Blues Origins: Spanish

Fandango and Sebastopol

June 4, 2010

How did fanciful European parlor music influence the creation of the
blues? In a more profound way than most fans realize. What follows is one
of the most fascinating and least understood chapters in blues history.
Special thanks is owed to the Kansas Historical Society and its online
archive, kansasmemory.org, for making available some of the material
that informs this article.

In times before radio, records, and electric lights, people often played
music to amuse themselves after dinner and at social gatherings. “Parlor
guitar,” a favorite European musical fare during the late 1700s, caught on
in America. Played with bare fingers on small-bodied instruments, parlor
guitar became immensely popular, as evidenced by the stacks of musical
scores published during the 1800s. Many of these compositions called for
the guitar strings to be tuned to an open chord. The most common of these
tunings, open C (with the strings tuned C, G, C, G, C, and E, low to high)
and open D (D, A, D, F#, A, D), clearly had European origins. The origins
of open G, a favorite banjo tuning, are more difficult to trace. Two parlor
compositions in particular would play a crucial role in the development of
the blues.

Our journey begins with Henry Worrall. Born in Liverpool, England, in

1825, Worrall moved to the United States in 1835 and eventually settled in
Cincinnati, Ohio. For a while he worked as a glasscutter’s apprentice, but
his passion was guitar music. A skilled performer and composer, he
became a music professor at the Ohio Female College. One of his prize
guitar students, Mary Elizabeth Harvey, became his playing partner and
wife. In 1856, he completed Worrall’s Guitar School, or The Eclectic Guitar
Instructor, which remained in print through the 1880s.

.
On June 29, 1860
, Worrall walked into the Clerk’s Office of the Southern
District Court of Ohio and filed copyrights for two
instrumental guitar songs. “Worrall’s Original Spanish
Fandango” called for the guitar strings to be tuned to
an open-G chord (D, G, D, G, B, D, from low to high),
with the explanation that the music was to be read as if
the guitar were in standard tuning. Some of the song’s
flourishes sounded like watered-down versions of
earlier nineteenth-century European music. Its little alle vivace finale, for
instance, could have worked as a Rossini opera coda. But with its lilting
melody and easy chord changes, this song is clearly the direct ancestor of
one of the most common blues strains.

Two words stand out in Worrall’s title. “Fandango,” thought to be of

African origin, first appeared in the English language in the 1760s, used to
describe a “native ball,” or dance. Then the term was applied to a lively 3/4
time dance that originated among Spanish-speaking people. An April 1796
playbill for New York’s John Street Theatre, for instance, advertised a
“Spanish Fandango” between the play and the afterpiece, listing four
dancers and five singers who did not appear in the play. Eventually the
word was used to describe the music itself. Of far more interest to blues
sleuths, though, is the word that precedes “Fandango” in Worrall’s title,
“Spanish.” In the decades to come, this word would echo in the
vocabularies of seminal bluesmen such as Charlie Patton, Son House,
Robert Johnson, and Muddy Waters. More on this in a moment.

Worrall’s other copyright entry that day, “Sebastopol,” was composed

several yea
rs earlier, when the Crimean War was raging. To commemorate the lengthy
siege of the Russian city of Sebastopol (later spelled Sevastopol), Worrall
composed a stately march that imitated a bugle and military marching
band. He subtitled his piece a “Descriptive Fantaisie for the Guitar.” This
time, the music instructed players to retune their guitar to open D so the
song’s elegant treble-string melodies and chiming harmonics fell easily
under the fingers. In its 1860 form, “Sebastopol” has
little harmonic variation and sounds decidedly un-
African, but its main melody and voice-leading
approach to chords became staples for blues and folk
performers as varied as Libba Cotten, Robert Wilkins,
Mississippi John Hurt, and Furry Lewis.

But how did the songs Worrall copyrighted in 1860

enter the blues and folk wellsprings? The answer probably lies in dusty old
guitar cases.

Credit for this research goes to John Renbourn, esteemed British

fingerstyle guitarist and avid student of American parlor guitar. In 1992,
John sent me the copies of “Spanish Fandango” and “Sebastopol” shown in
this blog, along with these revelations: “I have many other parlour pieces
in open tunings from around the same time. I am in the process of
comparing these with early recorded ‘folk’ versions to see how much of the
originals have been retained. It looks as if a great deal has been retained, so
much so that these old pieces seem to me to have laid the foundation for
the emerging blues and fingerpicking guitar styles. ‘Sebastopol’ and
‘Spanish Fandango’ were both outstandingly popular solo pieces and their
availability in print continued beyond the turn of the century. It seems
clear that these pieces lent their names to the folk terms ‘Spanish,’ for
open-G tuning, and ‘Vastopol’ for open D or open E. But the connections
are not limited to the tunings, they go on in terms of harmonic content and
even specific right-hand patterns.

“What probably happened was this: When guitars began to be mass

produced and widely distributed by mail order in the 1890s, they came
complete with little tutor books. The most common ones were by a man
called Septimus Winner, who almost invariably included versions of
‘Sebastopol’ and ‘Spanish Fandango.’ These fairly simple pieces then would
have been the starting point for thousands of rural players around the turn
of the century.

“Most authorities seem to agree on the various strands of Afro-American

music that contributed to the makeup of what we recognize as the blues –
the field calls and work songs, etc. – predominantly linear music
characterized by what has become known as the ‘blues scale.’ What has
never been satisfactorily explained is the origin of the basic harmonic
format that distinguishes the blues from these other types.

“If you can imagine a field hand sitting down after work and trying to fit an
arhoolie [field song] across the basic chords of ‘Spanish Fandango,’ then
you would be close to the moment of transformation, in my opinion. In
early recorded blues – i.e., Charley Patton and his school – the harmonic
language (right down to specific chord shapes but with bluesy modification
usually of one finger only) is straight from parlour music. The same is true
for early blues in open D compared to ‘Sebastopol.’ It’s fascinating stuff
and fairly controversial, but it fills in the missing gap between the steel-
string guitar coming in to circulation and the highly developed styles that
appeared on recordings in the 1920s.” The first American guitars designed
for steel strings date to around the turn of the century. In its 1902 catalog,
the Gibson company stated that their guitars could be strung with steel or
gut strings.

A prime example of an early recording of “Spanish Fandango” is John

Dilleshaw & The String Marvel’s 1929 version:
Dilleshaw, a 6’7” giant of a man, had learned the song while growing up in
north Georgia’s rural hill country. On the recording, one guitarist
fingerpicks leads in open G while the other flatpicks basic accompaniment.
The musicians have changed Worrall’s sedate 6/8 to a more swinging 2/4
and added alternating bass and bluesy bends, but the final chorus’ droning
bass recalls the feel of older parlor guitar pieces. Another early version was
released by Bo Carter, the main guitarist with the Mississippi Sheiks and
an influence on many Delta guitarists. Carter based his song “Country
Fool” on “Spanish Fandango” chord progression, but altered the open-G
tuning by keeping his highest string tuned to E. This allowed him to pick
distinctive treble patterns while retaining a deep, powerful bass.

By the 1930s, “Spanish Fandango” was part of the country music

repertoire, as heard in this 1938 version by Western swing bandleaders Bill
Boyd and His Cowboy Ramblers, with the melody played on steel guitar:
For Stefan Grossman, who’s devoted his career to playing and promoting
prewar country blues, the existence of Worrall’s parlor music challenges
long-held notions of blues development: “That boom-chick, boom-chick
bass of parlor music appeared in tons of sheet music from the 1850s
straight up until the turn of the century. It was being taught by white
middle-class guitar teachers to white middle-class women. How did that
switch over into the black field? Nobody’s sure. But it does take away from
that mystique that we want to put into black music, that it’s completely
from black origins. Black church music was obviously greatly influenced by
the white music, but it was sped up. Child ballads from England showed up
in the repertoires of Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lead Belly. There was
probably more interweaving of the cultures’ music than we realize.
Nevertheless, the blacks played it much better. When you think about the
fingerpickers in the 1920s, you’ve got Frank Hutchinson and Sam McGee
in the white camp, and that’s it. Among the blacks, you’ve an endless
barrage of great fingerpickers.”

Many early blues and country musicians employed these tunings and
almost invariably used the words “Spanish” and “Vastopol” to describe
them. To this day, open D and open G remain the most popular open
tunings. “These two tuning are the starting gate for most guitarists,” Ry
Cooder explains. “They cover most of the territory. You can do most
anything you want. One has the timbre and color, of course, and the other
has entirely different vibrant points, tighter strings. The D is the blues. The
G is melodic, and it’s all triads. The D suggests the modal world of, say,
Blind Willie
Johnson – it’s his tuning. The melody is on the top
strings, so it’s very handy. And the G is almost hillbilly
tuning. It’s banjo tuning. If you look at it that way, then
obviously it’s a different world. I started in G tuning
before I knew D. Probably the best song to start with is
Lead Belly’s ‘C.C. Rider’ – the thing he played flat [lap
style]. He chose a beautiful chord at the ninth fret to
start the song on. It’s perfect. He didn’t move around.
He played the chord and used the notes he had in that position. It’s all
right there. But, man, to start the song on that chord! It jumped off the
record player at me. It’s like looking over the edge of some cliff. And then
where do we go now? The tonic. Whoo! I used to get chicken skin listening
to that. I used to think, ‘Go where it’s dangerous and say yes!’ as the yogis
like to say. And once I figured out how to put the banjo G on the guitar, all
of a sudden there were all of John Lee Hooker’s chords, although he
doesn’t play slide. There was the whole thing. Wow.”

Long before John Lee Hooker emerged on record in the late 1940s, other
Mississippi-bred bluesmen favored open G, notably Charley Patton, Son
House, and Willie Brown, as well as their immediate followers Robert
Johnson and Muddy Waters. Johnson, for example, used S
panish on his 1936 recordings of “Walkin’ Blues” and “Cross Road Blues.”
Five years later, Muddy Waters played slide in open G on his very first
record, “Country Blues,” recorded in a country shack by Alan Lomax for
the Library of Congress. Interviewed on record immediately after he’d
completed the take, Waters calmly described how the song had “come from
the cotton field and the boy what put the record out – Robert Johnson. He
put out ‘Walkin’ Blues.’ But I knowed the tune ’fore I
heard it on the record. I learned it from Son House.”
Muddy added that he picked up his bottleneck style from
Son House, and described the three tunings he played in
as the “natural,” “straight E” (a variation of Vastopol) and
“Spanish.” (In the photo at right, Muddy is seen in
Clarksdale circa 1942, clutching a comp pressing of his
first 78.)

In the 1950s, another Delta-bred, Chicago-based blues guitarist, Elmore

James, used an open-D-tuned electric guitar to kick-start “Dust My
Broom” with what is surely the most imitated slide riff in all of blues.
During the 1960s, “rediscovered” or newly discovered old-time artists
including Mississippi John Hurt, Sam McGee, Mance Lipscomb, and
Elizabeth Cotten recorded acoustic versions of Worrall’s tunes. Soon Jesse
Ed Davis, Johnny Winter, Duane Allman, and others were carrying open G
and open D into mainstream rock and roll, and these tunings still thrive
today. And whether they know it or not, anyone who uses them owes at
least a passing nod of appreciation to Henry Worrall.

But whatever happened to old Mr. Worrall? I am delighted to report that

he led an amazing life. In 1869 he moved to Topeka, Kansas, for his health.
For decades he gave guitar concerts and lectures and played organ in
church. He became a celebrated painter and illustrator, his artwork
appearing in important books on Western history and the nationally
popular periodicals Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
Newspaper. His famous oil painting “Drouthy Kansas” convinced people
around the country that the great Kansas drought of 1860 was indeed a
thing of the past. Worrall carved wood – including the Kansas State Seal –
and invented several wind and hay instruments. He cultivated grapes and
kept a large vineyard. He was well known for his pranks, and into old age
he enjoyed accompanying male pupils as they serenaded girls in local
colleges. This delightful man passed away in 1902. Today, the Kansas State
Historical Society makes an impressive collection of original Henry
Worrall materials available to researchers. Are you listening, Ken Burns?
.

Thanks to John Renbourn, Stefan Grossman, Ry Cooder and David Rodum

for sharing their insights

Donations to help maintain this Archive are appreciated.

© 2010 Jas Obrecht. All rights reserved. This article may not be reposted
or reprinted without the author’s permission.