Calvin Frazier - This Old World's in a Tangle

File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Source: LL (from CD)
Released: 1938/1993
Styles: Blues
Time: 30:28
Size: 69,7 MB
Covers: Front, CD, Tray

(0:38) 1. This Old World's in a Tangle (fragment)
(1:36) 2. I'm in the Highway, Man
(4:02) 3. Lilly Mae (version 1)
(4:07) 4. Blues
(2:53) 5. She's a Double-Crossin' Woman
(0:45) 6. (Interview)
(2:35) 7. The Dirty Dozens
(0:22) 8. (Interview)
(2:21) 9. Boogie-Woogie
(4:07) 10. Lilly Mae (version 2)
(3:45) 11. This Old World's in a Tangle
(3:11) 12. Highway 51 Blues

Calvin Frazier was not only influenced by Robert Johnson, but he also played with Johnson in the early 1930s. Frazier used a steel-bodied Resophonic National guitar for picking, strumming and sliding the strings. On several pieces he used a metal slider. In 1938 Alan Lomax spent ten days in Detroit to record and collect many different types of music. The only English language songs he picked up were these Frazier sides. Together with Sampson Pittman, these sides are one of the earliest blues recodings made in Detroit. Calvin Frazier was born in 1915 in Osceola in the Arkansas Delta. Lack of economic opportunities, the family moved to Memphis in 1923. Almost all of the members of the Frazier family played an instrument and they performed as a string band, but only for religious purposes. They belonged to the Church of God in Christ and forbade its members to play blues. But Calvin and his brother Johnny played the blues on street corners, at house rent parties, juke houses and barrelhouses to make some money. They also played frequently with their cousin Johnny Shines in the black section of Memphis. Calvin also came into contact with boogie woogie pianist Speckled Red (Rufus Perryman). It was from him that Calvin would learn 'The Dirty Dozens". Frazier also made frequent appearances on KLCN radio show in nearby Blytheville. It was on one of these trips that Calvin came into contact with Sampson Pittmann. In 1935 Calvin and his brother Johnny were involved in a shooting. Johnny was killed and Calvin ended up in hospital. Two of their opponents were death and Calvin headed for Chicago to escape from prosecution (according to interviews with Johnny Shines, he and Robert Johnson accompenied Calvin to Chicago). In Detroit Calvin met and married Francis Dunlap, a cousin of Shines. The couple settled on Detroit's East Side and Frazier made his money mostly outside of music, but playing in clubs on Hastings Street to supplement his income. In the 1950s, Calvin made commercial recordings for independent Detroit labels. These were very different from the Library of Congress recordings, because now he was playing in combos and with an electric guitar. Calvin Frazier remained in Detroit until his death in 1972.

This Old World's in a Tangle

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