Peter Kohman, Trip Henderson, Bob Jones, & Shlomo Pestcoe backstage between sets.
Performing at The Two Boots Brooklyn Tent, The 7th Heaven Street Festival.
Park Slope, Brooklyn, 6/18/06
(Photo by W. Weinstein)
"Like a cool breeze after a muggy rain storm, Sufferin' Succotash will be blowing through your ears. Rich and deep like really expensive scotch, many flavored in the ways of traditional music."
--Dock
Oscar, producer, The Kings County
Opry, Brooklyn's own monthly concert series presenting "The best of Bluegrass, Oldtime and
Good 'Ol Country music!"
Sufferin'
Succotash offers a rich flavorful
gumbo of old-time country breakdowns and heart songs; down-home blues, rags and hokum favorites;
and Louisiana Cajun and Black Creole "Bal d'Maison" dance tunes.
Our repertoire comes mostly
from scratchy 78 rpm records from the 1920s and '30s-- "The Golden Age of American Vernacular
Music"-- as well as field recordings of folk tradition-bearers. Our sources range from such
old-time country performers as Charlie
Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers and
Gid Tanner &
The Skillet Lickers to blues string and jug bands like
The Mississippi Sheiks
and Gus Cannon & His Jug
Stompers from early Louisiana French recording artists
such as Black Creole accordionist
Amedé Ardoin and the Cajun fiddle and
accordion duo of
Leo Soileau & Mayuse Lafleur to rural tradition-bearers like Appalachian fiddler/
banjoist Tommy
Jarrell and African American fiddler
Butch Cage.
True to the spirit and tradition of our sources, we
perform these musical gems of a bygone era with all the fiery vitality of a sweaty Saturday night
house party on the fiddle, harmonica, button accordion,
guitar, banjo, mandolin, and other
traditional acoustic instruments. As a modern-day band in the Big Apple,
Sufferin' Succotash's
unique renditions of these classic music forms feature hot, tasty licks with a rockin' "downtown"
backbeat, like the pulsating rhythm of the subways rumbling beneath the City's streets.
Peter
Ford & his 'Box Bass'
SUFFERIN' SUCCOTASH'S MP3 PLAYLIST
1) CARROLL COUNTY BLUES: Shlomo Pestcoe, fiddle; Trip Henderson, harmonica; Peter Stuart Kohman, National resophonic guitar; Bob Jones, bass.
A classic old-time fiddle tune learned from a 78 rpm recording on the Okeh label, recorded in the late 1920s by the fiddle and guitar duo of W.T. Narmour & S.W. Smith of Carroll County, Mississippi.
2) BLUE RAILROAD TRAIN: Bob Jones, vocals, Gibson J-45 "banner headstock" guitar; Trip Henderson, harmonica; Shlomo Pestcoe, bottleneck slide guitar; Peter Stuart Kohman, bass.
An early country classic learned from the playing of The Delmore Brothers.
3) THE RIVER BLUES: Peter Stuart Kohman, vocals, Gibson L-5 guitar; Trip Henderson, harmonica; Shlomo Pestcoe, Gibson "A" snakehead mandolin; Bob Jones, bass.
Peter learned this obscure 1920s pop song from an even obscurer period 78 rpm record.
4) JELLY ROLL BLUES: Shlomo Pestcoe, vocals, National resophonic guitar; Trip Henderson, harmonica; Peter Stuart Kohman, Gibson "A" snakehead mandolin; Bob Jones, bass.
Our version of a "hokum" favorite from 1920s and '30s done in the style of the various African American string bands of the period.
5) CHERE MOM (HEY MOM, WHERE YOU AT): Shlomo Pestcoe, button accordion; Trip Henderson, harmonica; Peter Stuart Kohman, National resophonic guitar; Bob Jones, bass.
There's a sad story behind this peppy tune. The Cajun fiddle and accordion duo of Leo Soileau & Mayuse Lafleur originally recorded it on October 18th, 1928. Nine days later, Mayeuse was dead, an innocent bystander gunned down in a shootout in a speakeasy. The kicker is that Mayeuse, who was abandoned by his mother when he was but a baby, was planning to use the few bucks he made from the recording to look for his mom.
Sufferin' Succotash's instrumental version of this song was inspired by the playing of the Black Creole fiddle and accordion duo, The Carriere Brothers.
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