABC (now closed sadly, after one of the huge Art School fires) was a more relaxed venue than the concert hall and I felt quite at home (I’m not good in formal venues, they make me twitchy). There was even something like a folk star (Seth Lakeman) standing by the bar so I guess that was a clue that there was going to be some amazing string work coming up. Lakeman’s 2006 album, the fiddle frenzy of Freedom Fields, was huge at the time – it had even been in the pop charts.
And he certainly was in the right place because Crooked Still were a total knock-out. Progressive bluegrass are words I see on their Wikipedia page and it definitely felt like progressive something (I didn’t have a lot of bluegrass experience – I just knew what they were doing was really exciting and varied and skilful). At one point I had to nip to the loo (I use this word to entertain any American relatives reading – they always find it very amusing) and as I washed my hands in the dark, empty nightclub-style bathroom I could hear loud and clear the opening to Come On In My Kitchen (which for Crooked Still’s version is cello, then banjo, then double bass, then finally Aoife’s oh-so hypnotic vocals, hear it here). It felt to me as if the sound of the song was working its way around the venue like a cloud of mist along a river. I was quite far away from the stage in the facilities but it felt like the voice was calling to me (and I had only had a wine or something – no hallucinogens I promise). I’ve never forgotten how I first heard that song and how well all its sounds combined. I’ve listened to the album that song is on a lot over the years (2006’s Shaken by a Low Sound) and never tire of it. All these pics are from that album but we also own the earlier Hop High (2004) and the later Still Crooked (2008).
Crooked Still got together in Boston, MA when the four original members were all studying in the city (it says online that they met in 2001). When we saw them it was still just the original four - vocalist Aoife O'Donovan (I think she also played guitar, I’m pretty sure she does now), banjo player Gregory Liszt, bassist Corey DiMario, and cellist Rushad Eggleston. They were dynamite together and it was an unforgettable show. They introduced themselves as (and this is from memory so I apologise if it’s not totally correct) one Irish American (Aoife), one Jewish American (Gregory), one Italian American (Corey) and one Armenian American (Rushad) and certainly you felt they were looking at American music with wide open eyes. They were all brilliant but I particularly loved Aoife’s voice right from the off and certainly she is the one I've heard most about since (her solo work and collaborations such as the band I’m With Her with Sara Watkins** and Sarah Jarosz). We watched Aoife wassailing (online) with Chris Thile** around the first lockdown Xmas and most recently she has a new solo album Age of Apathy. It was definitely Rushad Eggleston who was the most eyecatching in 2007 though. At the ABC he was wearing some kind of stars’n’stripes outfit (with a cape I think…). His cello was hard to ignore too – his playing was wild, fierce, exciting! He was the first to leave the band for other things and he has had 3 solo albums since 2013. Not long after he left Crooked Still became a 5 piece band (with new members cellist Tristan Clarridge and fiddler Brittany Haas from 2008). They put out a few more albums but I haven’t seen the band live again (I don’t get to Celtic Connections*** every year). All I know that is in 2007 they were a foursome on fire and that kitchen they were singing about sounded irresistible…
See you back here tomorrow for a Scottish artist and a song about Edinburgh.
*It was a bit of weird one. The music was faultless but the atmosphere on stage was very awkward (and as it was a big birthday treat we were unusually for us in the front row seats so could feel it pretty strongly). I later read that two of the people on stage had just ended their relationship (or were about to I don’t know the details, that’s not the kind of thing I follow). That certainly explained the weirdness though.
**Sara Watkins and Chris Thile are two parts of the brilliant and exciting band Nickel Creek (I loved their 2003 album This Side – it may have won an Emmy but I first discovered it in Montrose library). I wish these bands’ names were more different though – these days it’s not unheard of for me to mix up the Crooked Stills and the Nickel Creeks, sometimes even Nickelback gets a look-in. I’m one step away from calling The Beatles the Bidets or something.
*** As well as this trip in 2007, my trips to Celtic Connections have involved going to see Chris Wood in 2016 (fantastic – a pretty perfect night) and going to the launch night at the Concert Hall in 2017 (also amazing and info on that back on Karine Polwart’s Day 21).
This post is part of my Songs That Stick project for 2022’s Fun A Day Dundee (a community arts project that takes place every January). Anyone can take part (you don’t even have to be local to Dundee) and much of the work can be found on Instagram during January (use #FADD2022). There is usually a real-life exhibition later in the year (though this has been online for the past 2 years). The full list of songs I am writing about this year is here. My first post about why I picked this project this time is here.
If you are interested in my Fun A Day Dundee projects for 2020 and 2021 you can start here and here. They are quite different to this one (a short poem and drawings in 2020 and lots of poems and writing in 2021).
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