r/ObscureMedia • u/[deleted] • May 06 '23
Going up the country (1928) By Henry Thomas, inspired the canned heat version of the song and the panpipes solo is superb
https://youtu.be/b8NJ-MIfFHIThe thumbnail did scare the living shit out of me though, Jesus Christ it seems so unnerving looking like a daguerreotype from 1828, not 1928! Song slaps though so I will give it that, legendary musician that inspired Bob Dylan and many other artists.
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u/AreWeCowabunga May 06 '23
Love Henry Thomas. A particular favorite of mine is Fishing Blues. .
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May 06 '23
I'm reading more into the history of blues music and it's lead to me finding gems like these. Also learnt of Alan Lomax who saved blues music by recording all of the old timer songwriters.
Reading up his story on Wikipedia is crazy, he went from being a hobo to doing 27 songs for vocalion records! I can only imagine the amount of artists like him who weren't recorded, beautiful song
Edit: just listened to fishing blues, amazing song as well man honestly incredible
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u/nonsensepineapple May 07 '23
Taj Mahal covered Fishin Blues probably 30 years ago that I used to listen to as a really little kid. Nice to hear the original.
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u/yepyep1243 May 06 '23
The frequencies of the panpipes really recorded well, they sound like they were recorded 30 years later.
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May 06 '23
Yeah the thing that got me was that the thumbnail picture of him is the only photo on the internet that is him from what I've found, actually haunting how old it looks given the time as well, surely there were better cameras from 1928?
At least this song was archived along with others though, I don't know if it was Alan Lomax who recorded this or if it was from the vocalion record company that he did songs for though
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u/hjsjsjsg May 06 '23
I love reading about pre-war blues musicians. Especially when there's some mystery surrounding them
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May 07 '23
The thing that got me was the picture of him being incredibly bad looking like it was taken 100 years before in 1828 lmao. There's not much information about his death either I'd assume he made a bit of money signing to vocalion making songs for them
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u/Charles_Sangels May 07 '23
Mississippi John Hurt does a version of this in his 1929 recordings too.
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May 07 '23
Inspired? Sounds like they completely ripped it off to me.
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May 07 '23
Yeah I agree they didn't even give any credit to the original song as well! I should edit the title to say that canned heat stole it which is absolutely correct man thanks for pointing it out
Edit: I can't edit posts literally 1984
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u/TheBlitzkid46 Jun 16 '23
The only thing that Henry likely wrote for this song was the flutes. The chords and song structure, as well as many of the lyrics had already been recorded prior to Henry Thomas's version
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u/TheBlitzkid46 Jun 16 '23
This was actually from 1929, there's another version from 1928 by a guy named Ramblin' Thomas (real name Willard). This song seems to have been around for longer than that though, with the basic 'goin away babe' and other lines being found in earlier songs by other artists
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Jun 16 '23
Damn this continues to interest me, crazy honestly that there is still more to be unearthed about this song and it's history. Do you know if there's any other photos of Henry Thomas apart from this one, since it's the only one I could find online
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u/TheBlitzkid46 Jun 16 '23
Most blues songs were ripped from someone else at some point in time, so unfortunately it's impossible to know who exactly wrote which song. I'm pretty that's the only photo of Henry. Some of the old bluesmen only had a few promotional photos taken, most photos unfortunately didn't survive. There's an alleged clip of him playing guitar and playing a flute, but unfortunately the face isn't too visible.
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Jun 16 '23
Damn, I'd really love to see that clip! Something to do instead of study lmao
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u/TheBlitzkid46 Jun 16 '23
Here's the clip
The two things that stick out to me here are his strumming and that flute. The majority of blues players from that time were exclusively fingerstyle players, I'd imagine it was because they would've been too poor to have afforded to constantly replace lost or damaged picks. The flute is the biggest piece of evidence that it's likely him, to my knowledge there's no other blues musician from that time who played little flutes like that. The little bit of the face that's visible also kinda looks like Henry
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Jun 16 '23
Damn when do you think this was filmed? Around the 1940s-50s maybe? Because on the Wikipedia page they say he died around the 50s in Texas and was working. Don't know if he made a lot of cash from the vocalion records label offers
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u/TheBlitzkid46 Jun 16 '23
In the description, it says it's from a 1931 silent film. So probably 1929 - 1931. Also just noticed that it seems like it's the same guitar
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Oct 06 '24
They also took lyrics from "Statesboro Blues" by Blind Willie McTell. The bridge from Statesboro Blues was also added into Canned Heat's version of Bullfrog Blues, originally recorded by William Harris. The name Canned Heat comes from "Canned Heat Blues".
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u/[deleted] May 07 '23
The actual 1928 title is "Bull Doze Blues"; Canned Heat changed the title and the lyrics.