10-Police Dog Blues (4:30) (Featured Track)

Police Dog Blues (4:30)
Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
Email:geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Songwriter: Blind Blake
Publisher / PRO: Boot House of Tunes / ASCAP
Produced by: Geoff Hansplant, Paul Deck, John Fachet
Release Date: 12/2/2019
Click here for geoffhansplant.com

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant - guitar and vocals
Paul Deck - drums and percussion
Julie Myers - violin
Nick Terramani - bass
Orion - backing vocals

Police Dog Blues is another great song from Blind Blake, and a personal favorite of mine. It is played in open D tuning (DADF#AD) and just really percolates along. I think I first heard this song on an album from the 1970’s by Jorma Kaukonen, called Quah. Both Jorma and I play the song in a manner very similar to the original, though we each have our own quirks and embellishments. Blind Blake is a great story, the king of the ragtime guitar players. He appeared in the Florida panhandle in the mid 1920’s and tore it up on the guitar. Still, no one knew his real name or where he came from. He recorded thirty some “sides” (78’s) for the Paramount label and, when it folded after the 1929 stock market crash, Blake disappeared and was never seen again. Reverend Gary Davis said that he had heard that Blake was run down by a trolley in New York, but in recent years, musical historians have postulated that he died in Milwaukee, in 1934, from tuberculosis. Those of us who are devotees of the Piedmont style of playing, do what we can to keep his music alive. We added a guest vocalist to the track, so you have to wait for his appearance on the fade-out. He is none other than Orion, my Anatolian Shepherd, and he has quite the basso profundo voice!