Blues Mandolin Man: The Life and Music of Yank Rachell

203 Pages·2001·0.86 MB·English

by  Richard Congress, David Evans

Blues
Mandolin
Man

Blues
Mandolin
Man
The Life and Music
of Yank Rachell
Richard Congress
University Press of Mississippi
Jackson
American Made Music Series
Advisory Board
David Evans, General Editor
Barry Jean Ancelet
Edward A. Berlin
Joyce J. Bolden
Rob Bowman
Susan C. Cook
Curtis Ellison
William Ferris
Michael Harris
John Edward Hasse
Kip Lornell
Frank McArthur
W. K. McNeil
Bill Malone
Eddie S. Meadows
Manuel H. Peña
Wayne D. Shirley
Robert Walser
Charles Wolfe
www.upress.state.ms.us
Copyright © 2001 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 4 3 2 1
∞
Photo on page ii by Patrick Schneider, courtesy of the Indianapolis Star.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Congress, Richard.
Blues mandolin man : the life and music of Yank Rachell / Richard Congress.
p. cm. — (American made music series)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ), discography (p. ), and index.
ISBN 1-57806-333-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-57806-334-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Rachell, Yank. 2. Blues musicians—United States—Biography.
3. Afro-American musicians—Biography. 4. Blues (Music)—History and
criticism. I. Title. II. Series.
ML419.R36 C66 2001
781.643'092—dc21
[B]
00-047729
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
To Helen
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Contents
Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction xv
Blues Mandolin Man 3
Appendix 1
Comments on Yank Rachell’s Mandolin Style 89
Rich DelGrosso
Appendix 2
Comments on Yank Rachell’s Guitar Style 93
David Evans
Appendix 3
Interviews 97
Appendix 4
Musicians 125
Appendix 5
Brownsville Lynching 139
Discography 143
Selected Song Lyrics 159
Bibliography 177
Index 179
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Foreword
The decade of the 1990s saw a severe diminution of the ranks of blues singers
and musicians who had been active in the years before World War II. In fact,
only a handful are now left as we enter the twenty-first century. While many
interviews of early blues artists have been published over the years, only a
few of these figures were fortunate to be able to tell their own stories in a
book-length format. This usually required that the person be someone of
significance in blues history, someone of great achievement as a singer, in-
strumentalist, songwriter, or interpreter, usually someone with a major record-
ingcareer who influenced the music’s stylistic development and interacted
with other important musical figures.
There can be little doubt about the importance of James “Yank” Rachell
in the history of the blues. He is one of only two major blues mandolinists
and the only one to carry that instrument to any degree into the blues revival
scene from the 1960s onward. The mandolin is not a soloist’s instrument,
and its player therefore requires one or more musical partners. Rachell’s story
is rich in musical associations, and it reveals for the first time at some length
ix