Browse by Artist: JAY, ABNER

Artist:	JAY, ABNER
Title:	One Man Band
Label:	SUBLIMINAL SOUNDS (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	SUBL 007CD

"The ultimate one-man-band wild man from the 1960s of whom some have said 'the southern Hasil 'Haze' Adkins'. Anyways Abner Jay was the most unusual music talent the world has ever seen and a true southerner. His original LPs are now sought after and very rare making this CD reissue very welcome. Abner played the long-necked, plucked string instrument we nowadays call the banjo. Its possible antecedents have existed in many forms and under many names. The commercially-manufactured, standardized form has emerged from vernacular instruments, including what 18th-century European travellers to the West Indian colonies reported as 'strum-strums': long, flat-necked, skin-covered gourd bodies strung with catgut, resorted to by plantation slaves for intimate diversion as well as larger occasions of social excitement arousal. Coming from whatever precursors, the banjo occupied an important place in late-19th century black and white minstrelsy and vaudeville. There is a long line of social and musical experience which constitutes Jay's tradition: blacks' domestic entertainment inspiring white imitations; in turn stimulating composed, sheet-music idioms for middle-class and professional performance, which then animated younger generations of black musicians. For forty two years Jay worked as a unique one man band where he played banjo, guitar, drums, harmonica, and sang at the same time. Abner Jay was the first of the original black musicians and played the only electric six string banjo you'll ever hear. Jay was a native of Fitzgerald, Georgia and was once a travelling performer with the Silas Green Show, one of the last multifaceted road shows on record. Tastes and tolerances of what constitutes acceptable public entertainment are always changing and Jay was part of making idioms which may not in fact have received too much exposure in the daily pressure to captivate audiences by extrovert mannerisms. Singing song on subjects ranging from LSD to 'what's six inches long and has two nuts on the end' -- you got to hear it to believe it. A true glimpse at some real Americana compiling the best tracks from Abner's original LPs."

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