Where Was FourWallsdo?: Got the Kansas City Blues

Tweet

Yesterday there was the problem of warning the people with a severe country music allergy as to whether or not they should avoid clicking on the link to listen to the song. Lucky for us all, there’s no such discussion or worry today. Linda? HECK NO!!!!!!! Anytime you see “1932” and “classic country music,” RUN!! Here’s today’s song that details in the title stops on my recent vacation. Got the Kansas City Blues - Delmore Brothers I know many of you are shrugging…about the Delmore Brothers in general, or how on this earth I can listen to something 90 years old like this in particular. Truth be told, I have everything these guys commercially recorded. EVERYTHING. I love the stuffing out of this old, simple (but hardly “simplistic”), earthy country music. This was the very first song they ever recorded, in 1932 for Columbia Records. And, although you’ve never heard of them, they were major stars in the 1930s. Their best-known song is “Blues, Stay Away From Me,” which has been covered by everyone from Mark Knopfler to Gene Vincent to Les Paul & Mary Ford to B.B. King to a rockin’ instrumental version by Paul Revere & the Raiders! Bob Dylan said that the Delmores inspired every harmony he ever tried to sing…which, granted, isn’t exactly an accolade. And to think that Steely Dan took nearly sixty takes on the guitar solo on “Time Out of Mind.” This is two guys in a recording studio in Atlanta, just a guitar (Alton) and a tenor guitar (Rabon) and two voices. I love so much of the 70s music, but the music of the 30s was “do it once and do it right.” And the Delmores did. Got the Kansas City Blues Written by Alton and Rabon Delmore Recorded by the Delmore Brothers Released as a single, 1932 Also released as a single, 1935 The harvest moon is calling me: