Snooks Eaglin wow!!

[jamieisles]

so I have completely missed this guy up to about a month ago, I have had this cd on loop for the last couple of weeks

He just has such an amazing sound , I am sure the forum know all about him but for those that don't listen now





jamie

[washboardchris]

This CD was made when he was very young.I have the original vinyl copy.great stuff!!!

[AlanB]

Everything you ever wanted to know about Snooks recording career but never dare ask

www.wirz.de/music/eaglfrm.htm

[fingelbunt]

I discovered Snooks when I was 12 and it changed my life ! Also had the good fortune to see him live in London. Brilliant !

[AlanB]

Here's one of several snaps I took on Sunday 21 June 1990 when Snooks and George Porter appeared at the Town & Country Club in North London. Also on the bill was Earl King. I'll see if I can find one of him.

Attachments:

[AlanB]

Earl King. Not one of best uses of a camera....click image to zoom in

Attachments:

[AlanB]

This was the first Snooks LP to cross my path sometime around 1965/66. It was "secondhand" and purchased in Collets Jazz & Folk shop in New Oxford Street. For some purpose I OCR'd the booklet - minus the lyric transcriptions - in late 80s and it's still on on a floppy disk. (remember those?)

Lengthy but stick with it. 


New Orleans Street Singer
Folkways FA2476
(Booklet dated 1959)

SNOOKS EAGLIN is a modern street minstrel. Yet, his audiences are little different from those of the early part of this century who would stop to listen to a blind man on a street corner in practically any city of the South where the famed Negro street singers of yesteryear plied their trade. It is in this sense that he is a direct descendent of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie Johnson, Blind Blake, Joe Taggart, Blind Joe Walker and the numerous other street minstrels whose singing heritage has been passed on to us largely through the recordings they made for various 'race' labels during the '20s and '30s.

Snooks is a living refutation of the oft-bemoaned claim that street singing is a dead or dying tradition in the United States. My own experience (and that of other collector, as well) in recording folksongs in various parts of the South has resulted in the finding that street singers may still frequently be heard in urban as well as rural Negro communities. Proponents of the dead and dying theory, few of whom have ever ventured into the field, usually answer such refutation by stating that most of the remaining street singers are old men, upon whose death the tradition will no longer exist. Such is not the case. Many of these modern minstrels are men in their thirties and forties who have many years of street singing still ahead of them. And Snooks Eaglin, only 24 years old, can hardly be called an old man. Nor is he an unusual exception, for other young musicians and singers, unable to make a living at their trade, and refusing to leave their homes for the opportunities that may present themselves in other parts of the country, continually replenish the store of living street musicians.

Snooks was born in New Orleans in 1936, and has lived there all his life. When only 19 months old, it was discovered that he had both glaucoma and a brain tumor. Immediate surgery, and a stay in the hospital for more than two-and-a-half years of treatment, saved his life although doctors had given up hope of his recovering. But somehow he managed to survive to face the blind man's dark prison.

For Snooks' sixth birthday, his father, Ford Eaglin, gave him a small guitar. Listening to the radio and to recordings, young Snooks taught himself to play the instrument, a difficult feat even for sighted individuals. Later, he sang in local Baptist churches; and, at the age of eleven, playing Twelfth Street Rag on the guitar, he won first prize on a Negro talent hour over station WNOE, in New Orleans.

In 1952, Snooks joined a group of six young neighborhood musicians, all about 16 years old, who called themselves The Flamengoes. Similar groups may be heard today in practically any large city of the United States. And, much as did their counterparts of 20 and 30 years ago, the music they perform for their audiences is that which is currently most in demand: rhythm and blues, hill-billy, and most recently, Rock-and-Roll.

Snooks' personal repertoire, entirely separate from that of the group performances, was learned almost entirely from listening to the radio and recordings. And it is in this respect that he differs most radically from the street singers of earlier years. Most of the repertoire of the legendary street singers was drawn from oral sources, or was composed, on traditional themes, by the performers themselves. To be sure, some part of Snooks' repertoire is made up of self composed or orally circulated pieces. But the greatest part of his vast stock of songs was learned from two sources which most folklorists consider to be the bane of tradition— radio and recordings. One wonders, however, upon listening to Snooks' performances, if such is indeed the case.

All too little research has been done in the area of studying the effects of commercial and standardized media upon tradition. Some recent research by scholars in the fields of 'hill-billy' and 'race' recordings indicate that a large percentage of songs collected from traditional singers during the '30s and '40s may actually have originated from, or been put back into tradition by recorded performances. Depth interviewing of traditional singers, in an attempt to discover the source of their material, would probably have resulted in find that many singers learned at least some of their songs from recordings and radio, or from others who had added to their repertoire in that manner.

Scholars have readily recognized the part which printed media (such as the broadsides and songsters of the 19th century and earlier) have played on traditional songs and their circulation. It is time the same recognition was made of the effect of radio and recordings in starting material into oral circulation.

Listening to Snooks' recordings, one is immediately aware that, though learned from radio and recordings, his material has undergone a process of change not unlike material in actual oral circulation. Learning a song as a result of having heard it once or twice on radio, or from recordings, is little different from having learned it orally from another singer. The same factors of memory, hearing, and understanding, which account for so large a proportion of unconscious change in the oral circulation of a song are certainly at play in learning a song heard only a few times from a recording or on radio. And the factor of conscious change, or re-creation, is not dependent upon the source of the material, but rather upon the abilities and motivations of the performer. In the hands of Snooks Eaglin, such changes, both of an unconscious and conscious nature, may result in either a practically new piece or in a recognizeable version of a familiar song—but in both cases the end result appears to be as aesthetically satisfying to his audience as the original would have been.

The degree of change in Snooks' songs varies greatly from piece to piece. In the case of those songs heard only once or twice, the change is greatest. Those songs which he heard frequently on recordings or radio exhibit little or no change from the source from which he learned them. Generally speaking, the music seems to have undergone the least change, while the lyrics of the songs exhibit a greater amount of change, varying in degree, however, from piece to piece.

The final test, of course, as to whether Snooks' songs (many of which are originally 'pop' songs) may indeed be classified as folk songs, lies not with Snooks, but with his audiences. If the songs he performs, no matter the degree of change made by him, are learned by others as a result of his performances, and are then repeated by them, then Snooks Eaglin should properly be looked upon as another link in the chain of tradition. The fact that Snooks is presently part of and singing for a social group which is highly attuned to the type of music he performs, and which is also a singing group, leads this writer to believe that some of the pieces he performs may well become a part of the oral tradition of that group.

Notes by Kenneth S. Goldstein

(These recordings were made by Dr. Barry Oster, or Louisiana State University' in March, 1958, in New Orleans. Dr. Oster also supplied valuable background information, biographical data and pictures of Snooks Eaglin.)

The following data, indicating the sources of each of Eaglin's songs, was supplied by Eaglin himself.

Side One

Band 1. CARELESS LOVE: A combination of stanzas from numerous recorded and radio performances of this very popular traditional blues.

Band 2. COME BACK, BABY: Learned from a Jack Dupree recording.

Band 3. HIGH SOCIETY: One of the most frequently recorded traditional Jazz band pieces. Snooks attempts to simulate the various instrumental solo breaks, disregarding the very limits of the guitar itself

Band 4. LET ME GO HOME WHISKEY: Learned from an Amos Milburn recording.

Band 5. TROUBLE IN MIND: Learned from a Sister Rosetta Tharpe recording.

Band 6. ST. JAMES INFIRMARY: Learned from a Hot Lips Paige recording.

Band 7. I GOT MY QUESTIONNAIRE: Learned from a Clarence Burton recording.

Band 8. DRIFTIN' BLUES: Learned from a recording of Johnny Moore and The Three Blazes.

Side Two

Band 1. ROCK ISLAND LINE: Learned from a Huddie Leadbetter recording, heard on Nashville Radio.

Band 2. EVERY DAY I HAVE THE BLUES: Learned from a Lowe Froeson recording.

Band 3. SOPHISTICATED BLUES: An original guitar solo by Snooks Eaglin.

Band 4. SEE SEE RIDER: Learned from a Lil Green recording.

Band 5. ONE SCOTCH, ONE BOURBON, ONE BEER: Learned from an Amos Milburn recording.

Band 6. A THOUSAND MILES AWAY FROM HOME: No data. Possibly learned from a Jimmie Rodgers recording.

Band 7. I'M LOOKIN' FOR A WOMAN: Learned from, a Jimmy McCracklin recording.

Band 8. LOOK DOWN THAT LONESOME ROAD: A traditional song frequently recorded. No specific data given as to source.
[Lyric transcriptions not scanned]

[AlanB]

After much searching I've located this which was buried on a memory stick from back in 2006!!!

Homage to Snooks Eaglin
By John Sinclair

The diminutive man who can't see is led onto the stage, seated in front of his amplifier and handed his guitar. His gnarled fingers seek the strings and quickly renew their long acquaintance with the instrument, covering the frets like talons and strumming and picking at the strings as if his claw-like extremities are merely an extension of the guitar.

Snooks Eaglin's mind and heart are equally well connected to the guitar and to the music itself. His intelligence and soul are likewise everywhere present in the music he makes, from the impeccable tune selection which characterizes his musical approach to his masterful vocal and instrumental delivery of each of the wildly disparate songs in his vast repertoire.

I might as well say it right out: there's no one I'd rather see or hear perform music than the great Snooks Eaglin. He plays the tunes I want to hear the way I want to hear them played, and that's no mean feat. His recordings for Black Top, with the Wild Magnolias and with Professor Longhair bear obsessively repeated listening, his live presentations are endlessly fascinating, and he never fails to satisfy.

Now nearing 60 years of age (he was born in 1936), Ferd Eaglin has continued to develop and grow as a musician from year to year and album to album like few others of equivalent maturity (only his label-mate, the magnificent Earl King, comes immediately to mind).

Snooks playing stays fresh and exciting, he is constantly adding fantastically hip tunes to his musical book, his vocal effects are more and more perfectly achieved, and his ever-increasing ease and facility in the studio make each new recording more successful than the last.

Witnesses to the live Snooks Eaglin are treated to the multiple dimensions of his infectious personality: a slyly twisted, uproariously bawdy sense of humor, an exuberant address to his bandmates and his audience alike, a magical rapport with everyone within reach of his voice and guitar.

Backed by his friend and collaborator George Porter Jr. on bass and warmly sympathetic drummers like Herman Ernest and Terrence Higgins, Snooks offers set after set of brilliantly performed versions of songs of every description, each one interpreted with his distinctive artistry yet rendered with precisely the mood and intention imprinted by the original composer and performer.

This, too, is no mean feat, for while thousands and thousands of cover versions of both established and obscure tunes from the rhythm & blues catalogue are pounded out in countless bars and concert venues across America each night, roughly nine times out of ten the results are not completely satisfying. Yet Snooks hits the mark damn near every time, and his genius for picking perfect obscurities and performing them to perfection is utterly unmatched in the music world of today.

Take his last compact disc, Teasin' You, a record R&B lovers can listen to over and over again without tiring of hearing long-buried compositions like Lloyd Price's "Baby Please Come Home," Larry Williams' "Dizzy Miss Lizzy," Wee Willie Wayne's "Travelin' Mood," the great Earl Connelly King blues ballad "Don't Take It So Hard," Tiny Bradshaw's "Heavy Juice," Professor Longhair's "Red Beans," "Lilly Mae" by Smiley Lewis, the Charles Brown hit "Black Night," "When It Rains It Pours" by Billy "The Kid" Emerson, and three brilliant works by Snooks' favorite composer, Mr. Earl King: "Soul Train," "My Love Is Strong" and "Teasin' You."

Only the title track, originally sung with such invincible conviction by Willie Tee, compares the least bit unfavorably with its predecessor. In every other case Snooks' version is just as easy to listen to as its model (although nothing can ever replace the gigantic tenor saxophone of Red Prysock on the original "Heavy Juice").

And the program is spiced with a couple of patented Snooks touches: a schlock instrumental, "Sleepwalk," which has the guitarist playing the parts of both Santo and Johnny to mesmerizing effect; and an ancient spiritual tune, "Jesus Will Fix It," given a primitive second-line treatment which never fails to delight.

Snooks Eaglin compositions are relatively few and far between, but when he presents a "Cheetah" or an "Oh Sweetness" or the explosive "Drop The Bomb!," it's a tune to remember. And his skewed renditions of instrumental features like "Profidia," "Kiss of Fire" and "Out of Nowhere" are entirely in a class of their own.

But it's as an archivist and interpreter of rare works of rhythm & blues artistry that Snooks makes his greatest contribution. Pick up his first BlackTop disc, Baby, You Can Get Your Gun (1986), and you'll find New Orleans favorites by Guitar Slim ("You Give Me Nothin' but the Blues"), Percy Mayfield ("Baby Please"), Tommy Ridgley/Dave Bartholomew ("Lavinia," dusted off from 1950), Earl King ("Baby, You Can Get Your Gun"), Bartholomew and Smiley Lewis ("That Certain Door," originally recorded by Snooks 35 years ago for an Imperial Records single), and the surprise item of this set, Eugene Church's celebratory anthem from the late 50s, "Pretty Girls Everywhere."

On Out of Nowhere (1989) you'll hear Tommy Ridgley's "Ooh Lordy My Baby" (in a fine version that probably inspired the composer to re-record it in 1992), Allen Toussaint's "Lipstick Traces" (homage to Benny Spellman), "Young Girl" by Jerry McCain, the Falcons' "You're So Fine," the immortal "Mailman Blues" by Lloyd Price (mistakenly credited to Snooks), the Nappy Brown feature "Wella Wella Baby-La" which once brought so much pleasure to Savoy Records president Herman Lubinsky, the Isley Brothers' cheesy "It's Your Thing," "Playgirl" by Smiley Lewis, and T-Bone Walker's great slow blues "West Side Baby."

Now that's a repertoire, ladies and g's, which far surpasseth any easy understanding and indeed verges on the surreal, yet delivers just about three hours of eminently repeatable recorded music--far more than we get from most contemporary recording artists. And it's all flawlessly performed by first-rate musicians, imaginatively programmed, and imbued through and through with the ineffable essence of a man his mama called called Snooks.

Hey, let's face it: this man can play anything, he knows every worthwhile tune ever written, he's surrounded by great players, and now he's about to release a new album--only his fourth in the modern era.

What more can we ask for. . . .Mardi Gras? You got it! Check out Snooks' historic sessions as guitarist in Willie Tee's New Orleans Project backing up the Wild Magnolias in the premiere album presentation of Mardi Gras Indian music back in 1973: Wild Magnolias, now on CD from Polydor Records).

Or dig the sessions Snooks made with Professor Longhair for Fess's comeback demos in 1971-72. These masterpieces of modern music show off Snooks's playing in all its brilliance and soulful glory as he and Fess, backed by the impeccable Will Harvey-Shiba and George French-Zigaboo Modeliste rhythm sections, tear through Fess' omniscient repertoire with abandon and glee: "Mardi Gras In New Orleans," "She Ain't Got No Hair," "Her Mind Is Gone," "Hey Now Baby," "Dr. Professor Longhair," "Gone So Long," "Tipitina," "She Walks Right In," "No Buts No Maybes," "Big Chief" and the rest.

Added attractions are the Fess covers of songs that were as carefully chosen and beautifully performed as those characteristically selected by Snooks today, like "Cherry Pie" by Marvin & Johnny, Solomon Burke's "Cry To Me," James Waynes' "Junco Partner," Fess' timeless arrangement of Hank Williams' "Jambalaya," "Sick And Tired" by Chris Kenner, a fine Fats Domino medley, T-Bone Walker's "Mean Old World," Big Jay McNeely's "There Is Something on Your Mind" and a host of others.

The Wild Magnolias album deserves special mention for Snooks' wildly atmospheric theme statements and improvisations on "Smoke My Peace Pipe," "Corey Died on the Battlefield," "Saints," "Two-Way Pak-E-Way," and the Wild Magnolias versions of "Golden Crown," "Battlefront" and other Wild Indian gems recently unearthed by reissue producer Leo Sacks.

I've left out the two Snooks Eaglin "folk blues" records--for Bluesville and for GNP's "Roots of the Blues" series--because they basically try to reduce Snooks to a solo "street performer" type of attraction, and the second Sam Charters production for Sonet because it's not generally available on CD anymore, but Snooks completists will find them indispensible.

Finally, there is the priceless version of Rollie McGill's "That Same Old Train" that can be found on BlackTop's Blues Pajama Party sampler, and the "live" cuts from BlackTop Blues-A-Rama, Volume 6 which are well worth hearing.

In fact, what we need now is a whole album of "live" Snooks Eaglin--not stage versions of previously recorded material, but new selections inimitably performed in concert by the great master of modern repertoire backed by George Porter Jr. and Herman V. Ernest III.

And, someone needs to collect Snooks's Imperial singles and unissued masters for the CD era. Then, as Billy Delle might say, we'll have as much Snooks as we can use, and that definitely ain't nothin' nice.

-New Orleans
2006 John Sinclair

[creolian]

I met and worked with Snooks on many occasions and he was a sweet man who had no difficulty translating the melodies in his mind to the guitar. He and New Orleans banjo player Emanual manny Sayles probably knew the words and music to as much traditional music as anyone who's ever lived. I always felt I was in the presence of a musical shaman when he was playing... Off stage he was shy but also quite the character when comfortable around friends. Snooks had gone somewhat underground prior to the late seventies when George Porter took the initiative to encourage him to perform publicly. I don't know it as fact but the rumor was that he was afraid of being busted by the IRS (tax man) We all owe GP jr a debt of gratitude for helping snooks get around and back to gigging. ( I think it's also fair to recognize George Porter as one of the fathers of "Funk", see the Meters, Cissy Strut circa 1967 )

As a blind man he had sight better than many. I was with him in the backstage trailer at the jazzfest in New Orleans after his set and asked if I could mix him a cocktail. He readily accepted and while I was pouring the vodka for our screwdrivers he asked for a bit more... explaining that "I wants to feel the fire."

To this day, When I remember Snooks, I remember that moment and wants to feel the fire myself