JOHN LEE GRANDERSON

              Un músico básicamente de calle, siendo en el rastro de  MAXWELL STREET, donde solía tocar con frecuencia  junto a los que luego serían reconocidos como grandes , Big Joe Williams, Robert Nighthawk, Johnny Young o el mísmisimo Charlie Musselwhite , grabó un disco como solista HARD LUCK JOHN pero aparece en alguna que otra compilación y concrertamente en esta portada que os ofrecemos aparecida en España, comercializada por TAKOMA con licencia de la discográfica inglesa SONET, Muy rudimentario en las grabaciones que aparecen en RARE BLUES, Good Morning Little School Girl, usa una guitarra National Resonator, mientras que en el otro tema Minglewood Town , usa una guitarra de fabricación casera y un viejo amplificador de lámparas, lamentablemente no hemos encontrado en la red ninguno de estos temas, pero si otros que os ofrecemos . 

En la contraportada del vinilo que véis comentan que RARE BLUES es una colección de grabaciones realizadas en Chicago por Norman Dayron entre 1963 y 1965.Las tomas fueron hechas en pequeños estudios , en las propias casas de los artistas o en algunos clubs del South Side y West Side. entre otros figuran en esta rareza Maxwell Steet Jimmy, Big Joe Williams, Little Brother Montgomery ó Eddy Boyd. Intentaremos ofreceros algún otro tema del Vinilo. 

          

                                   

From the Can't Keep From Crying: Topical Blues on the Death of President Kennedy (1994)...Testament TCD 5007

Recorded in Chicago, Illinois, in the weeks following the November 22, 1963 assassination of the president; John Lee Granderson, vocal and guitar...Originally issued on Testament S-01 (LP) in 1964

http://www.wirz.de/music/grandfrm.htm

http://www.wirz.de/music/testafrm.htm

On a more sobering note, "A Man For The Nation," performed on guitar and sung by Tennessean John Lee Granderson, was the initial track recorded for an album of songs about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It actually inspired the album for it was John Lee who mentioned to me that he had written a song about this while, repairing a car, he listened to the radio in the hours following the shooting. When Big Joe Williams told me he had done the same, I contacted other performers to see if they had done likewise, or could write a song abput this tragic event. The album that resulted, "Can't Keep From Crying," recorded in the weeks following the assassination, is a unique document that memorializes the deep feelings Kennedy's death inspired in many black Americans, and stands as one of the few events in modern times to have produced an outpouring of topical song. ~ Pete Welding

Photography by Ed Clark; John F. Kennedy Library Foundation; Pete Welding: John Lee Granderson, source: back cover of Testament T-2220