Georgia Stringbands Vol. I (Document)
The complete recordings of the (mighty) Cofer Brothers...now, THAT’s a
name to conjure with...or, rather, it should be. Their “rugged
aesthetic” - as Tony Russell so aptly puts it, makes for a distinctly
uneasy fit w/the bluegrass fans who make up most of the (tiny) current
audience for 20s stringband music - with the consequence that their
music is hardly known by the very people who would probably best
appreciate it today. Cause, at their best, the Cofers - w/the addition
of the powerhouse guitar of Ben Evans in the (aptly named) Georgia
Crackers - pounded out a driving/droning backwoods rock’n’roll that
sounded archaic even in the 20s...
The dissolute sons of a Baptist minister, the Cofers grew up in
primarily black Hancock County, and their music strongly reflects
this, despite their distance from what is usually called the white
blues of the era - too often marked by slavish copying of black guitar
styles. Instead, the Georgia Crackers specialized in hobo/bum songs -
many with black sources - which they delivered w/a singleminded drive
& simplicity that is almost unparalleled. The only outfit I can justly
compare them to that you might’ve heard would be Hoyt Ming & his Pep
Steppers, whose marvellous “Indian War Whoop” graced the Harry Smith
“Anthology of American Folk Music”...not to mention the repertoire of
the Holy Modal Rounders at their most deranged.
The Georgia Crackers first session - to my mind - is one of the very
finest in 20s music. From “Riley the Furniture Man to “Diamond Joe”
they came pounded through every song w/a raucous energy that went
missing in white rural music til the advent of rockabilly. And, when I
called ‘em a rock’n’roll band, I wasn’t joking. Unlike virtually every
other white guitarist of the period, Ben Evans eschewed picking the
guitar in favour of beating the shit out of it...as did Leon, the
banjo-playing Cofer. Meanwhile, like Hoyt Ming, Paul Cofer droned and
moaned much more than he went for virtuoso effects...and their ragged
but right singing was as serely raucous & uninhibited as it was white
- they may have drunk deep at the well of local black musics, but they
never descended to the kind of unwittingly parodic mimicry which so
disgraces most white “blues”.
To be sure...peers do exist. The great medical menagerist himself,
Harmonica Frank Floyd, is clearly from the same tradition - bum songs
& all - and Frank Hutchison & Doc Boggs offer a similarly original
take on blues...and, if’n you note a commonality re booze consumption
here, then you’re not mistaken! But, when it comes to white
rock’n’roll string band action - black string bands’re a whole other
story - seeped in the black tradition, they would remain alone until
Sam Phillips extracted rockabilly from Elvis, Scotty & Bill.
Rest of the cd is interesting, but hardly essential - but that simply
highlights the audacity of the Georgia Crackers. This one you need...
John Henry Calvinist
