Glad to hear that all is well. All's well me too. We just started in on the navel orange harvest a couple weeks ago. With that big freeze a few weeks back we somehow got lucky compared to lots of other people who lost all or most of their crop. We seem to have come through with all of our oranges, although all the lemons on our one lemon tree were ruined. And our sapling avacado got hit pretty hard, but it might pull through. We probably could have raised the price on our oranges, but I guess we aren't greedy enough. My wife says that they are selling in the local store for over $1.50 a pound, and we are selling a small bag for $2.00 like we have in the past. There is a chain called Jamba Juice that sells smoothies, and all the drinks that have orange juice in them have added what they call a Brrr-tax because they have to use frozen juice instead of squeezing fresh fruit like they usually would have done, on account of the big freeze reduced the supply.
Do you ever come out to Caleefornee any more?
As for blues, I remember all those you listed, and you may be right that there were others. Weren't you the one that made the list way back when?
I don't mean to imply that blues is not possible on a single row, because it certainly is. But since I play single and triple row, it just makes more sense for me to mosey on over to the triple row because all the notes I want are there and it just works out easier in general. But of course that is NOT the case if the tune was well fitted to the single row in the first place, such as some of the ones you mentioned.
But I do not believe these are the types of blues Chuck was talking about. These are primarily blues because of the shuffle rhythm.
I was able to transcribe a Rockin' Sydney blues tune to the single row, in a limited way, but was surprised I got as much as I did. Original was on piano accordion. Called "Blues in June", off the Zydeco Stomp cd.
There's another tune out there called "C-Key Blues", might have been on the Kingdom of Zydeco cd, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure that it was on a single row, but it sounded like it.
I think these are closer to "blues", and I'm assuming that's what Chuck was thinking too, but I can't speak for Chuck.
Seems I've heard some blues tunes on a Zydeco Force cd just recently, and sounded like it was on the single row.
Seems to me, every instrument has a limitation, but it becomes obvious when you substitute one instrument for another. You can't really get a piano to do the kinds of things you can do on guitar, and I think that's the essence of the problem with trying to get a harmonica to do accordion licks - or the other way around. Blues on the accordion IS limited if you focus on trying to get it do sound like something else. For me, G on a C box works for what I call up beat blues (Midnight Special, Sweet Home Chigaco genre), and D on a C box works on the down home, gritty stuff (Dust My Broom, Come Into My Kitchen genre). No instrument is good for everything all the time, but I think sometimes we limit ourselves to preconcieved notions too much. Just an opinion.
Steve
The April 2011 Dewey Balfa Cajun & Creole Heritage Week
