DEEP DOWN
IN THE BLUES

Sorry, in the 6th Blues Calendar women are in the minority. This is mainly by coincidence, but also because (old) men predominate in the blues.

A PORTRAIT of the mandolin player Yank Rachell (1910–1997) is on the cover. Martin Feldmann (who lives in Frankfurt/Main, Germany) took this photo on November 24, 1979 at the Blues Estafette in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Born in Brownsville, Tennessee, Yank Rachell was one of the most important representatives of the Country Blues. In the South, he worked with Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon. Finally he made Indianapolis, Indiana, his new home. He recorded his last album “Too Hot for the Devil” (Flat Rock Records) shortly before his death.

ON THE BACK, Georgia Tom Dorsey (1899–1993) is pictured in his garden on the deep South Side of Chicago during a conversation on August 16, 1981. The German blues researcher Friedemann Heinze interviewed him. Thomas Andrew Dorsey had started playing gospel and blues in the 1920s as a singer and pianist in the South. After arriving in Chicago, he met guitarist/vocalist Tampa Red, with whom he sang blues in Hokum style with mostly suggestive lyrics. After his wife and child died in 1932, Dorsey completely renounced the “devil’s music” and focused on gospel. As a composer of songs like “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” and “Peace in the Valley”, he became an icon of American church music. More blues photos are on the monthly pages.

SINCE THE LATE 1970s, Martin Feldmann has been taking blues photos during his travels, festival- and concert visits.