Is this footage really blues icon Henry Thomas?
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- Опубліковано 1 чер 2023
- What do you think, is this footage really the blues icon Henry Thomas? Henry Thomas is one of the more elusive characters, but maintains a highly relevant musician today. I compare him to other photos to try to paint a clear picture if this could be the guy, but what do you think?
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Very few blues guys at that time used a capo and played quills while they played. Add the mustache and it sure looks like Henry Thomas! Great find!
That we know of anywho! But yeah, pretty on point characteristics!
Intriguing video! I didn't even know there was a pic of 'ol Henry. Henry Thomas is the OG bridging pre-blues music with blues music, it's how i've always thought of him. Also, i wonder how many buskers/medicine show musicians played the quills; apparently they were brought over from Africa by slaves, both the cane fife with several holes, and a panpipe with several separate cane pipes. I love this era of music, the cusp of non-recorded to recorded. Makes me wonder about all the other genres in history that came and went with no trace left whatsoever. Thanks for the vid!!!! Another great one.
Pre-blues for sure! I think one classification would be a "songster. Someone who played in all styles and popular songs spanning loads of traditions. Dom Flemons has some good stuff to say on the topic! Yeah man, real grateful folks were recorded when they were. The world was just starting to speed up around then, amazing to have captured folks who were coming from such a different place. And of course, the songs rule too! Thanks for the thoughts!
Unlike "standard" panpipes made from individual tubes, the photo and video quills are either enclosed in a cover or possibly made from a solid piece of wood.
I vote that it's Henry!
That’s awesome! I think there’s a chance that it could be Henry Thomas, too bad there isn’t audio to go along with this footage.
Speaking of Jim Jackson, there is footage of him in King Vidor’s 1929 movie “Hallelujah,” along with other blues musicians such as Gus Cannon as well.
Dude I haven't seen that footage, I'm gonna look it up! Is it on UA-cam?
@@kostringworks it is! But I believe that it is now a buy or rent type of deal. Worth a watch for the footage of old blues musicians nevertheless.
Playing quills and a guitar is not business as usual. I once saw Mike Seeger do it and was amazed.
Another excellent video Kyle!!
Wow that's amazing! Never got to see him before he passed.
Was thinking this the other day so had a look today. Good work bud
Heck yeah! Thanks for watching!
I happened to be listing to "John Henry" by Henry Thomas and looked at the video while listening. It was, it seems, as if the video had an actual soundtrack. Try it out!
Dig it!
Great content! I’ve loved Ragtime Thomas sing my rediscovery about fifteen years ago.
Thank you for this very interesting and well put together piece.
Thanks! I know man what a musician!
@@kostringworks Mississippi John Hurt is another one of my favorites.
That most definitely is him as far as I’m concerned.
The next mystery is how Canned Heat stumbled on to his music from the 20's?? Really Cool!
Probably the Harry Smith Folk Anthology, but yes fun to wonder how this stuff passed around!
There's some really great stories about Alan Wilson from Canned Heat finding Son House and teaching Son to play again. All that to say, these dudes were super into the old stuff!
Alan Wilson and Bob Hite had huge record collections of music from pre war. I think they were well aware of the music of this area
A record. Simple.
@Alien - The real mystery is how Canned Heat's Alan Wilson managed to get full credit for this song and nothing left to Henry Thomas!
A German filmmaker shot some footage in 1931 of a street musician who may or may not be Texas blues man Henry Thomas. But what I did not know until recently was that his song “Bull Doze Blues” was the blueprint for the Canned Heat hit single “Going Up The Country.” The melody remained the same. Excellent analysis.
The more ya know! Both killer tunes. Glad ya found the vid!
From this area How many rural country blues singer and guitarist have used a flute pan rack from the street of Chicago?
With a same capo a same bushy eyebrows and a same way to hold their parlor guitar (maybe a pre washburn from Lyon & Healy)
I guess it surely could be him
So don't you always think that it s not him ?😂
Mouth and nose appear identical.
Look at those HANDS
I think the reason people think its Henry is because the harmonica holder kinda apears to be in the shape of a pan flute which alot of henrys song have and alot of them he isn't singing over the flute which indacates to me that he was doing the pan flute and the guitar at the same time
This could be a series. "Music Mysteries"
Oooh nooo I really like that!! I've got another one in the editing stage right now that goes along with this concept. Maybe I should run with it!
Careful examination of the footage shows that the quills in the video have a different angle from the known photo. And, in the known photo, it appears that the quill rack is attached to his guitar (?), as is not the case in the video. However, a couple of years separate the two images, and it is very possible that Thomas, flush with record advances, changed his outfit.
If you notice at 3:20. The image shows a harmonica brace around the chest and armpit. The questionable photo of Henry Thomas on the right, shows the same chest brace. No armpit/shoulder tho. Even if it's not, it's a interesting brace.
Cool find! Yeah super interesting design isn't it?
He's not as familiar as Robert johnson or son house, but for me he's the greatest bluesman that ever lived.
Couldn’t agree more!
It doesn't appear to be Henry Thomas to my eyes. I wish it was though. It would be nice to find more photos or information about his life. I just recently stumbled onto his song " Bull Doze Blues" which, as you know already, was borrowed or reinterpreted by Canned Heat to be their famous song "Going Up the Country". I wonder if there will ever be a payday for Henry Thomas' descendants from the Canned Heat camp for use of his melody in their song. Either way I'm glad I found his song " Bull Doze Blues" it's a classic like some Robert Johnson songs I've heard in the past.
Yeah totally. I like to hope Alan Wilson had a heart about that kind of thing (taking care of Thomas' intellectual rights) be curious to find out.
It looks a lot like him imo, especially the nose, eyes and hands. And how many blues singers played those quill pipes - most likely very few.
Take a look at the fingers. Seems to be a match to me.
Can you tell what song he's playing?
Now that be some investigation!
3:16 - Looks very much like the same guitar (and same guitar capo too)...
wish i was around then
The music sure was something!
Can't say the instrument around the neck of the "mystery musician" looks like any quills I've seen--but it sure appears to be a woodwind. I'd like to know what it is. My guess is that it was fashioned by the musician or someone he knew, a common thing among itinerant musicians of the day. Then compare the bone structure of Thomas' picture to the mystery musician in the film clip. It looks like a close match to me.
I vote yea.
Dig it! Yeah might be a bit of confirmation-bias going on assuming they're quills. Whatever they are, they look sweet!
Great video. I would have appreciate that you mentioned my channel since that’s where you get the footage from…. And since the name of the video is almost the same. Regards.
I’ll leave a link to it in the description! Thanks for uploading it! There’s a bunch online, I wasn’t really careful in choosing which one I used. We’re you the first to?
The first to notice this was Axel Küstner, incredible photographer/folklorist. The information is at the description box in my original videos. Thanks.@@kostringworks
my attempt to sync up a recording: ua-cam.com/video/qyX4FFs3brs/v-deo.html
Ha! I love it! Love your vids Peter, thanks for coming by and sharing!
Haha, amazing job! Love the sync.
A key question to ask is which old blues and medicine show players blew on quill pipes while singing and playing guitar? It's believed Henry got this instrument and style from slavery days music. It seems like Henry is the only one, at least of any who got recorded.
Lastly, that crummy picture looks like a dot-matrix representation of a photograph. Wouldn't it be great if someone could produce the original photograph for a better look?
I think you're probably right on the dot-matrix theory too! Yeah that would be so amazing to see the OG. On the note of other show players using quills, It would seem to be pretty plausible that he wasn't the only one to come up with the idea to play pipes and guitar, but ya never can tell!
So one thing to take into consideration is that Thomas’ style probably wasn’t as unique as it might seem, and was probably a very popular performance style among early southern black guitarists around Thomas’ age. I’m not sure about it going all the way back to slavery, as enslaved blacks would have barely had access to professionally-made fiddles and banjos, let alone guitars, which were simply not a thing in black southern music prior to the 1890s, when mail-order catalogues made them easier and cheaper to obtain. There was, however, a “blues” guitarist by the name of “Daddy Stovepipe”, born 1867 (just seven years before Thomas) who recorded first in 1924, and played in a remarkably similar style to Thomas, except with harmonica instead of quills, similarly to the unidentified fellow in the photograph shown in this video. The style was one which probably developed in the 1890s, with maybe some antecedents in the 1870s and 1880s or prior that involved banjo and whatever type of wind instrument, but which no record survives of, except for maybe Gus Cannon’s jug and banjo combo. The actual popularity of the style probably only lasted until the first or second decades of the 20th century, where the harmonica in blues started to take on a more complex, ornamental, and polyphonic role compared to the simple, homophonic, call-response nature of Thomas and Stovepipe’s quill and harmonica playing respectively.
Interesting
😂 yeah kinda cool footage no matter how you slice it.
hands look long like his and bony
His face looks a little different due to the moustache but otherwise it could really very easily be him (the lips, the cheeks, the brows, the nose). Kind of a long face and he has long fingers like the figure in the earlier photograph. There's a box around the quills likewise though a little more ornamentation (two years later). The capo seems to be on the 4th instead of the 5th fret... The film is from Chicago, taken within two years of his last recording session with Vocalion in Chicago where he last recorded. He also mentions Chicago in his song "Railroadin' Some", which might indicate it was on his route anyway. He's playing in a way that easily matches up with how Henry Thomas played. Much strumming but dynamic enough that at least one finger other than the thumb is clearly used some of the time. Thumb Pick clear in both cases. Playing in a medicine show in no way conflicts with what little is known about his life. Everything that there is to go on matches up just fine. And it just looks clearly, blatantly obvious to me. Clear as day. But there's no proof of course...
Dude for sure! Fun to speculate of course. Thanks for the thoughts!
They say Henry Thomas died in 1930. He was 56 years Old. Some FBI investigation comparing the two Poctures should be done
Just giggled about cops and lawyers watching my video for evidence. Never know!
The real mystery is how Canned Heat's Alan Wilson managed to get full credit for this song and nothing left to Henry Thomas!
You gotta wonder.
No mystery at all - Henry Thomas was dead.
We don't know that
By changing the lyrics?
The same way Bob Dylan put
"Allow me one more chance"
on his First LP and could not
resist crediting the authorship
to (Dylan - Thomas). An in joke
I guess.
Was it really that rare to have a quill rack? I doubt it’s him but it could be. Judging by his singing I pictured him as sort of a rough around the edges alcoholic type, the guy in the video looks pretty spiffy. I vote no
As far as folks who were recorded, he’s pretty much one-of-one for quills. Hard to say though for the rest of the wide world.
If the movie is from 1931 ,Sorry Henry Thomas past in 1930.
Yes, the photo on the left depicts a much better fitting suit. Both photos are grainy, but I would say it's most likely Mr. Henry Thomas. At the least a lesser known relative of his. Although many bluesmen played parlor sized guitars of this model, which is likely a Stella.
Def looks like a Stella to me too!
White man not allowed to play the blues....they give the blues.