Chicago Blues





What is now referred to as the "classic Chicago style" was developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, taking Delta blues, amplifying it and putting it into a small-band context. Adding drums, bass, and piano (sometimes saxophones) to the basic string band and harmonica aggregation, the genre created the now standard blues band lineup. The form was (and is) flexible to accommodate singers, guitarists, pianists and harmonica players as the featured performer in front of the standard instrumentation. Later permutations of the style took place in the late 1950s and early 60s with new blood taking their cue from the lead guitar work of B.B.King and T-Bone Walker, creating the popular West Side sub genre which usually featured a horn section appended to the basic rhythm section. Although the form embraced rock beats and modern funk rhythms in the '80s and '90s, it has since generally stayed within the guidelines developed in the 1950s and early 60s.

Have you ever wondered what a MOJO was? Well, for those of you who don't know and for those that have always wondered what is was, here is your answer:


MOJO


Everybody in America seems to have heard the word "mojo," but darned few white folks know what it means. Cecil Adams, author of "The Straight Dope" series that purports to give truthful answers to often-asked trivial questions, mumbled his way through theories that "mojo" means the sex act or a male sexual organ, even giving space to the drug-addled white singer Jim Morrison's self-applied sobriquet of "Mr. Mojo Risin'" as an indication that a mojo may be a penis. By the end of the 20th century, the second Austin Powers movie, steeped in white retro-culture, reinforced the idea of the mojo as a sex organ, but other white people took the idea in different directions, giving rise to a brand of mountain bike called a Mojo, a brand of cookies called Mojos, and numerous pets (especially cats) named "Mojo" by their loving owners. For the record, "Mr. Mojo Risin'" is nothing more than an anagram for "Jim Morrison." During the 1960s, Morrison apparently heard the word "mojo" in song lyrics by the Chicago-style blues musician Willie Dixon (below left), or in a recording by the Mississippi-born blues singer Muddy Waters [McKinley Morganfield] (below right). Dixon wrote a number of songs mentioning mojos and other curios, such as John the Conqueror root , and one of Waters' most popular songs (written by Preston Foster) contained the line, "I got my mojo workin' but it just don't work on you." How the failure of Morganfield's mojo was cast into the phantasy of a male sex organ is a tale only white musicians and newspaper columnists can unravel; after all, the famous blues singer Robert Johnson had written about a woman's mojo in "Little Queen of Spades," way back in the 1930s. The truth is, the word has nothing to do with the sex organs of either gender and never has. So what is a mojo? It is, in short, the staple amulet of African-American practice, a flannel bag containing one or more magical items. The word is thought to be a corruption of the English word "magic." Other names for it include conjure bag, hand, lucky hand, mojo bag, mojo hand, root bag, toby, jomo, and gris-gris bag. In the Memphis region, a special kind of mojo, worn only by women, is called a nation sack . The word "conjure" -- as in "conjure work" (casting spells) and "conjure woman" (a female herbalist-magician) -- is an old alternative to "," thus a conjure hand is a bag, one made by a conjure doctor or two-headed doctor. The word "hand" in this context means a combination of ingredients. The term may derive from the use of a rare orchid root called Lucky Hand root as an ingredient in mojo bags for gamblers, from the use of finger and hand bones of the dead in mojo bags made for various purposes, or by an analogy between the mixed ingredients in the bag and the several cards that make up a "hand" in card games. Although most "Southern Style" conjure bags are made of red flannel, some root doctors favour the colour-symbolism employed in style candle-burning magic and thus use green flannel for a money mojo, white flannel for a baby-blessing mojo, red flannel for a love mojo, pale blue flannel for a peaceful home mojo, and so forth. Leather bags are also seen, but far less frequently than flannel; they are associated with West Indian obeah, another form of folk magic closely related to African-American . Mojos made for an individual are usually carried on the person, always out of sight, sometimes on a string around the neck, but much more commonly below the waist or in the pocket. Mojos intended to purify or protect a location are generally placed near the door, hidden in such a way that they cannot be seen by strangers. Keeping the mojo from being seen is important because if another person touches it, the luck may be lost. This is sometimes called "killing the hand." The proscription against touching is far stronger in the case of the woman's nation sack than it is in any other kind of mojo. The concealment of the mojo is what has led to confusion about the meaning of the word. Many acoustic rural blues songs of the 1920s-30s refer to mojos, among them a dozen that carry a floating verse about "keeping a mojo hid." Here is a sample of such a lyric, from "Scarey Day Blues" by the Georgia-born musician Blind Willie McTell. The reference in the third line to "Georgia Bill" is explained by the fact that Willie Samuel McTell recorded for several competing labels under an assortment of pseudomyms including Georgia Bill, Hot Shot Willie, Blind Sammie, and Barrelhouse Sammy. "Scarey Day Blues" was a "Georgia Bill" recording, cut in Atlanta in October, 1931 for the Okeh label.
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