I also guested on an outdoor gig with his band, at which my abilities can be judged by the fact that halfway through the first set one of the other musicians leaned over and whispered, “I think you just played one of the right chords.” That was not entirely fair, but fair enough - my only defense was that I did my best to play the wrong chords quietly. Unsurprisingly he was feeling rather down, seemed to like having company, and said nice things about my guitar arrangement of “At a Georgia Camp Meeting.” So I stayed two or three days and got to see a bit of Charleston. At that point he was living in a big old house where he let me sleep in a spare room, and getting around in a wheelchair because he’d broken up with a woman who did not take kindly to the situation and smashed him into a wrought iron fence with her car, breaking his legs in multiple places. He was a painter, prominent in the art department at the University, and also played trumpet in a trad band.

I hitched down from Southport via Myrtle Beach and don’t remember where or who I asked, but I was looking for people who were interested in acoustic blues and someone put me in touch with Michael Tyzack. I learned this from Dave Van Ronk, who got it from Jelly Roll Morton, and it’s at this point in the Songobiography because my trip south in 1985 included a brief stint with a trad jazz band in Charleston, SC.

Gambling bar room blues tabs