Ollis Martin

If harmonica players over the 1920s Alabama blues picture were barbecue, then your meat eaters would complaining about the shortage. For some blues research workers, the situation appears so very bad they take pleasure in directing out that among these uncommon bluesmen, Frank Palmes, was in fact a pseudonym for Birmingham’s best-known bluesman, Jaybird Coleman. There is actually an Ollis Martin, nevertheless, and he warns us that “Law enforcement and Great Sheriff Arrive Ridin’ Down” over the Record Great Harp Players compilation. Possibly the laws was arriving at obtain him, because he hardly ever recorded once again under his very own name following this 1927 program for Gennet. Martin was energetic throughout the Birmingham region in the last mentioned part of this decade, also turning up on some edges trim by Coleman, with whom he documented gospel harmonica duets. A lot more is well known about Coleman than Martin or the previous man’s several musical partners. Actually there’s a theory that Martin didn’t perform the next harmonica part over the Coleman recordings out of this period, that it had been probably another a lot more obscure Birmingham harmonica participant rather. For what it had been value, Coleman and his obscure close friends had been the blues picture in the Birmingham environs around that point. The relatively dismal picture that’s left via records is actually the problem of skill scouts, not really the state’s blues players. The prewar scouts of blues skill apparently stopped at Alabama significantly less frequently than various other areas. These scouts had been sometimes known as “competition record field devices” through the ’20s and ’30s. Their attitude about Alabama certainly wouldn’t make sure you Lynryrd Skynryd, and in addition intended the record buying open public has lost from the opportunity to listen to blues performers with incredible titles, such as for example Whistling Pete, Peanut the Kidnapper, Bogan’s Birmingham Busters, Brownie Stubblefield, as well as the thinning couple of Georgia Slim and Acoustic guitar Slim. George “Bullet” Williams can be another Alabama harmonica participant out of this period that presents up on a number of the same anthologies as Martin. These are typically choices of Alabama nation blues or early American harmonica virtuosity. Gathering all of the paths by Alabama harmonica players using one disk seems just like a reasonable idea, particularly if all the reviews in regards to a paucity of materials are accurate. It took japan to actually get it done. The P-Vine collection entitled The Pioneers of Blues Harmonica, although acknowledged to Coleman and Williams, also contains the fine function of Martin and Daddy Stovepipe, the Alabama harp participant with the very best name of most. Martin may have a more normal moniker, however in conditions of harmonica players may possess made even more of a musical influence. The field guide for youthful harmonica learners, Tony “Small Sunlight” Glover’s Blues Harp Songbook, selects the playing of Martin as you of its factors of extended research.