Bulldoze Blues(1927), Canned Heat covered as "Goin up to the Country"

This awesome Blues song was written and recorded by Henry Thomas between 1927 and 1929 bet you thought "Canned Heat" wrote this.... "Goin up to the Country" I learn something new every day! ....
Thought to have been born in 1874 in Big Sandy, Texas, Henry was one of nine children by parents who were former slaves and sharecroppers raising cotton. Having a strong dislike for farming, Henry Thomas ran away from home as a teenager and struck upon the life of a hobo and street musician. He traveled by foot with his guitar slung over his shoulder or by the rails throughout most of Eastern Texas, occasionally making his way as far as Chicago. He was also believed to have performed at two World's Fairs crossing over the centuries, the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. Thomas was somewhat of a one-man band and a self-taught musician. Besides playing the guitar and singing in his baritone register vocals, he also accompanied himself with the pan pipes which he played from a rack strapped around his neck. The pan pipes (also known as quills) are a highpitched reed instrument, directly derived from like instruments found in Africa and were fairly common in the regions of Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi at the turn of the century. The pan pipes are very distinguishable in perhaps his best-known composition, "Bull Doze Blues", a song reworked quite accurately in Thomas' own style by Canned Heat as "Going Up The Country", recorded some 40 years after the original. Thomas' songs celebrated his life on the road, his love for the railroads and dislikes of farming. Some of the other recordings made famous by Henry Thomas are "Cottonfield Blues", "Run, Molly, Run", "John Henry", "Fishing Blues" (beautifully covered by Taj Mahal on "Giant Step / De Ole Folks At Home", 1969) and "Honey Won't You Allow Me One More Chance?" (later revised by Bob Dylan on "Freewheelin 1962).

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Canned
• Heat
• Goin
• upto
• the
• Country
• song
• written
• by
• Henry
• Thomas
• Bulldoze
• Blues
• 1927

[katrinaradia]

yup.... I love the old music and you can dig out some really great ones that copyright no longer applies to. I wish All of them would get heard again... So much of what is past becomes what we will be! The photos are from New Mexico Skys...

[tim60s321]

very interesting..thanks ... ps canned heat song called "going up the country"..theres the old saying "theres not much new under the sun"!

[katrinaradia]

@tim60s321  You know it..... I was thrilled to find this recording... glad you enjoyed hearing it!

[Taberham]

Great stuff. Thanks for the additional info too!