All of us were influenced by certain, specific genres of music in our homes as we grew up.
When we see our musical heroes performing, it makes us want to pay our respects and gratitude as they were the ones who shaped our eccentric tastes in music. If you grew up loving country blues music from the 20th century, then you probably lived your life listening to musicians like Bob Dylan and John Hurt. Even though we all have different musical heroes, the songs they leave us still linger in our hearts.
Here’s Sam Chatmon, one of the pioneers of traditional country-blues music.
If you know about Mississippi Sheiks, an American country blues group who were inducted in the Mississippi Hall of Fame, then you may already recognize Chatmon.
Most of the Mississippi band was formed by the Chatmon family, and he was the band’s guitarist and singer back in the 1930s.
As it turns out, Chatmon himself was born all the way back in 1897. Now, we get to see one of his performances which made people remember them once again—and this performance is sure to give you at least a little nostalgia. Videos of Chatmon being interviewed and performing various songs during the 1970s were posted on YouTube. One of those is his performance of blues and folk classic, “Make Me a Pallet On Your Floor,” a song considered to be the blues genre standard.
Alan Lomax and his company handled the shoot and interview, which was held at Sam’s home in Hollandale, Mississippi.
In the earlier parts of the clip, the group asks Sam when he developed his interest in blues music and when he started playing guitar. As anyone might expect, Chatmon is about as experienced a player as they come.
He tells them that he often heard his brother playing blues, and the interviewer was struck in disbelief after Chatmon shares that he learned his first songs on the guitar at the age of four!
They immediately asked him how he did it, to which Sam casually responds: “I held it…” before proceeding to explain each detail.
As Chatmon finishes telling his story, he subtly gives them a heads up as he is about to start playing the song.
He kicks off by plucking the slightly loose strings on his guitar for the song’s intro. Right away his raspy voice goes well with the syncopated rhythms coming from his guitar. Listening to him perform the whole song is sure to make you smile uncontrollably. He is just like everyone’s grandpa who sings wholesome, and nostalgic songs to his grandkids.
Every so often, you can find a musical treasure like this one just by searching online.
Even so, any fans of Chatmon’s musical performance here can visit his YouTube channel for even more videos.
The video was uploaded on YouTube eight years ago and has gotten 2.4 million views and still counting even now.
If you are still unaware, the YouTube channel Alan Lomax Archives has uploaded most of the historic clips of Sam Chatmon, along with other notable musicians from 1978 to 1985 as part of a project for a PBS series called “American Patchwork.”
If you want to reminisce of traditional and historical scenes during that period, then it is worth checking this out!
Be sure to click through the link below to watch the entire thing:
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