ONCE AGAIN i am most likely loosing a pretty girl because i have chosen the blues over0 her....and she don't even understand....i could ..you now..but...ok...i love my 7th note then i could ever love her...sweet dreams to you people.... love kingston on peace and love mofosssss
Holy Shit. While everyone is blah-blahing "it means this or that" or "you're not black, how would you know", or "I is black I know the meaning"..... How about STFU and listen. And listen to 1) the incredible arrangement of the song 2) the incredible ambiguity of the lyrics. Not a lot of folk were doing this sort of thing at this time. Credit THE SONG AS IT IS with some intelligence. Maybe you are not meant to know...really. The arrangement with the speaking - for me is just brilliant.
@SlymmieFatts I don't subscribe to the idea that only a Black person can understand or play the blues etc. Blues is global now and that's a wonderful thing, but the black indian thing burns me up a little. Every black person in America is mixed with something, european or indian, heck I even have a Chinese ancestor from the late 19th century in my woodpile. As much as I respect the Africans, we are an entirely seperate group. This mixing has made for great music among other things...
@SlymmieFatts I always heard he was black and Choctaw Indian, and that a lot of the first black blues players were mixed with Native Americans. Indians were part of the birth of the blues!
been listening to this song over and over, and reading the lyrics, and i highly doubt he's talking about cocaine. i think the song is just about getting laid, and how charley and every other man living gets mad when they don't, and how it's the main thing most people/men care about more than anything else, and how it drives people to do things that land them in jail (about to go to jail about this spoonful, mens in parchment done lifetime...etc)
@daltonjohn32 he's obviosly talking about drugs and if you can't tell that, then stop trying to interpret old black american songs. you don't have any frame of reference and have no idea of what you're talking about.
@daltonjohn32 i'm african american, that's why its obvious. its like an irish person knowing what an old irish song about hard times is about. enough of the culture is still the same that if you grow up within the culture you can tell what's going on.
@jasond057 'Scuse me I' french, and an ex baby-boomer. I'm not about modern blues musicians, so, please, who's that Justin Beaver ? I know what's a beaver (I've watch all the Tex Avery cartoons), but why this name ? Did he plays Strat' with his teeth like Jimi ?
Thanks for answering ;)
Who? me Kidding 'bout such serious things ? ROFL !
charlie wasnt white , aint no way in the world the racist white bosses in mississipi would let a white dud work and lived whit the black ones, he was maybe a half mexican half black guy
What are you arguing about?? the facts are there..blues was born from the negro slaves...rock was born from the blues and these artists belong in the music hall of fame
@ManilaSyndicate ...bold claim....if its true then the devil welched on his deal...unless of course Patton cut the same deal with the devil and utilised it better...
@Floatles Bottleneck in Open D (DADF#AD). The tab + score for this is available in Bottleneck Blues Guitar by Woody Mann. My teacher started me on Bottleneck a few weeks ago and I'm going to suggest we learn this next as I think i'm not far from playing this.. Have already been through some of the licks on my own and they sounds spot on. :)
It's a great loss that Patton's mentor, Henry Sloan was never recorded. Some have speculated that it was either Sloan or Patton himself who W.C. Handy encountered in that late-night train station in Tutwiler when Handy was enthralled by the slider and the lyric about "Where the Southern cross the Dog." Which lyric Handy used in one of his first Blues songs in recognition of the great appeal of the Delta Blues form.
I must say though that the lyric transcription is the best I've seen. In "Deep Blues," Robert Palmer comments on Patton's use of four voices in this song, his "customary singing voice," a "womanish falsetto," a "lower speaking voice," and "the voice of his slider" completing the verse. Hunter suggests that Patton's vocal style and his use of polyrhythms is very close to the original African roots of the music. Like Muddy Waters, his "microtonal" voice pitchings are quite archaic.
@LetheMusiccom Spoonful isn't about sex. In the Delta, and all along the mississippi, building up the levees was constant, terrifically hard work. To keep them going, cocaine was sold everywhere from right outside Parchman farm, to many black-only stores and shops. Smallest amount was a "paper." Largest was a small wood match box -- about a tablespoon. And a tablespoon was used by those who shot. It was an epidemic, finally banned in the '30s. See Alan Lomax. M. Waters analogized on other spoons
This song (and a derivative version by Willie Dixon) is not about drugs, but is, rather, about sex and about the product of the male and female orgasms. As Willie Dixon writes, "... a little spoon of your precious love will satisfy my soul ..." is what the whole world fights about. Men always fought each other over women in the juke joints. Robert Johnson himself was probably poisoned because he was hitting on the woman of the barrelhouse owner he was playing in.
@LetheMusiccom Yes, women who flocked to the juke joints were considered promiscuous and "loose" back in the day and men usually fought over their favors and thier "spoon of [their] precious love". Notorious womanizer and philanderer Robert Johnson was indeed poisoned by a jealous rival after Johnson either had a sexual affair or made a play at the joint owner's wife. According to legend, the Devil came to collect!
@LetheMusiccom Charlie Pattons song "Spoonful" is about cocaine, just as the person who posted the song says. Dixon's entirely different song is not. As an artist, Dixon used metaphors freely and a "spoonful of your precious love" is a metaphor. Johnson's death has nothing to do with either song. If you told either Patton or Dixon that their songs were about "the product of male and female orgasms" they would laugh at you as hard as I'm laughing now.
@spacefaceification Could you tell me please? I've read quite a few posts and I'm lost. I'm guessing it could be about cocaine but I'm not really sure...
JESZCZE DODAM OPRÓCZ TEGO ŻE NIE LUBIŁ CIEMNIEJSZYCH OD SIEBIE TO JEGO GŁOS ŚMIAŁO MOŻNA BYŁO USŁYSZEĆ Z PIĘCIUSET METRÓW OCZYWIŚCIE BEZ ELEKTRYCZNYCH DUPERELI.
these early blues guys sung about booze and pussy fighting and the like, and the troubles of life. The song isn't about heroin or cocaine, its about pussy which has already been mentioned.
@Floatles Absolutely. There's a period from the late twenties to the late thirties when these were cut on 78's. These guys were doing this long before they were recorded. Would love to know when Charley first performed this track. Timeless is inappropriate word here. It's esoteric and mind blowing at the same time. Just check out a recent Robert Johnson 78 which is later and they go for over ten thousand big ones these days. The guitar picking on this is unbelievable.
Either cocaine or heroin/ or morphine would have been put in a spoon before liquifying for injection. The same folks often did both. They were common at this time, in the twenties. among men of his race and class and location. There are plenty of other songs on the subject from the same era.
@andrewmacia could be, but my guess is cocaine. those little itty bitty spoons they used to snort off of. cocaine was a popular substance in those days as it was touted as the cure-all of the day. it was even advertised as a cure for morphine addiction. course charley is intentionally ambiguous about what the spoonful actually was. could be morphine, heroin, cocaine, poontang....either way, it was something that made you feel good but came with a lot of risks. good ole charley!
This is my all time CP favourite, I cannot get enough of this; maybe this is my spoonful ;). For what its worth I think its about heroin not coke tho' I must confess I have not read up on this at all.
This was about cocaine, Wolf's Spoonful was about a lot of small most essential things.The term is associated with "ejaculate" (cum again?) Charley Patton was Wolf's first & main guitar teacher, later they did gigs together. He taught Son House, Robert Johnson & others. Note: "European admixture?" a k a slave-master rapemixture with little exception until later, not exclusively southern. Wolf's comments about Patton (his favorite guitar player) are in his biography and in my taped interviews
Look up the lyrics.. it's pretty obvious it's about cocaine.. Back in the day people used to carry a small spoon on a chain to get a quick wiff.. and people start talkin' and actin' a little crazy when they're high on this shit. Believe me, I've seen plenty of people lose a lot and do stupid shit on it... but I gotta say it's a great fuckin' song!
They used to give coke to slaves to make them work harder. After awhile, after getting addicted, the slaves were more interested in doing coke than work. This started the banning of the substance. In fact, most hard drugs were banned because of racist reasons...such as opium amid the chinese workers. This song is about addiction - of course it's about coke...a spoonful's worth over and over and over. Great song...way ahead of it's time and still valid today.
@webcityguy Yah this music is timeless! My dad used to play this type of music when I was a child and everytime I here stuff like this it reminds me of him!
If this song is about drugs, it is far more likely to be about heroin (which has to be liquified to be taken up in a syringe to be injected into the vein with a needle. Spoons were the most common means of holding the powdered heroin over a flame to melt it. While there was cocaine (not crack) in those days, it was most widely used by affluent white people. Noel Coward even wrote a play about cocaine addiction in 1923 called The Vortex.
im can anyone name some white delta blues singers , im really enjoyin this music always have anyways i would appriciate that
only reason im asking is because ive never really looked into that just stumpled upon albums up here. this music isnt too popular way up here in new york
@kpasa111 I've read up a lot on this subject & track. I asked my cousin who is a blues boomer from the sixties and he reckons it's close. It's nothing to do with celebrity that's for sure.
@kpasa111 If the lyrics are similar to Howlin wolfs version I interpreted it being about how a man will do anything for just a spoonful or his desires. just imho:]
I've listened to this everyday for about a week now. This to me is as haunting as anything Robert Johnson ever recorded. One of my favorite old blues.....
@giub81 you guys are wrong, you don't have to be black to play the blues, eric clapton, SRV or even Jeff Beck can prove it! besides MR Patton wasn't black at all, he was a MULATO (mix of native american and black blood) as well as Hendrix and mr. Robert Johnson, Blues are an universal feeling, it does not recognize race or color, the blues are just the blues, here on youtube there is an asian guy that plays the blues so bad ass,
@DeportAnchorBabies You are right mr. Redneck, they are not mulatos , they are ZAMBOS, ZAMBO: individuals in the Americas who are of mixed African and Amerindian ancestry
@voodoochild53 The ancestors of these musicians brought the blues from West Africa. Blues plainly expressed many of the injustices experienced by Blacks under segregation. Blues was not some multicultural cumbyyah experiment, it was Black folk's story, which is universal. In life Patton suffered all the indignities of Jim Crow, now he isn't Black?! Being "mixed" didn't spare Jim Hendrix those evils either. Johnson not mixed! Music they played is of African origin, not Native American.
@luvureally Instrumentation, rhythmic styles, time signatures, vocal styles had roots in West Africa, but West Africans had nothing special to be "blue" about. Blues was born in the U.S.A., where everyone has had plenty to be blue about. But all music is universal. You can speak mockingly of "multicultural kum by ya experiments," but no music exists in cultural isolation. Slaves didn't go out in the swamp and come back with Martin guitars. They got them from white folks.
@newaccountdebzbd Feelings and emotions expressed in music universal. The way people musically express those emotions is cultural. "Instrumentation, rhythmic styles, time signatures, vocal styles" are what has distinguished Black American music from other American music. Black music absorbed influences from music of other groups but African influence most dominant. West Africa had/has a multitude of string instruments, so it wasn't a leap adapting to a European string instrument.
@newaccountdebzbd Banjo was an example of string African instrument brought to USA. Also many early blues men learned to play guitar as children by practicing on crude replica of African instrument called didley bow. Nobody has an issue with music labeled as Chinese, Cuban, Native, etc., but folk seem to have a problem twith music being labeled Black American music.
@luvureally Well, I don't. Blues, jazz, rock 'n roll are all black contributions to music, and in my view the greatest contribution to music by any racial group -- if anyone wants to break it down that way, I don't -- anywhere, ever. But slaves didn't come here carrying banjos or guitars. That's obvious. In America they got their first instruments and initial instruction from white people. And then they exploded with creativity. But trying to say they did it all alone is bullshit.
@newaccountdebzbd People brought here were captives not slaves. First instruments Blacks used here were self crafted replicas of their native instruments. They introduced banjos and xylophones to this country. Tin buckets, animal bones, spoons used as instruments. These were first instruments and not taught by white people. Many of these people were accomplished musicians when they arrived, just like others were accomplished farmers, carpenters, metal workers, midwives, healers, etc.
@newaccountdebzbd Of course Blacks learned European music from white people and used European instruments. There was 360 difference in music created by Blacks and Europeans using same instruments. In Europe different nations used same instruments and created different sounds. The bullshit is implying that Africans waited for white instruments and instruction before laying the foundation of Black American music.
@luvureally We have no argument. I've been to college, too. Began studying Black history, literature and music in 1970. The stuff about black instrumentation in slave days is academic conjecture. Earliest written records are about slaves playing western music. And playing it well. But there's no definitive history until white guys risked their necks in the 1930s making the first field recordings. County sheriffs wanted to kill them. Black achievement is not in question. You mean 180 degrees.
@newaccountdebzbd No I actually meant 360 degrees. Captives jumped right off slave ships and immediately begin to play western music, I don't think so. Those earliest written records written by white people who probably dismissed the African music. If you ever talked to a Black person born in late 19th century or early 20 century you would have heard the definitive story right from the source. I had two great grandmothers born in 1901.
@newaccountdebzbd As a child in late 60s and early 70s Al I saw men in their 70s, 80s and maybe 90s playing old time jug music, the washboards, fiddles, banjo, etc. It was boring to me. These men had given a definitive history, whites just didn't know it. Alan Lomax and others are to be credited for preserving this music. In that era Blacks risked their lives every day for being Black! My uncles risked death and endured beatings by AL cops just because they came home from Army in nice cars.
@luvureally I don't know what the point is that you're arguing about anymore. Is it that whites don't know about black music? And I've spent my life listening to black music? Yeah, you're right.
@newaccountdebzbd They know plenty about the music, having studied the hell out of it. I don't believe they deserve all they credit that is heaped upon them for music created by Black people. Like I said about my Army uncles, whites are praised for "risking" their lives, when they could safely go back to their homes. It was any every day occurrence for Blacks. Anthropologist often risk their lives, exploring the Amazon not a cakewalk.
@luvureally Hardly anyone's ever heard the names of the field recorders or musicologists who have helped to make musicians like Robert Johnson, Skip James, Charlie Patton famous world wide. And that is how it should be. The artists deserve the fame. What in the world are you crying about? It's sad that you don't have room in your pitiful small soul to give any credit to the field recorders who risked their lives for the sake of those black artists. But that's your problem.
@newaccountdebzbd I will praise the likes of Hank Williams and Jimmy Rodgers for their musicianship. But like I said as for "risking their lives" it was a risk every day for those Black artist.
@luvureally True. But can you name any black artists killed by white guys? Robert Johnson was killed by a black man. From blues up to rap I can think of a number of black artists killed by black men. Sam Cooke was killed by a black woman. There must have been some black artists killed by white people, I guess, but who?
@newaccountdebzbd Retarded comparison. I am talking about ordinary, working people who lived under government sanctioned terrorism every day. People who were murdered simply because they were BLACK. Not entertainers and gangsters, maids, janitors, truck drivers, farmers, field hands, small business owners, teachers, etc., . Mexican corrido singers killed by other Mexicans, John Lennon, Phil Hartman, Jaco Pastorious killed by other whites. Whats your point?
@newaccountdebzbd So no crocodile tears for folk who voluntarily put themselves an uncomfortable position for a few months. I have many living family elders who lived through this terrorist apartheid system.
@luvu Okay. No crocodile tears for Alan Lomax and his father, whose work brought blues music to the world, no tears for white Freedom Riders left dead or crippled for life, no tears for my mother, the first white woman in Grosse Pointe to get past the tanks the morning after the '67 Riots to bring food and clothing to black families that had been wiped out. No tears.
the morning after the 67 riots bringing food and clothing for black families to who had bee wiped out.
@newaccountdebzbd Freedom riders were brave. But Black folks did not have the option of coming back to their safe homes and neighborhoods. You think I'm Sam Sausage? I'm honestly suppose to think that the suffering of whites under USA apartheid was equal to that of Blacks? How about fighting for democracy in wars when you received none at home? Fighting for the future of children in a strange land when your own children back home attending Jim Crow schools?
@newaccountdebzbd How about Black soldiers fresh from war overseas proudly wearing their uniforms only to be beaten or even killed by angry, resentful whites? My own father and uncles fought in Vietnam while their children attended Jim Crow schools. Those unfortunate white people you mentioned who were assaulted and maimed? Well multiply that by thousands of Black folk during Jim Crow era.
@luvureally I'm tired of arguing. I know that what you say is true, but I tend to like to argue for awhile to make sure the other person knows what they're talking about. Which you do. But I'm really only here because I love music, and if you check my channel, you can see what music I love best. Best regards. Peace.
I love how he makes the guitar say spoonful with his slide. This technique is one of Patton's signatures. A true innovator. This music will never grow old. Patton was so innovative, it's sad how the Blues devolved into one song considering it's rich musical heritage. I am a huge fan of Son House, Blind Willie Mctell, Lead Belly, etc... but really can't stand alot of later bland electric 12 bar blues.
@populistherd God yes I hate the drivel thats just churned out by shitty twelve bar blues bands the best blues artists like patton lead belly furry lewis weren't confined by any conventions just played what they felt
@neonmeat1 the twelve bar pattern was mostly a development to facilitate more instrumental solos. best example i can think of is little walter. the simple fact is that it just doesn't sound that great to use the blues mode in one key over a lot of different chord changes or over the ragtime progression. it works really well over the 1-4-5 and 2-5-1 progressions, and so those were the progressions that won out once electric instruments were introduced and people started recording a ton of solos.
ONCE AGAIN i am most likely loosing a pretty girl because i have chosen the blues over0 her....and she don't even understand....i could ..you now..but...ok...i love my 7th note then i could ever love her...sweet dreams to you people.... love kingston on peace and love mofosssss
i don''t care really to tell u he truh
lostintheblues 9 hours ago
This song sucks the big one. Sorry
darrenmother 2 days ago
I'm 16 and I like this kind of music its a good song
augustrushmotloch 1 week ago
@augustrushmotloch You want a medal or something?
WovenWomb 4 days ago
UnkemptButClassy 1 week ago
The legend of Blues
LordDarkvamp1 3 weeks ago
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RumbleFiish 1 month ago
you can know a patton song when you hear one
itsrekka 1 month ago
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itsrekka 1 month ago
this song reminds me of opiate detox i think it rules just about as much as dts suck
sickboi105 1 month ago
The voice of the Delta and the profile of America. Charlie Patton is AMERICA.
nickvaduz1 1 month ago 4
he's a black indian
SlymmieFatts 2 months ago 2
@SlymmieFatts I don't subscribe to the idea that only a Black person can understand or play the blues etc. Blues is global now and that's a wonderful thing, but the black indian thing burns me up a little. Every black person in America is mixed with something, european or indian, heck I even have a Chinese ancestor from the late 19th century in my woodpile. As much as I respect the Africans, we are an entirely seperate group. This mixing has made for great music among other things...
Odin029 1 month ago 2
@SlymmieFatts I always heard he was black and Choctaw Indian, and that a lot of the first black blues players were mixed with Native Americans. Indians were part of the birth of the blues!
clockle 1 month ago 2
Rick Stein brought me here!
BlackMountainScar 2 months ago
only in america, no in europe, etc. etc.
yeah ok.
daltonjohn32 2 months ago
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daltonjohn32 2 months ago
the father of Delta BLueS
jenpalacio87jen 2 months ago
heeyyy baby
azerty8713 3 months ago
So hard to sing, amazing performance !!!
zavataz 3 months ago
@MrGranousty don't know if that's a joke or not. But Justin Beiber is as farthest thing away from the blues as you can possibly get
javonblue 3 months ago
How these musicians did to play that blues and sing so amazing tunes at the same time it's like magic to me, fills my heart.
LouGypsyBlue 3 months ago in playlist Delta Blues 1
Ventriloquism.
He owned tempo.
He growled like a tiger.
His slide is another voice.
I dare anyone to play like this man.
Even close... I'll be waiting.
BarbecueBob123 4 months ago 2
been listening to this song over and over, and reading the lyrics, and i highly doubt he's talking about cocaine. i think the song is just about getting laid, and how charley and every other man living gets mad when they don't, and how it's the main thing most people/men care about more than anything else, and how it drives people to do things that land them in jail (about to go to jail about this spoonful, mens in parchment done lifetime...etc)
daltonjohn32 4 months ago
@daltonjohn32 he's obviosly talking about drugs and if you can't tell that, then stop trying to interpret old black american songs. you don't have any frame of reference and have no idea of what you're talking about.
Diomedes22 3 months ago
@Diomedes22
yeah, and you were there so you know, right?
daltonjohn32 3 months ago
@daltonjohn32 i'm african american, that's why its obvious. its like an irish person knowing what an old irish song about hard times is about. enough of the culture is still the same that if you grow up within the culture you can tell what's going on.
Diomedes22 3 months ago
Is this what Willie Dixon based his spoonful off of?
jlhyz2 4 months ago
@jlhyz2 yes
peaceloveandrockism 4 months ago
sounds like he's playing with a slide open E maybe
xijack 4 months ago
Beczganyian!
brunodelabomba 4 months ago
whoa... this is good.
gangstable 5 months ago
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It's about cocaine, dummies. You need to read the lyrics and meet some actual niggers.
Definitely not about pussy, unless the women charley mentioned was alla buncha bull-daggas.
ichbineintoober 5 months ago
Blues, the heart n soul of this country, I pray we never forget where we come from, but I think we have, thank you for sharing this we us
mo9504 5 months ago
@treysyt My vote is for: it has multiple meanings.
In modern terms, it is about craving and addiction.
milascave2 5 months ago
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I heard Justin Beiber is covering this song on his next album.
jasond057 6 months ago 10
@jasond057
holy shit that was funny
omacias4 5 months ago
@jasond057
Jason...if i thought that was true i would fist myself with a sharpened trowl
nickgall100 4 months ago
@jasond057 'Scuse me I' french, and an ex baby-boomer. I'm not about modern blues musicians, so, please, who's that Justin Beaver ? I know what's a beaver (I've watch all the Tex Avery cartoons), but why this name ? Did he plays Strat' with his teeth like Jimi ?
Thanks for answering ;)
Who? me Kidding 'bout such serious things ? ROFL !
MrGranousty 4 months ago
@jasond057 hope you are kidding :)
matrixluxx 1 month ago
a full-blood Cherokee, a theory endorsed by Howlin' Wolf. :D
TheSatanas666 6 months ago
charlie wasnt white , aint no way in the world the racist white bosses in mississipi would let a white dud work and lived whit the black ones, he was maybe a half mexican half black guy
TheSatanas666 6 months ago
can't find any videos of people covering patton's version of spoonful.
daltonjohn32 6 months ago
@daltonjohn32 aint no need of them...
TheSatanas666 6 months ago
@daltonjohn32 I'm not sure anybody else could.
milascave2 5 months ago
@milascave2 But Howling wolf did something similar.
milascave2 5 months ago
If you like delta blues, check out Rat Stomp :)
youtube.com/user/ratstompmusic
ratstompmusic 6 months ago
What are you arguing about?? the facts are there..blues was born from the negro slaves...rock was born from the blues and these artists belong in the music hall of fame
skybluestratocaster 6 months ago
The Delta Museum is across the street from Morgan Freeman's Ground Zero, but I guess y'all know this.
merrywriter1 7 months ago
Really good song. I love the guitar - it serves as a light, moving counterpoint to Patton's rough voice. Patton was even better than Robert Johnson.
ManilaSyndicate 7 months ago
@ManilaSyndicate ...bold claim....if its true then the devil welched on his deal...unless of course Patton cut the same deal with the devil and utilised it better...
HOMEnHIGH 7 months ago
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@Floatles Bottleneck in Open D (DADF#AD). The tab + score for this is available in Bottleneck Blues Guitar by Woody Mann. My teacher started me on Bottleneck a few weeks ago and I'm going to suggest we learn this next as I think i'm not far from playing this.. Have already been through some of the licks on my own and they sounds spot on. :)
dubccoverseer 7 months ago
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dubccoverseer 7 months ago
It's a great loss that Patton's mentor, Henry Sloan was never recorded. Some have speculated that it was either Sloan or Patton himself who W.C. Handy encountered in that late-night train station in Tutwiler when Handy was enthralled by the slider and the lyric about "Where the Southern cross the Dog." Which lyric Handy used in one of his first Blues songs in recognition of the great appeal of the Delta Blues form.
LetheMusiccom 7 months ago
I must say though that the lyric transcription is the best I've seen. In "Deep Blues," Robert Palmer comments on Patton's use of four voices in this song, his "customary singing voice," a "womanish falsetto," a "lower speaking voice," and "the voice of his slider" completing the verse. Hunter suggests that Patton's vocal style and his use of polyrhythms is very close to the original African roots of the music. Like Muddy Waters, his "microtonal" voice pitchings are quite archaic.
LetheMusiccom 7 months ago
Spoonful is about sex ("just a little spoon of your precious love will satisfy my soul"). Men always fought over women in juke joints.
LetheMusiccom 8 months ago
@LetheMusiccom Spoonful isn't about sex. In the Delta, and all along the mississippi, building up the levees was constant, terrifically hard work. To keep them going, cocaine was sold everywhere from right outside Parchman farm, to many black-only stores and shops. Smallest amount was a "paper." Largest was a small wood match box -- about a tablespoon. And a tablespoon was used by those who shot. It was an epidemic, finally banned in the '30s. See Alan Lomax. M. Waters analogized on other spoons
newaccountdebzbd 7 months ago
This song (and a derivative version by Willie Dixon) is not about drugs, but is, rather, about sex and about the product of the male and female orgasms. As Willie Dixon writes, "... a little spoon of your precious love will satisfy my soul ..." is what the whole world fights about. Men always fought each other over women in the juke joints. Robert Johnson himself was probably poisoned because he was hitting on the woman of the barrelhouse owner he was playing in.
LetheMusiccom 8 months ago
@LetheMusiccom Yes, women who flocked to the juke joints were considered promiscuous and "loose" back in the day and men usually fought over their favors and thier "spoon of [their] precious love". Notorious womanizer and philanderer Robert Johnson was indeed poisoned by a jealous rival after Johnson either had a sexual affair or made a play at the joint owner's wife. According to legend, the Devil came to collect!
oreoswirl7 7 months ago
@LetheMusiccom Charlie Pattons song "Spoonful" is about cocaine, just as the person who posted the song says. Dixon's entirely different song is not. As an artist, Dixon used metaphors freely and a "spoonful of your precious love" is a metaphor. Johnson's death has nothing to do with either song. If you told either Patton or Dixon that their songs were about "the product of male and female orgasms" they would laugh at you as hard as I'm laughing now.
newaccountdebzbd 7 months ago
the vocal patterns on this are from another dimension, so far ahead of our time.
diazsinger 8 months ago
Damn somebody needs to cut that grass round his grave.
joe1969812 8 months ago
Good songs are about lots of things
AstroAnt 8 months ago 4
Ay up Uploader! My myspace page is called minigongcoughs cos I got the lyrics wrong. Loving the upload!
chrril1976 8 months ago
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chrril1976 8 months ago
Nice shots from around Clarksdale, Thanks!
imaccuish 9 months ago
such a sad song if you really know what it's about
spacefaceification 9 months ago
@spacefaceification Could you tell me please? I've read quite a few posts and I'm lost. I'm guessing it could be about cocaine but I'm not really sure...
LadyofWar1980 9 months ago
@LadyofWar1980 It's about heroin. You "cook" heroin in a spoon.
hekkel 8 months ago
Fuck. Charlie Patton is Blues incarnate.
UncleErnie71 9 months ago
This is the purest blues what ever made.
Pentagonshark666 9 months ago 2
which recording source did you use for this track? It sounds much cleaner than the one i have.
akaGumboStu 10 months ago
amazingly deep
JusticeWar 10 months ago
spoonful refers to the average quantity of male ejeculate...
see also 'the loving spoonful' and '10cc'
both bands are references to the average amount of cum a bloke shoots
a LOT of these old songs were about sex.
they got horny in the old days too eh
sugarnads 11 months ago
This is not about coke. It's a sexual reference. Trust me, I did the research.
felliniesque2000 11 months ago
JESZCZE DODAM OPRÓCZ TEGO ŻE NIE LUBIŁ CIEMNIEJSZYCH OD SIEBIE TO JEGO GŁOS ŚMIAŁO MOŻNA BYŁO USŁYSZEĆ Z PIĘCIUSET METRÓW OCZYWIŚCIE BEZ ELEKTRYCZNYCH DUPERELI.
CEROGRAF 11 months ago
This is now my absolute favorite song. I wish I could "unhear it" right before I pressed play (evertime).
tripnixon 11 months ago
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Check this blog about Paramount Records, Charley Patton etc.: echo-park.blogspot.com/
AVOLdesign 11 months ago
1:21 -on est juste tous les deux
Maximepb 11 months ago
man i love these 82 year old drug songs. people think old time music was all wholesome stuff...not even close. charley was something special!
bostonteabagger71739 11 months ago
This is incredible. Thanks for the lyrics too.
Damn, i was rocking back and forth, sitting down likes a person in an asylum lol
First thing i've heard of Charlie Patton. Woohoo!!
Whiskeyfirst 11 months ago 2
these early blues guys sung about booze and pussy fighting and the like, and the troubles of life. The song isn't about heroin or cocaine, its about pussy which has already been mentioned.
Great song one of the masters.
sonet195066 11 months ago
@Floatles Absolutely. There's a period from the late twenties to the late thirties when these were cut on 78's. These guys were doing this long before they were recorded. Would love to know when Charley first performed this track. Timeless is inappropriate word here. It's esoteric and mind blowing at the same time. Just check out a recent Robert Johnson 78 which is later and they go for over ten thousand big ones these days. The guitar picking on this is unbelievable.
minutegongcoughs 1 year ago 4
I love this song, but what in the hell is he saying.
sbogiam61 1 year ago
@sbogiam61 lololol
valkour22 11 months ago
Either cocaine or heroin/ or morphine would have been put in a spoon before liquifying for injection. The same folks often did both. They were common at this time, in the twenties. among men of his race and class and location. There are plenty of other songs on the subject from the same era.
milascave 1 year ago
Talkin' about heroin.
andrewmacia 1 year ago
@andrewmacia could be, but my guess is cocaine. those little itty bitty spoons they used to snort off of. cocaine was a popular substance in those days as it was touted as the cure-all of the day. it was even advertised as a cure for morphine addiction. course charley is intentionally ambiguous about what the spoonful actually was. could be morphine, heroin, cocaine, poontang....either way, it was something that made you feel good but came with a lot of risks. good ole charley!
bostonteabagger71739 11 months ago
@bostonteabagger71739 yeah I'm thinking they were free basing cocaine off a spoon or heroin...or whatever got them high. Must have been fun.
andrewmacia 11 months ago
Ma name is "Blind oreo kookie"...I am 101 yrs young, grew up in helena arkansas, grew up wit all dem boys, dat charlie patton was dee worst ub em
ioriorioriorio 1 year ago
This is my all time CP favourite, I cannot get enough of this; maybe this is my spoonful ;). For what its worth I think its about heroin not coke tho' I must confess I have not read up on this at all.
TheRepented 1 year ago
This was about cocaine, Wolf's Spoonful was about a lot of small most essential things.The term is associated with "ejaculate" (cum again?) Charley Patton was Wolf's first & main guitar teacher, later they did gigs together. He taught Son House, Robert Johnson & others. Note: "European admixture?" a k a slave-master rapemixture with little exception until later, not exclusively southern. Wolf's comments about Patton (his favorite guitar player) are in his biography and in my taped interviews
howlingsandy 1 year ago
raw Real Blues...
jahstp 1 year ago
this is good!
tsars89 1 year ago
Look up the lyrics.. it's pretty obvious it's about cocaine.. Back in the day people used to carry a small spoon on a chain to get a quick wiff.. and people start talkin' and actin' a little crazy when they're high on this shit. Believe me, I've seen plenty of people lose a lot and do stupid shit on it... but I gotta say it's a great fuckin' song!
jaysun34 1 year ago
@jaysun34 Ya like u.
TheIt348 1 year ago
it say i want ti hit the jugular and sundays are still mean about that 'ole
jimeneycricket27 1 year ago
@jimeneycricket27 I always thought he said "hit the jug" (take a drink.)
manispellman 1 year ago
it say i want ti hit the jugular
jimeneycricket27 1 year ago
Patton and Robert Johnson--greatest in the genre.
TheIsraDave 1 year ago
Great music! Thanks for putting on here!
morrocyclon 1 year ago
Is this were Willie Dixon got his song from?
needianame 1 year ago
All their life everyday they probably heard "you black so-and -so!!" then when they get big suddenly it's "but he's not really black is he".
sferemonk 1 year ago 2
@sferemonk thank you!
Diomedes22 1 year ago
It is about ejaculation.
oakdaddy 1 year ago
An absolute classic and all time great tune for me... Thank you John Peel RIP for introducing the Radio 1 listeners to this in the early 00's.
holyhandgrenade69 1 year ago
They used to give coke to slaves to make them work harder. After awhile, after getting addicted, the slaves were more interested in doing coke than work. This started the banning of the substance. In fact, most hard drugs were banned because of racist reasons...such as opium amid the chinese workers. This song is about addiction - of course it's about coke...a spoonful's worth over and over and over. Great song...way ahead of it's time and still valid today.
webcityguy 1 year ago
@webcityguy Yah this music is timeless! My dad used to play this type of music when I was a child and everytime I here stuff like this it reminds me of him!
morrocyclon 1 year ago
If this song is about drugs, it is far more likely to be about heroin (which has to be liquified to be taken up in a syringe to be injected into the vein with a needle. Spoons were the most common means of holding the powdered heroin over a flame to melt it. While there was cocaine (not crack) in those days, it was most widely used by affluent white people. Noel Coward even wrote a play about cocaine addiction in 1923 called The Vortex.
Kaalec 1 year ago
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CatoTheYounger9546 1 year ago
Awesome, thanks. Btw it should be 'Charlie', not 'Charley'. That's how he spelled it.
willtaylorguitar 1 year ago
God. This is amazing.
mrgabest 1 year ago
@mrgabest to say the very least.
SqueezeMyLemonBabe 1 year ago
Comment removed
scubayogi 1 year ago
hey all
im can anyone name some white delta blues singers , im really enjoyin this music always have anyways i would appriciate that
only reason im asking is because ive never really looked into that just stumpled upon albums up here. this music isnt too popular way up here in new york
upnthemorninway2soon 1 year ago
@upnthemorninway2soon Heh. I don't think there are any white Delta Blues singers pal. : )
MultiSagitta 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
The typed intro to this song says it is a song about cocaine. Are you sure about that?
kpasa111 1 year ago
Hmm...the typed intro to this songs says it is about cocaine. Are you sure about that?
kpasa111 1 year ago
@kpasa111 I've read up a lot on this subject & track. I asked my cousin who is a blues boomer from the sixties and he reckons it's close. It's nothing to do with celebrity that's for sure.
minutegongcoughs 1 year ago
@minutegongcoughs its about heroin
aceballico 1 year ago
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@minutegongcoughs
its about heroin
aceballico 1 year ago
@minutegongcoughs its not about dope about any kind. its about PUSSY: looks like a spoon and that is what men fight about...
mkallen56 1 year ago
@minutegongcoughs Its about heroin, not cocaine. You cook up a shot of H in a spoon.
Straylight100 11 months ago
@Straylight100 lol You can cook up vitamine B if you want. If you want to shoot it, you have to cook it.
Whiskeyfirst 11 months ago
@minutegongcoughs
Spoonful refers to semen; or an orgasm. It's a song about sex basically.
organicmolecules 8 months ago
@kpasa111 From my understanding this is about a man who kills is lover's man over cocaine.
boxingin 1 year ago
Comment removed
upnthemorninway2soon 1 year ago
@kpasa111 was crackcocain invented back then?
nope it was created in 1977
upnthemorninway2soon 1 year ago
@kpasa111 - It can mean different things. Sex seems to be the most reasonable to me, though.
townesfan10 1 year ago
its heroin.
liamardo007 1 year ago
@kpasa111 If the lyrics are similar to Howlin wolfs version I interpreted it being about how a man will do anything for just a spoonful or his desires. just imho:]
MasterMcG 1 year ago
its about heroin
aceballico 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Well, what can you say?
modemeyes 1 year ago
Is it me or does he look like Don Knotts?
boxingin 1 year ago
I've listened to this everyday for about a week now. This to me is as haunting as anything Robert Johnson ever recorded. One of my favorite old blues.....
karmabites1 1 year ago
@karmabites1 I prefer him over Robert Johnson.
boxingin 1 year ago
He sounds like a whole band but he's just playing a fucking guitar... Incredible!
boxingin 1 year ago
This is about alot more than cocaine!
newleftnotes 1 year ago
Charlie's one of my three favorites. The other two are Tommy Johnson and Blind Willie McTell.
MrJackDamon 1 year ago
CHARLIE WAS A BLACK MAN. PERIOD..........
ibrahima1964 1 year ago
@ibrahima1964
that's for sure cuz only blackmen can play blues so well
giub81 1 year ago
@giub81 you guys are wrong, you don't have to be black to play the blues, eric clapton, SRV or even Jeff Beck can prove it! besides MR Patton wasn't black at all, he was a MULATO (mix of native american and black blood) as well as Hendrix and mr. Robert Johnson, Blues are an universal feeling, it does not recognize race or color, the blues are just the blues, here on youtube there is an asian guy that plays the blues so bad ass,
voodoochild53 1 year ago
@voodoochild53 DOKŁADNIE!!!
szninkiel12 1 year ago
@voodoochild53 But the real Blues came from Blacks and their suffering and that's the truth!
boxingin 1 year ago
@voodoochild53 playing blues "chops" isn't blues but "lookame am playin' bluze." Blues universal feeling = evoked resonance in DNA from origins of humans, out of Africa, its form & expression began by Africans, aspects of such music shaping what was allowed slaves, from field hollers of slaves to Celtic/Scottish slave owners xtian church/folk songs. All HAVE blues, all 'could' play/sing it but few "CAN" truly and not be lookame's. (Elvis, Hank Williams: start-up via black blues men.) ©SGS
howlingsandy 1 year ago
@voodoochild53 A mulatto is black and white , not black and native
and hendrix and robert johnson were NOT mulattos
DeportAnchorBabies 1 year ago
@DeportAnchorBabies You are right mr. Redneck, they are not mulatos , they are ZAMBOS, ZAMBO: individuals in the Americas who are of mixed African and Amerindian ancestry
voodoochild53 1 year ago
@voodoochild53 LMAO do me a favor spic
look up hendrix and johnson biographical info
they were NOT mixed
DeportAnchorBabies 1 year ago
@voodoochild53 The ancestors of these musicians brought the blues from West Africa. Blues plainly expressed many of the injustices experienced by Blacks under segregation. Blues was not some multicultural cumbyyah experiment, it was Black folk's story, which is universal. In life Patton suffered all the indignities of Jim Crow, now he isn't Black?! Being "mixed" didn't spare Jim Hendrix those evils either. Johnson not mixed! Music they played is of African origin, not Native American.
luvureally 7 months ago
@luvureally Instrumentation, rhythmic styles, time signatures, vocal styles had roots in West Africa, but West Africans had nothing special to be "blue" about. Blues was born in the U.S.A., where everyone has had plenty to be blue about. But all music is universal. You can speak mockingly of "multicultural kum by ya experiments," but no music exists in cultural isolation. Slaves didn't go out in the swamp and come back with Martin guitars. They got them from white folks.
newaccountdebzbd 7 months ago
@newaccountdebzbd Feelings and emotions expressed in music universal. The way people musically express those emotions is cultural. "Instrumentation, rhythmic styles, time signatures, vocal styles" are what has distinguished Black American music from other American music. Black music absorbed influences from music of other groups but African influence most dominant. West Africa had/has a multitude of string instruments, so it wasn't a leap adapting to a European string instrument.
luvureally 7 months ago
@newaccountdebzbd Banjo was an example of string African instrument brought to USA. Also many early blues men learned to play guitar as children by practicing on crude replica of African instrument called didley bow. Nobody has an issue with music labeled as Chinese, Cuban, Native, etc., but folk seem to have a problem twith music being labeled Black American music.
luvureally 7 months ago
@luvureally Well, I don't. Blues, jazz, rock 'n roll are all black contributions to music, and in my view the greatest contribution to music by any racial group -- if anyone wants to break it down that way, I don't -- anywhere, ever. But slaves didn't come here carrying banjos or guitars. That's obvious. In America they got their first instruments and initial instruction from white people. And then they exploded with creativity. But trying to say they did it all alone is bullshit.
newaccountdebzbd 7 months ago
@newaccountdebzbd People brought here were captives not slaves. First instruments Blacks used here were self crafted replicas of their native instruments. They introduced banjos and xylophones to this country. Tin buckets, animal bones, spoons used as instruments. These were first instruments and not taught by white people. Many of these people were accomplished musicians when they arrived, just like others were accomplished farmers, carpenters, metal workers, midwives, healers, etc.
luvureally 7 months ago
@newaccountdebzbd Of course Blacks learned European music from white people and used European instruments. There was 360 difference in music created by Blacks and Europeans using same instruments. In Europe different nations used same instruments and created different sounds. The bullshit is implying that Africans waited for white instruments and instruction before laying the foundation of Black American music.
luvureally 7 months ago
@luvureally We have no argument. I've been to college, too. Began studying Black history, literature and music in 1970. The stuff about black instrumentation in slave days is academic conjecture. Earliest written records are about slaves playing western music. And playing it well. But there's no definitive history until white guys risked their necks in the 1930s making the first field recordings. County sheriffs wanted to kill them. Black achievement is not in question. You mean 180 degrees.
newaccountdebzbd 7 months ago
@newaccountdebzbd No I actually meant 360 degrees. Captives jumped right off slave ships and immediately begin to play western music, I don't think so. Those earliest written records written by white people who probably dismissed the African music. If you ever talked to a Black person born in late 19th century or early 20 century you would have heard the definitive story right from the source. I had two great grandmothers born in 1901.
luvureally 7 months ago
@newaccountdebzbd As a child in late 60s and early 70s Al I saw men in their 70s, 80s and maybe 90s playing old time jug music, the washboards, fiddles, banjo, etc. It was boring to me. These men had given a definitive history, whites just didn't know it. Alan Lomax and others are to be credited for preserving this music. In that era Blacks risked their lives every day for being Black! My uncles risked death and endured beatings by AL cops just because they came home from Army in nice cars.
luvureally 7 months ago
@luvureally I don't know what the point is that you're arguing about anymore. Is it that whites don't know about black music? And I've spent my life listening to black music? Yeah, you're right.
newaccountdebzbd 7 months ago
@newaccountdebzbd They know plenty about the music, having studied the hell out of it. I don't believe they deserve all they credit that is heaped upon them for music created by Black people. Like I said about my Army uncles, whites are praised for "risking" their lives, when they could safely go back to their homes. It was any every day occurrence for Blacks. Anthropologist often risk their lives, exploring the Amazon not a cakewalk.
luvureally 7 months ago
@luvureally Hardly anyone's ever heard the names of the field recorders or musicologists who have helped to make musicians like Robert Johnson, Skip James, Charlie Patton famous world wide. And that is how it should be. The artists deserve the fame. What in the world are you crying about? It's sad that you don't have room in your pitiful small soul to give any credit to the field recorders who risked their lives for the sake of those black artists. But that's your problem.
newaccountdebzbd 7 months ago
@newaccountdebzbd I will praise the likes of Hank Williams and Jimmy Rodgers for their musicianship. But like I said as for "risking their lives" it was a risk every day for those Black artist.
luvureally 7 months ago
@luvureally True. But can you name any black artists killed by white guys? Robert Johnson was killed by a black man. From blues up to rap I can think of a number of black artists killed by black men. Sam Cooke was killed by a black woman. There must have been some black artists killed by white people, I guess, but who?
newaccountdebzbd 6 months ago
@newaccountdebzbd Retarded comparison. I am talking about ordinary, working people who lived under government sanctioned terrorism every day. People who were murdered simply because they were BLACK. Not entertainers and gangsters, maids, janitors, truck drivers, farmers, field hands, small business owners, teachers, etc., . Mexican corrido singers killed by other Mexicans, John Lennon, Phil Hartman, Jaco Pastorious killed by other whites. Whats your point?
luvureally 6 months ago
@newaccountdebzbd So no crocodile tears for folk who voluntarily put themselves an uncomfortable position for a few months. I have many living family elders who lived through this terrorist apartheid system.
luvureally 6 months ago
@luvu Okay. No crocodile tears for Alan Lomax and his father, whose work brought blues music to the world, no tears for white Freedom Riders left dead or crippled for life, no tears for my mother, the first white woman in Grosse Pointe to get past the tanks the morning after the '67 Riots to bring food and clothing to black families that had been wiped out. No tears.
the morning after the 67 riots bringing food and clothing for black families to who had bee wiped out.
newaccountdebzbd 6 months ago
@newaccountdebzbd Whoops. Missed a line in my editing. Ignore misprinted last sentence above.
newaccountdebzbd 6 months ago
@newaccountdebzbd Freedom riders were brave. But Black folks did not have the option of coming back to their safe homes and neighborhoods. You think I'm Sam Sausage? I'm honestly suppose to think that the suffering of whites under USA apartheid was equal to that of Blacks? How about fighting for democracy in wars when you received none at home? Fighting for the future of children in a strange land when your own children back home attending Jim Crow schools?
luvureally 6 months ago
@newaccountdebzbd How about Black soldiers fresh from war overseas proudly wearing their uniforms only to be beaten or even killed by angry, resentful whites? My own father and uncles fought in Vietnam while their children attended Jim Crow schools. Those unfortunate white people you mentioned who were assaulted and maimed? Well multiply that by thousands of Black folk during Jim Crow era.
luvureally 6 months ago
@luvureally I'm tired of arguing. I know that what you say is true, but I tend to like to argue for awhile to make sure the other person knows what they're talking about. Which you do. But I'm really only here because I love music, and if you check my channel, you can see what music I love best. Best regards. Peace.
newaccountdebzbd 6 months ago
one of the best songs ever
rttjenk8 1 year ago
I love how he makes the guitar say spoonful with his slide. This technique is one of Patton's signatures. A true innovator. This music will never grow old. Patton was so innovative, it's sad how the Blues devolved into one song considering it's rich musical heritage. I am a huge fan of Son House, Blind Willie Mctell, Lead Belly, etc... but really can't stand alot of later bland electric 12 bar blues.
populistherd 1 year ago 2
@populistherd God yes I hate the drivel thats just churned out by shitty twelve bar blues bands the best blues artists like patton lead belly furry lewis weren't confined by any conventions just played what they felt
neonmeat1 1 year ago
@neonmeat1 Indeed. I think Mose Allison would feel the same.
minutegongcoughs 1 year ago
@neonmeat1 the twelve bar pattern was mostly a development to facilitate more instrumental solos. best example i can think of is little walter. the simple fact is that it just doesn't sound that great to use the blues mode in one key over a lot of different chord changes or over the ragtime progression. it works really well over the 1-4-5 and 2-5-1 progressions, and so those were the progressions that won out once electric instruments were introduced and people started recording a ton of solos.
fmilktoast 1 year ago
@neonmeat1 you my friend are true the reason i ahave such a hard time trying to learn guitar is becasue i try to learn great songs like this one
upnthemorninway2soon 1 year ago