Bukka White – Aberdeen Mississippi Blues

 

Amazing tune, really, from an amazing guitarist. Sounds simple, but yet it isn’t.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsMpHHSLSlc

I’ve studied this song for a long time, and cannot get this phenomenal right hand rhythm string-slapping pattern down. Probably why Bukka White is a guitar god, and I am not.

Bonus: Poor Boy Long Way From Home, lap style.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0jRX69mxcE

And since I looked it up, since it is Booker T. Washington White’s hometown:

Aberdeen is a city in Monroe County in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The population was 6,415 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Monroe County.Located on the banks of the Tombigbee River, Aberdeen was one of the busiest Mississippi ports of the nineteenth century. Cotton was heavily traded in town, and for a time Aberdeen was Mississippi’s second largest city. Today Aberdeen retains many historic structures from this period, with over 200 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. In the spring of each year, Aberdeen hosts pilgrimages to its historic antebellum homes. The most prominent of these antebellum homes is The Magnolias, which was built in 1850.

(click to continue reading Aberdeen, Mississippi – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)

One version of the lyrics goes something like this (but not the song above, some is the same, not all):

I was over in Aberdeen

On my way to New Orlean

I was over in Aberdeen

On my way to New Orlean

Them Aberdeen women told me

Will buy my gasoline

Hey, two little women

That I ain’t ever seen

They has two little women

That I ain’t never seen

These two little women

Just from New Orlean

Ooh, sittin’ down in Aberdeen

With New Orlean on my mind

I’m sittin’ down in Aberdeen

With New Orlean on my mind

Well, I believe them Aberdeen women

Gonna make me lose my mind, yeah

(Slide guitar & washboard)

Aber-deen is my home

But the mens don’t want me around

Aberdeen is my home But the men don’t want me around

They know I will take these women

An take them outta town

Listen, you Aberdeen women

You know I ain’t got no dime

Oh-oh listen you women

You know’d I ain’t got no dime

They been had the po’ boy

All up and down.

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