52 weeks of blues

Perhaps the greatest mystery in all the blues is “who was William Brown?” Perhaps the question should be “who was this Willie Brown?” Multiple men with the same name, playing at the same time in the same area and some less than perfect recording keeping has conspired to make the identity of the musician behind some of the most incredible blues one of the most debated topics in blues history.
There are two main reasons why this mystery is so compelling for blues fans. The first is that there are 3 songs credited to “William Brown” that are of such a rare quality that they could only be the work of a master guitarist. The second is that the name “Willie Brown” has left a significant historical legacy in the blues. In Robert Johnson’s immortal “Crossroad Blues” he makes a plea to his audience – “You can run, you can run, tell my friend boy Willie Brown” to inform his friend of his death when the devil comes to collect on the infamous deal. Charley Patton’s “34 Blues”, recorded 6 years before Johnson, has the line “They run me from Will Dockery’s, Willie Brown, I want your job”. When you have two of the most influential blues players in history calling out to the same guy, blues fans are going to be incredibly interested in who that guy was.
The Willie Brown Johnson and Patton immortalised is fairly well known: a guitarist and occasional singer born and raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi, right at the centre of the Delta Blues. He was firmly established as one of the local musicians pioneering the Delta blues in the late 1920s along with Charley Patton and Son House, and mentored the younger Robert Johnson in the 30s. In 1930 Art Laibly of Paramount Records arranged a recording session for a bunch of Clarksdale based bluesmen – Son House, Charley Patton, Louise Johnson and Willie Brown travelled to Grafton, Wisconsin, where they all made records. Willie recorded 6 solo tracks, released on 3 78s – of which only one has ever been found – the double sided “M&O Blues” and “Future Blues”. He also accompanied Louise Johnson on 3 tracks and Charley Patton on 3 tracks. He also backed Son House on 2 test pressings in that session that were never released and discovered much later.
After those recordings he return to the Delta blues circuit playing with House and Patton, and mentioning the youngsters like Johnson. A decade later, in August 1941, the researcher Alan Lomax visited the Delta with his recording equipment and recorded some tunes at Son House’s house in Robinson Mississippi, with Willie Brown playing guitar. Brown died in Tunica, Mississippi, in 1952.
A year after those 1941 field recordings, Alan Lomax returned to the Delta and that’s where the mystery was born.
On July 17, 1942, Lomax recorded a solo Son House in Mississippi. The previous day, July 16, he had been at Sadie Beck’s Plantation across the river in Arkansas where he recorded a “William Brown” performing two and probably three songs solo, and backing up William “61” Blackwell on a few others. As an aside, and of great interest to blues fans, Lomax’s 1941 and 1942 Mississippi recordings were also the very first time a young man by the name of McKinley Morganfield was ever recorded. Lomax had heard about this kid who could play the blues really well, and tracked him down to a shack on Stovall Plantation where he lived. The Morganfield kid was better known by his nickname “Muddy Waters”.
The tracks recorded on July 16, 1942, by William Brown are absolute masterpieces of blues guitar. “Ragged and Dirty” is pure Delta, featuring a highly developed technique, sense of melody and showing great creativity. It is as raw and primitive as any delta blues, hauntingly emotionally but really quite advanced compared to most delta pieces. “East St Louis Blues” is a great track, similar to a lot of other songs, but very well executed with great ideas. The track “Mississippi Blues” is considered the Stairway to Heaven or Little Wing of acoustic blues guitar: very melodic, full of difficult transitions and hand positions, and one of the most difficult songs to play I’ve ever come across. The songs are all quite different from each other, somewhat rare in the Delta when a lot of lesser known players would play variations of one or two similar sounding pieces.
The three songs were the work of a bonafide bluesmen with a technique and range of styles that must have taken decades to develop. Experts have come to the consensus that they were all played on a steel bodied National resonator. It is very different in both guitar and vocals to the previously mentioned Willie Brown, but it is astounding that someone of the calibre of the musician playing these songs could never have been recorded or talked about by other bluesmen.
To complicate the matter, in the 1941 recording sessions in Mississippi, the original Willie Brown is credited with a version of “Make me a Pallet on you Floor” which features a line very similar to a line in Ragged and Dirty. However Ragged and Dirty features a line that is also in Mississippi Blues. The quality of the guitar work between Ragged and Dirty and Make me a Pallet is pretty significant, though the recording conditions could have a lot to do with that.
Further complicating the matter, when first logging the recordings with the Library of Congress, the original card for Ragged and Dirty had “Sadie Beck Plantation, Ark.” as the recording place with a handwritten note underneath likely written by Lomax stating “Clarksdale probable recording place”. The only date given was 1942; if it were indeed recorded in Clarksdale, it is likely to be Willie Brown as opposed to William, but it would be very odd that Lomax only recorded the one song by Willie on his 1942 visit – he recorded about 10 played by Son House in comparison.
Another spanner in the works: another researcher, Gayle Dean Wardlow, concludes that there was a third Willie Brown in the area at the time – a bigger fellow, with a deep voice and well accomplished on the guitar. The original Willie Brown was a short man, around 5’6″, and while researching this issue, witness recalled Willie Brown to be over 6 foot. Wardlow attributes “Make me a Pallet” to the third Willie Brown. It is different in technique and voice than the original Willie Brown, but 10 years had passed since he was last recorded. General consensus seems to think “Make me a Pallet” was recorded by the same man as “Future Blues” 10 years earlier.
Finally, in Alan Lomax’s book “The Land where the Blues was Brown”, in the first chapter he describes meeting and recording “Willie Brown” and William 61 Blackwell, giving the year as 1941, and stating that this Willie Brown was the one who recorded with House and Patton. He describes Brown singing “Ragged and Dirty”, albeit with slightly different lyrics but creates obvious confusion with the dates – Willie Blackwell’s recordings are from 1942, as is Ragged and Dirty. Lomax wrote the book 50 years after the events so it is possible he could have confused the dates and the Willie Browns. If he did confuse the dates, it’s unlikely that he would not have recognised the Willie Brown he had recorded the previous year with Son House, making William a previously undiscovered talent.
If that is the case, then that William Brown was never mentioned again in any text nor was he ever recorded again after that day July 16, 1942 when Alan Lomax visited Sadie Beck’s plantation. We will never know with any certainty who he was, but for mine I think William Brown of the “Ragged and Dirty” fame is a different Willie Brown who was Robert Johnson’s friend. He was one of the untold hundreds of master blues men who slipped through the cracks and were never discovered by record labels or talent scouts. It is lucky we have even these 3 tunes to give us a glimpse into the mind of a genius of the blues.

Ragged and Dirty is a masterpiece, there’s no other way to describe it. Straight out of the Delta, full of emotion, and bluesy as anything you will ever hear. Like any masterpiece it is both easier than it seems and almost impossible to get to sound like it should. Similar to Robert Petway’s “Catfish Blues”, Brown has a natural rhythm and unique style of play that can be imitated but never copied exactly. It is a re-working of an earlier song, “Broken-Hearted, Ragged And Dirty Too”, recorded in 1929 by Sleepy John Estes.
It’s a 12 bar blues in the key of D, played in standard tuning. Brown used a capo on the 7th fret and played with standard G, C and D chord shapes. For the G chord he used his thumb over the top of the fret board to allow his fingers to be able to play the slides in the melody. He adds extra bars at will, and I’ve tabbed it out as a 25 bar blues but it follows the I – IV – I – IV – I – V – IV – I formula of a quick change 12 bar. Unlike most delta tunes (perhaps hinting at an origin further north_), Brown uses an alternating bassline throughout, and he varies up the bass notes considerably. The G and D uses fairly standard bass notes, but the C uses the open low E in the bass, heavily muted to sound like a thump rather than a note, which is really unusual and takes a fair bit of practice to get sounding decent.
The melody is the real magic of the song. Through bending, sliding, pull offs and hammerons, Brown creates one of the most melodic blues ever heard. He plays behind the beat a lot of the time, and the slides and pull offs really help to blur the lines and separate rhythm from bass. He plays with an almost relaxed style, hitting the notes a split second later than what you think. This is part of his natural style, and will really throw your timing out if you focus on it at the beginning. My advice is to get the timing of the whole piece down as I’ve written it in the tab, then try to work on those slightly behind the beat sounds.
The main riff in the G sections are played, as noted, with the thumb over the top and with your index finger barring the high E and B strings. It starts with a slide with the ring finger from the first to the third (though sometimes it’s from the 2nd) on the B string, then make the mini barre with your index to get that F note on the high E. He plays deliberately dirty, hitting two strings often and lightly touching a second string nearly all the time. Again that’s his natural style coming out, once you get the song down the flow of it will take over and you’ll be getting similar sounds.
The C section has a great sound, he drops into the C blues scale over the chord, another way the song is unusual compared to a lot of delta tunes. That little 1st to 2nd slide on the B string seems really odd – you think it should be 1st to 3rd, Brown’s slightly delayed slide really makes it sound wonderful. Again it’s that natural style coming out. Once you’ve got the timing and chords down, really concentrate on putting life and momentum into those melody notes.

D                                          G                                          D
Lawd, I'm broke and I'm hungry, ragged and dirty too,
G                                     D
Broke and hungry, ragged and I'm dirty too.
A                                      G                                       D
If I clean up, sweet mama, can I stay all night with you?

Lord, I went to my window, baby, I couldn't see through my blind,
Went to my window, couldn't see through my blind.
Heard my bedsprings uncovered, I throwed down, heard my baby cryin'.

Now if I can't come in, baby, just let me set down in your door.
I can't come in, baby, let me set down in your door.
Lord, I will leave so soon that your man won't never know.

Lord, how can I live here, baby, Lord! and feel at ease?
How can I live here, baby, Lord! and feel at ease?
'Cause that woman that I got me, she do just what she please.

I can't help myself, you know that?

Lord, you shouldn't mistreat me, baby, because I'm young and wild,
Shouldn't mistreat me, 'cause I'm young and wild.
You must always remember, baby, you was once a child.

Lord, I'm leavin' in the mornin', baby, if I have to ride this line.
Leave in the mornin', have to ride this line.
Mmm, mistreat me, baby, and I swear I don't mind dying.

Nice little riff to start us off, then the first repetition of the main progression. In the intro and the solo, the bass line is quieter and the melody notes played strongly, not as muted as in the verse progressions. Timing is critical throughout to get the emotional impact Willie gets with those melody notes. He plays almost behind the beat, and his slides are very well timed – you really want to concentrate on playing just ahead or just behind where you think you should to get the effect that makes this song a masterpiece.

Willie improvises around the same themes in every repetition, changing bass notes but never changing the melody – he might not play some melody notes, but he never strays from the form introduced in the intro. He plays the G note n the low E 3rd fret with his thumb over the top and he mutes all throughout, even the treble strings, but he varies the level of muting from repetition to repetition and even note to note. He also gets a real ‘pinched’ sound on the melody by getting his fingers under the strings and plucking them like a banjo. The bass is really interesting – he uses an open low E in the C sections and mutes it severely so itäs ore liked pitched percussion than a note. It’s very difficult to execute, so just practise it a lot. The 1st to 2nd fret slide in the C is really odd, it seems like he should go to the 3, but I suspect he bends it up a microtone. Playing the open E bass notes allows you to execute this slide as Willie does.

The solo is similar to the intro – a standard progression with quieter bass notes and a focus of really emphasising the melody notes.

Replaces the last 5 bars of the normal progression; comes in straight after the last line of the song. Nice single note riffing similar to the intro.