It's no secret that I've really been into listening to blues, soul and old country music lately. Well, as I access the internet in short periods, and not even everyday at this point I've developed a habit of jotting down names of all sorts of musicians to look up whenever I've got a couple of hours to tool around online. One such musician is Moon Mullican, a figure that straddles various styles of music that'd consolidate into genres soon during his career. He was simultaneously a country musician and an early pioneer into rock and roll. Openly admitting his debt to black musicians, he used his piano to play blues and boogie numbers as skillfully as swinging western tunes. Perhaps it should make sense that is recordings are terribly hard to tell between rock, blues, or honky tonk if it wasn't for the habit of titling tracks with the style ("Rheumatism Blues," "Cherokee Boogie" or "Honolulu Rock & Roll" for example). I found a site that has a bunch of his tracks for free download, but they're not arranged in any official format. Something like a lesson in how a skilled pianist can play nearly anything they fancy and have it be mesmerizing. Sure they're low-quality copies, but it didn't bother me at all.To be had here:
Moon Mullican
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ReplyDeleteThank you for showing me the digital archive! I can't believe I've been without it for these 14 odd years since I started d/ling music. This is awesome, thank you!
ReplyDeleteMoon Mullican was an excellent and versatile singer and musician. Artistslike Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Ray Charles would make the multifaceted singer - who could switch from blues to rock 'n' roll to country to pop ballads and from uptempo to slow - world famous but Moon was one of the first to lay this template. Jerry Lee and Elvis came out of the bluesy country tradition Moon helped to initiate and that side of him is to the fore on tracks like "Grandpa stole my baby", "Rocket to the moon" and "Triflin' woman blues" (a similar melody as "Deep Elem blues", "My baby left me" and "That's alright Mama"). Also, ballads like "I'll sail my ship alone" and "Leaves mustn't fall" showed a great affinity with slow, bluesy country singing as well (Jerry Lee would follow suit). Moon also sang Italian type pop songs like "Mona Lisa", which is something Elvis also did. Even his 1930s recordings were way ahead of their time as shown by some of the songs here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nimbitmusic.com/moonmullican