{"id":3898,"date":"2018-08-11T02:00:41","date_gmt":"2018-08-11T06:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=3898"},"modified":"2018-08-18T02:26:42","modified_gmt":"2018-08-18T06:26:42","slug":"johnson-city-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/johnson-city-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnson City Blues (Clarence Greene, Ida Cox)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Johnson City Blues\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YLlutbjmYMM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Along with all the great African American blues artists who recorded in the 1920s, there were also some interesting Euro-American players who came up with distinctive styles. The most famous was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/any-old-time\/\">Jimmie Rodgers<\/a>, but the best guitarists tended to come from around the mountain communities of Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and the Carolinas. <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3908 size-medium alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/clarence-greene.jpg?resize=300%2C291&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"291\" \/>I\u2019ve already paid tribute to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wild-good-cocaine\/\">Dick Justice<\/a>, who deserves to be a lot better known, and this song is from an even more obscure artist, Clarence Greene. Greene was born in North Carolina in 1884 and recorded a\u00a0 scant dozen songs, including some on fiddle with Byrd Moore&#8217;s Hot Shots. This is by far the best known, and with good reason: his other recordings are in more standard white country styles, but this is a unique and brilliant guitar blues.<\/p>\n<p>Greene\u2019s playing is admirably quirky, and shows the clear influence of one of the greatest early blues recording stars, apparently learned first-hand. As his friend Walter Davis recalled:<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-3901\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/blind-lemon-Jefferson.jpg?resize=225%2C282&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"282\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/blind-lemon-Jefferson.jpg?resize=239%2C300&amp;ssl=1 239w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/blind-lemon-Jefferson.jpg?w=250&amp;ssl=1 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/>\u201cMe and Clarence Greene was in Johnson City, Tennessee, and there was an old colored fellow, blind man, that was playing down there on the street, and I thought he was the most wonderful guitar player that I had ever heard. He could really play the blues\u2026 Blind Lemon Jefferson. And he was really good\u2026 I stayed there two or three days, trying to pick up some of his chords and some of his tunes.\u201d<span id='easy-footnote-1-3898' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/johnson-city-blues\/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-3898' title='This quotation and all the biographical details above are from a great website, http:\/\/www.stateoffranklin.net\/johnsons\/oldtime\/jcblues\/jcblues.htm'><sup>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Greene\u2019s playing is very different from Jefferson\u2019s, but made up of distinctly Jeffersonian components \u2013 the way someone might play if they spent two or three days watching Jefferson, then went home and came up with a guitar arrangement based on what they\u2019d seen That\u2019s very different from sitting down with a record, because Greene doesn\u2019t sound like he\u2019s imitating any particular Jefferson piece and some of the ideas he uses seem based more on how Jefferson\u2019s hands moved than on how the results sounded. At least, that\u2019s my take on this arrangement, based on admittedly limited evidence \u2013 but it makes sense.<\/p>\n<p>As for the song, it\u2019s a close adaptation of a 1923 recording by Ida Cox titled \u201cChattanooga Blues.\u201d<span id='easy-footnote-2-3898' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/johnson-city-blues\/#easy-footnote-bottom-2-3898' title=' Cox&amp;#8217;s record was also covered by the Allen Brothers, and apparently Greene&amp;#8217;s son said their record was his source, but if you listen to both versions it&amp;#8217;s pretty clear he got this directly from Cox.'><sup>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Cox has been overshadowed by Bessie Smith in the history books, but was at least as influential <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3910 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Ida-Cox.jpg?resize=250%2C250&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Ida-Cox.jpg?w=250&amp;ssl=1 250w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Ida-Cox.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/>among rural musicians and listeners. She couldn&#8217;t match Smith\u2019s power and virtuosity, but had a more straightforwardly conversational style and terrific taste in material, much of which she seems to have written herself. She was also a very astute businesswoman and continued to tour with her own company of musicians, singers, and dancers through the 1930s, invested her profits in real estate, and retired comfortably to Knoxville, where she died in 1967.<\/p>\n<p>As for my version: one of the things I love about both Jefferson and Greene is the way they casually add or subtract a couple of beats now and then to fit their singing, rather than keeping within standard European measures. I started playing this song before I got seriously into Jefferson&#8217;s music, and it was an education in freedom &#8212; it comes out a bit different every time, and that&#8217;s fun and relaxing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Along with all the great African American blues artists who recorded in the 1920s, there were also some interesting Euro-American players who came up with distinctive styles. The most famous was Jimmie Rodgers, but the best guitarists tended to come from around the mountain communities of Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and the Carolinas. I\u2019ve already &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/johnson-city-blues\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Johnson City Blues (Clarence Greene, Ida Cox)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Johnson City Blues (Clarence Greene) - Elijah Wald - Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A classic of what is now commonly called &quot;hillbilly blues&quot; -- Clarence Greene&#039;s keen and quirky blend of Ida Cox and Lemon Jefferson.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/johnson-city-blues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Johnson City Blues (Clarence Greene) - Elijah Wald - Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A classic of what is now commonly called &quot;hillbilly blues&quot; -- Clarence Greene&#039;s keen and quirky blend of Ida Cox and Lemon Jefferson.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/johnson-city-blues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-08-11T06:00:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-08-18T06:26:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/clarence-greene-300x291.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/johnson-city-blues\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/johnson-city-blues\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"Johnson City Blues (Clarence Greene, Ida Cox)\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-08-11T06:00:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-08-18T06:26:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/johnson-city-blues\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":608,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/johnson-city-blues\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2019\\\/07\\\/clarence-greene-300x291.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/johnson-city-blues\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/johnson-city-blues\\\/\",\"name\":\"Johnson City Blues (Clarence Greene) - 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Perry was a good friend and playing with him reshaped my understanding of the guitar. He was particularly noted for his vibrato, which was incredible -- he had exceptionally strong hands and could hold a full chord and get\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Me-and-Perry-at-Georges-80th-birthday-party-292x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":143,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/cuckoo\/","url_meta":{"origin":3898,"position":1},"title":"The Cuckoo (Jack Elliott\/Clarence Ashley\/cuckoldry)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A popular banjo piece by Clarence Ashley via Jack Elliott, preserving old French notions about cuckoos and cuckoldry.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"clarence_ashley","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/clarence_ashley.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1372,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/nobody-knows-way\/","url_meta":{"origin":3898,"position":2},"title":"Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 16, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I got this from Dave Van Ronk, who presumably got it from Clara Smith's, Alberta Hunter's, or Margaret Johnson's recordings -- he sings a somewhat different lyric, but that may just be a quirk of memory or he may have decided to do some rewriting, which he often did when\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Clara Smith","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Clara-Smith-206x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5363,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/after-youve-gone\/","url_meta":{"origin":3898,"position":3},"title":"After You&#8217;ve Gone","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"September 7, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I can't remember when or where I learned \"After You've Gone,\" but I'm pretty sure I played it when I worked the restaurants in Antwerp with Nick Boons (which I've written about in a previous post). We would have just played the chorus, and I picked up the verse more\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Henry-Creamer.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2899,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/fishing-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":3898,"position":4},"title":"Fishing (Blues) (Chris Smith\/Sweetie May)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"A feminist ragtime cheating song from 1911, which is now known almost entirely in a highly abridged and non-feminist revision by the Texas hobo Henry Thomas -- an excellent example of how recordings have muddled our understanding of the past. Thomas turned it into a ditty about fishing that lost\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Fishing-Fishing-Blues-sheet-music-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":283,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/name-of-the-game\/","url_meta":{"origin":3898,"position":5},"title":"Name of the Game Is Stud (Tom Paxton, The Gaslight)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Tom Paxton's ode to the late-night poker games upstairs from the Kettle of Fish and the Gaslight Cafe on MacDougal Street during the heyday of the Greenwich Village folk scene.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"ain-t-that-news","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/ain-t-that-news.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3898"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3951,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3898\/revisions\/3951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}