Mystery Train Has Finally Reached The Station

Ironically, it was during a train ride, about two weeks ago, that I learned the sad news about the Mystery Train.

Inscrutable railway? The usual braintwister of understanding railroad schedules? None of that. Mystery Train is the name of a podcast, produced by Rock’n'Roll fan, concert organizer and broadcaster Harrie v. d. Westerlo. It was aired in a weekly format on a local radio station in the Dutch town of Helmond.

The show was born out of an interest for the origins of Rock’n'Roll. If you’re not satisfied with statements hailing Bill Haley or Elvis Presley as the “inventers” of Rock’n'Roll, then you’re in for a long and fascinating ride that takes you back at least to the early 20th century. Harrie v. d. Westerlo himslef describes his approach as a musical trip to the roots of popular music (…) as he set out to present music from the twenties till now, with lots of information about the artists, their recordings, their culture and the labels.

The choice of music featured during the weekly episodes included Country in all sorts of shades and flavours, Western Swing, Blues (ditto as for country), Gospel, Bluegrass, Soul, Jump Blues, Rockabilly, Cajun, etc. The show always stayed true to its credo of resurrecting the sounds of yesteryear, making sure that listeners would be guided to discover the roots of much of today’s popular music. In that sense, Harrie’s choice of country music, just to pick one example, eschewed the pop numbers that pretend to be country music today and favored the hardcore honky tonk heroes of old, like Hank Williams or Lefty Frizzel or reached even further back to the founding fathers (and mothers) of the genre, i.e. the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. Oh, and I should mention that it was only on Mystery Train that I ever heard the Skillet Lickers on radio…

The Skillet Lickers

Every now and then the show would have episodes dedicated to specific artists or genres (Elvis Presley, Bluegrass, Indo Rock, an incarnation of Rock’n'Roll from the Netherlands, played by musicians of Indonesian descent: check out the incendiary Tielmann Brothers for a sampling) but in general listening would be like drifting through space and time, marveling at the treasures that came out of the speakers. Harrie v.d. Westerlo also appeared to be pretty knowledgeable about artist bios, recordings dates and issue numbers and he would add anecdotes and trivia about the background to the recordings. I must admit, though, that I didn’t get every nuance of his announcements because I don’t speak Dutch… Here lies the biggest drawback of the show, at least for me personally. However, being a speaker of German, I could get the overall drift of what was being said.

On August 24, 2010 the 475th and final episode of Mystery Train hit the airwaves and the internet. A quick check in my iTunes podcast directory revealed that issue 337 of October 10, 2007 was the first episode I downloaded. I regret that I couldn’t listen to all existing episodes. The podcast discussed here would have been the perfect companion to this blog. To say the truth, it did inspire me quite a bit to get started. One thing I need to criticize, finally, is the fact that back issues could not be downloaded after a certain time. Be sure that I would have acquired ALL the episodes If you are interested, hurry over the show’s website and catch the remaining episodes from the archive. When I checked it out while writing this post there were only nine left available for download!

Ladies and gentlemen, please stand back from the platform as the train enters the station. Hear the cringing of brakes and the engine slowing down. The mighty locomotive lets off steam while the engineer wipes the coal dust from his face. It has been a long ride. It has been a great ride!

Harrie, thank you for taking us on. Let’s hope that some day a keen engineer falls in love with the ol’ machine, jumps on, shoves a load of coal in and gets that engine a-rolling…

The show’s title obviously refers to the song of the same name, first recorded by Junior Parker’s Blue Flames for Sun Records in 1953 and covered in 1955 by Elvis Presley, almost as a good-bye present, also for Sun. Both versions are great, each in its own right and I’d be hard pressed to chose my favorite one (although I may lean slightly towards Parker’s reverb-drenched, bouncy R’n'B masterpiece)

It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine…I Start To Blog

Hello, friends and neighbours.

So… Here I am finally writing my first post to a blog. Welcome to any reader who should happen to arrive here.

I must admit that it feels a little strange, because until now I didn’t spontaneously think of myself as a writer. Of course, I write as part of my job (not the topic here) and then in three languages, but to publish my very own musings on a subject of my own choice…well, that’s new but it is my personal decision. Hence the title of this post. More on this below.

Let us see where this all leads us.

What will I write about, you ask?  With this blog I want to share my passion for music, american roots music. By this I mean those musical styles that form the basis for much of today’s music. Styles that are, for some, almost forgotten today but at the same time continue to exist, albeit in sometimes very different incarnations or the traces of which may be found in today’s music. American roots music includes the blues and its numerous siblings and its offspring, gospel, country music, early jazz, old timey string band music, bluegrass and western swing and their combinations, intersections and reciprocal influences.In addition, this blog shall also reflect my taste and interest in many things connected with these musical styles, musicians and their epochs. At this time the blues hold the top spots on my playlists but regularly rotate with other styles.

Oh, did I mention that I play the guitar and sing? Obviously, here’s a whole world of possible blog topics opening up…

While gearing up for this blog I revisited my internet bookmarks and paid a visit to some blogs I had earmarked for future reading. Boy, are they good. Actually, I would have loved to write some of them, that’s how well they fit my afinities. I will of course acknowledge their content and draw inspiration from them. Hopefully these blogs’ authors will find something to connect to here. They may be assured that their blogs will find their way to my blogroll.

So what’s the deal with this post’s title? “It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine” is a song by Blind Willie Johnson (January 22, 1897 – September 18, 1945). He was an American singer and guitarist whose music straddled the border between blues and spirituals. While the lyrics of all of his songs were religious, his music drew from both sacred and blues traditions. Among musicians, he is considered one of the greatest slide or bottleneck guitarists, as well as one of the most revered figures of depression-era gospel music. (source: Wikipedia)

Blind Willie Johnson. Note the tin cup attached to his guitar's headstock, likely used in his street musician activity to collect coins.

As attentive readers might notice, it will soon be the 65th anniversary of Johnson’s death. A dedicated post on this occasion seems appropriate.

Good reading, see you soon and … keep ‘em coming!