[Dixielandjazz] Soul, Blind Lemon, Oskar Klein

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I recall from before there were available transcriptions of Blues Lyrics, that "Soul" was one word I could make out on the Blind Lemon Jefferson recording I heard.  The recording belonged to the older brother of a school contemporary. 

Somewhere between then and now I encountered a reference to one Jesse LaMoore, credited by a scholar as author of the lyrics of various Blind Lemon recordings, with the further statement made by the same scholar that Blind Lemon wasn't exactly a wordsmith. Jesse as I recall is credited with a blues recorded by the master guitarist and singer Blind Blake.  

Perhaps Jesse wrote Clothes and Lemon misremembered soul, or soul was misread to him... 

What about visual imagery in their blues. 


I always found the Matchbox hold my soul line poetic 

even approaching   (approximately) the  "confine myself in a nutshell ...  if I had not bad dreams" with which Shakspeare equipped Hamlet and which was on my official agenda as Lemon entered the private one .  


Of course there was some connection between Lemon and Lightnin' Hopkins, who was wordsmith enough to be in danger of a beating when one of his recorded songs was too topical and specific for the nasty man cited; and when I was fortunate enough to see Oskar Klein on his 75th Birthday celebration tour (Oskar was at the time past his 76th birthday) he went on at some length about the guitar tuition he had had from Hopkins in 1964. And played a bit of guitar. 



Great blues harmonica player Oskar, as well as having as big a sound as almost any trumpeter I could name. He and Humphrey Lyttelton are no doubt duetting on clarinets within the eternal jam session aloft!


Robert R. Calder