Scott Dunbar
Scott Dunbar | |
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| Born | June 6, 1904 Lake Mary, Wilkinson County, Mississippi |
| Died | October 1, 1994 (aged 90) |
| Genres | |
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| Instruments |
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| Label | Fat Possum Records |
Scott Dunbar (June 6, 1910 – October 1, 1994) was a blues musician from Mississippi, U.S., who became known and critically appreciated later in life.
Early life
[edit]Dunbar was born on June 6, 1904, ostensibly the son of a former slave,[1]: 88–89 [2] in the Deer Park community, once a plantation, situated between the Mississippi River and the oxbow Lake Mary, west of Woodville and south of Natchez, in Mississippi, US.[2] He did not go to school and was musically mostly self-taught.[3] At the age of eight, as he later related, he made a guitar out of a "cigar box and a broomstick and some stream wire." His first "real" guitar he was gifted some two years later and, after some time, he was invited, according to his recollection, to play in a house band, led by a fiddle player.[2]
Career
[edit]Dunbar never had an illustrious career, leading a quiet life around his hometown. By all accounts, he never sought fortune nor fame; he lived a contented existence as a fisherman and river guide.[4] His music was first recorded by researcher Frederic Ramsey, Jr. in 1954.[4][n 1]
In 1970, the New Orleans-based label Ahura Mazda, released an album with Scott Dunbar tracks, titled From Lake Mary.[5] The record was noticed mostly by blues collectors aficionados and "across the pond" aficionados, especially in Britain. Yet, Dunbar was never moved to cash in on his small brush with popularity. In his liner notes to the Folkways series, Frederic Ramsey Jr. wrote that "Scott Dunbar [still] lives in a cabin anchored by wires to nearby trees. At night, when the small fleet of outboard motors is tied up at lake's edge, Scott pulls out his guitar and 'touches it up.'Working his way into a tune, Scot hums it along with the strings that begin to move under his fingers. His foot, pounding the caked mud, keeps time; the dry dirt comes up in clouds of dust, and soon the cake is patted smooth." Away from strangers, Dunbar would launch into songs about outlaws roaming the levee backwaters, escaped convicts,[n 2] and wanderers, all long dead.[4] Folklorist William Morris, who recorded Dunbar,[n 3] wrote that "in addition to being a songster who composed and sang a wide range of blues, [Dunbar] was a gifted storyteller whose tales vividly described the worlds of black religion, white fishermen, and the military at Camp Shelby, Mississippi."[6]
Death
[edit]Dunbar died on October 1, 1994, leaving his wife, Celeste, and their two daughters.[7][4]
Legacy
[edit]Dunbar was praised by Jeff Harris in Sunday Blues as a musician of "extraordinary and utterly singular ability."[4] Harris wrote that his guitar playing deployed a "strong drive" and cascading rhythm changes in the lower notes, while he vocalized over the higher ones with a technique that combined yodeling and scat singing. He came to develop a "highly individual style", which was removed from other blues currents while still being traditional.[4]
Dunbar's "primitive" acoustic music was taken up as being "hip" around the late 1990s and his output was liberally sampled, as were, during that period, other blues artists' tracks, most notably by Moby.[8]
Selected discography
[edit]| Side 1 | Side 2 |
|---|---|
| Who Been Foolin' You | That's Alright Mama |
| Little Liza Jane | Easy Rider |
| Memphis Mail | Richard Daley Blues |
| Vicksburg Blues | Sweet Mama Rollin' Stone |
| Forty-Four Blues | Blue Yodel |
| Goodnight Irene |
Notes
[edit]- ↑ Ramsey's music recordings were published in the 10-volume Folkways series Music from the South. The series' Vol.5, Song, Play And Dance, released in 1956, included four recordings of Dunbar’s music. See Sunday Blues (2008). Vol. 10, Been Here and Gone, issued in 1960, featured Dunbar's simply titled "Blues." See Folkways catalog.
- ↑ Only a winding stretch of the Mississippi River and its surrounding backwaters and levees separates Dunbar's home and the Louisiana State Penitentiary, colloquially known as the Angola Prison.
- ↑ William Ferris's Mississippi field-recordings were released by the Dust-to-Digital label as a multi-media box set titled Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented by William Ferris in 2018.
References
[edit]- ↑ Jackson, Joyce Mary (2022). "Chapter 3: African-American Sacred and Secular Identities in Mississippi's Pine Woods". In Walton, Shana; Carpenter, Barbara (eds.). Ethnic Heritage in Mississippi: The Twentieth Century. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781496843425.
- 1 2 3 "Scott Dunbar". Fat Possum Records. Retrieved August 29, 2026.
- ↑ Ward, Brian (2012). "Chapter 9: That White Man, Burdon - The Animals, Race, and the American South in the British Blues Boom". In Terry, Jill; Wynn, Neil A. (eds.). Transatlantic Roots Music: Folk, Blues, and National Identities. American Made Music Series. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781617032882.
I've never been to school in my life.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Harris, Jeff (October 22, 2008). "Scott Dunbar: Blues From Lake Mary". Sunday Blues. Big Road Blues. Retrieved August 29, 2026.
- 1 2 "Scott Dunbar From Lake Mary". Discogs. Retrieved August 29, 2026.
- ↑ "Visions of the Blues". Oxford American. March 30, 2017. Retrieved August 29, 2026.
- ↑ "1994: Local Blues Singer Dies - A memoriam to Scott Dunbar, the blues legend of Wilkinson County, Mississippi". Country Roads. August 28, 2023 [Winter 1994]. Retrieved August 29, 2026.
- ↑ Headley, Janice (March 12, 2018). "Gonna Find My Baby: The Stories Behind Ten Songs Moby Has Sampled". KEXP. Retrieved August 29, 2026.
External links
[edit]- "Oral Tradition and the Blues". PBS. 2003. Retrieved August 29, 2026.
- 1910 births
- 1994 deaths
- Blues musicians from Mississippi
- Blues revival musicians
- 20th-century African-American male singers
- 20th-century American male singers
- 20th-century American guitarists
- Guitarists from Mississippi
- Musicians from Mississippi
- American male singer-songwriters
- American lead guitarists
- American blues guitarists
- American blues singer-songwriters
- American male guitarists
- American street performers
- African-American guitarists
- African-American male singer-songwriters
- People from Wilkinson County, Mississippi
- Fat Possum Records artists
- Burials in Mississippi