Dock Boggs - Country Blues

Newport, Rhode Island, 1966

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Dock
• Boggs
• Banjo
• Old-Time

[dogjones65]

Does he even use the fifth string?

[mikebridge]

@dogjones65 He seems to be using the fifth string a little differently from how a clawhammer player uses it. For example, in that ending riff he plays after each phrase---boom-CHUNG, boom-CHUNG, boom-a-DING-a boom-CHUNG---the "ding" is the fifth string. A clawhammer player drives the rhythm with the fifth string, but Boggs is using it to create that strange arpeggiated texture. I think it's part of how he gets that otherworldly sound.

[redds81]

Wow, great music!!! When you say BLUES I think of Robert Johnson, Son House, Howlin' Wolf but this is blues just as well. I am Black=Macon, Georgia, slave blood, mixed with white New Jersey(by way of Ellis Island) Irish. I love all music. Our past has made us what we are today (good or bad). EMBRACE IT! This definitely will go in my favorites (even if the people back then, or today, thought less of me because of my race.) Music is Music. Thanks uploader for the new perspective and experience.

[mikebridge]

@redds81 I totally agree---I once read an article in an academic journal where a pedantic professor declared that Boggs's "Country Blues" was not actually "blues" because it showed an insufficient understanding of the structural components of the blues (e.g. I-IV-V progression,etc). Of course, that's silly---the blues is about personal expression, and anyone who doesn't hear Boggs coming across in his recordings must not be listening very carefully....

[emithband]

...I've sure heard of Doc,but never seen a video...

[mikebridge]

@emithband Yeah, other than the three songs on that video I don't think there is any other video footage of Dock Boggs.

[willspires100]

See also:

Barry O'Connell, "Down a Lonesome Road: Dock Boggs' Life in Music." Extended version of essay in Dock Boggs: His Folkways Recordings, 1963-1968 [CD liner notes], 1998.

[willspires100]

@lsamoa Mike Seeger's recordings of Dock Boggs, with very scholarly and extensive notes, are available through Smithsonian Folkways.

[lsamoa]

@willspires Is there a link to Seeger's recording where we can find out more about this? Thanks!

[lsamoa]

@mikebridge Wow, I never realised about his playing style. So interesting. Thanks for the explanation and for uploading this priceless video. Love it!

[edisonphonographfan]

Papaw said ," well do you need a ride?" Dock said yeah and papaw gave him a ride and said Dock was obviously drunk. And Dock and Papaw were good friends ever since.

Papaw also remembers Byrd Moore The Carter Family and many more.

[edisonphonographfan]

@mikebridge

Actually there are a few home videos of dock.

My family knew Dock very well. My mamaw says " we went over to his house all the time. He always gave us hard candy and sang for us, my sister Polly was named after his song Pretty Polly and Dock always sang that song for her. Dock and daddy always drank together" and my papaw says, " I was driving down the road around Pound and an older man walked up to my car he said "Do you know who I am?" I said no "Well im Dock Boggs"

[barkeep777]

Wow! I am mesmerized. what a great sound.

[dinomp999]

Fantastic.

[cxcmb]

wow... i've loved dock boggs for ages, but never had seen any footage of him playing before...

again... WOW. thank you for uploading this.

[jackbeefus]

@damonmoore33 Dock could be a dark dude. Check out his biography. It's an interesting read.