back again as it came onto my feed, i can see i gave it a like, and in 2024 this still gives me awe inspiring love to this moment... joy, happiness in that room and beyond 💗
Much of the folk music of the U.S. was imported from, and highly influenced by, the Scottish and Irish diaspora. The pentatonic scales of this traditional music mingled easily with the field hollers of early African American music. Traditional Scottish crofter cries of "Hawyooyerteezoot" and "Gettayyabaam" could often be heard among the call and response precursors to spiritual and gospel music, while the string and wind instruments allowed to Muslim Sahelian slaves lent themselves to an easy merging of styles with the Scottish fiddles and pipes. After evolving in the USA melting-pot, this music was eventually re-exported to the world as the Blues and its many variations. Wee Boaby often declared that he wasn't stealing from the blues tradition, he was just "borrowing it back".
Thanks Klee! We were up in Skye, Gairloch, Applecross, Achiltibuie, Tongue and Loch Ness a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, the wet and windy weather meant I couldn't fly the drone after Skye, so I missed out on some spectacular landscapes. Never mind, there's plenty more still to photograph.
The man, the myth, the legend... anyone who ever had the honor of rubbing his big, baggy baw-sack became famous... & some became parents to illegitimate children.
true story; in high school i told my girlfriend i'd treat her to a steak dinner at the fanciest place in town provided she make reservations under the name Jizzum. needless to say, the gorgeous young hostess was none too happy about having to announce to a crowded dinner crowd: "Jizzum, party of two." the price of that dinner against the bitchy look on the hostesses face while we couldn't help but giggle being led to our table, that along with the 30+ years of laughter recounting this story ever since; worth it!
Haha, good story. Wee Boaby's real name was, of course, Robert Chisholm. According to his unofficial biographer, Margaret "Shoogly Peg" Doddery, he only changed it because he was, "a gallus wee fud wi' a gammy heid fae aw that bevvy".
This is an outstanding find…and on vinyl no less!! Very few people know he was the influence behind such greats as Blue Baw Broonsie and One Slung Low. Fantastic guitar work.
Broonsie is still cutting about. He drinks in the Liquid Library (formerly the Stagger Inn) in Fendoch. He says, "I don't play any more, but then again, I don't play any less." Legend.
Ma maw kent his maw fae the steamy. She telt ma maw that they had a wind up record player wi wan record and aw Boaby did was scratch his baws and wear the needle oot. His maw wis demented. Then, like a star out of the sky, a guitar fell aff the back ae a lorry into Boaby's hands, fur ance, he took his itchy hauns aff is baws and started scratchin that fur a change. His maw telt ma maw that wis the best day of her life, it got Boaby oot the hoose during opening hours at the Stagger Inn. The punters used to ask Boaby to play some ither tune. He jist said 'whit fur, this is the best tune there is'.
Sad thing about Master Jizzum is, in his final days, he just went nutz. A pity, really. Given his notoriously bawsterous style, not many people would have suspected this, but there were some things that he just kept bottled up inside. But hey - let’s all raise a glass for Jizzum!
Och aye, this is the real deal! I had the rare pleasure of catching Wee Boaby Jizzum live at the Stagger Inn back in the early '60s, tearing it up with his unmistakable blend of bawbag blues. His voice could peel paint off the walls, and his guitar work? Pure genius, as if he had the spirit of a Scottish moor and the Mississippi Delta coursing through his veins. His legendary tunes weren't just musical-they were full-blown tales of life, woven with the raw, unfiltered threads of Fendoch's gritty streets and a hefty dose of cheeky jizzum jazz. Remember the night when "Fiddlin" Farquharson’s fiddle met Boaby’s bawbag blues in a duel that left the crowd in stitches? Pure magic! Some say it's all tales and tall drinks, but us old-timers know the truth of Boaby’s shleg-slapping genius. So let the skeptics natter on about authenticity-those of us who were there know the real spirit of Scotland’s unsung Blues King. Let’s not let the legend of Boaby and his bawbag serenades fade into the murky drizzle of a Fendoch morning!
First of all, I have to commend your bravery for venturing into The Stagger Inn at that time. The pub's reputation for violence and sundry unsavoury activities was widespread. In his 2023 photo essay, "Solo Supping: Unattached Drinking In A Scottish Pub" (Kindle Edition available for £2.50 from Amazon), Gerry Clark speaks with some of the locals of The Liquid Library (as The Stagger Inn is now called). One of them, Kenny, observes that it was, "...a bit stabby in the past...". By all accounts this is a massive understatement. Your memory of the Farquharson/Jizzum dual that "...left the crowd in stitches", was, for many of them, quite literal. Hopefully you escaped unscathed?
@@yobkulcha You nailed it with Gerry Clark's "Solo Supping"-captures the spirit of The Stagger Inn perfectly, which was indeed more than just "a bit stabby"! That night Farquharson and Jizzum went head-to-head is still talked about. Big Tam, the barman with his own stories to tell, would chuckle that the bawbag blues were as scrotal and soulful as the legends said, swinging as pendulously as anything beneath a kilt on a windy day at the Highland games. The energy was electric, the crowd was a mix of the rugged and the rhythmic, and the music had a raw, unfiltered edge. My stitches? From laughter, thankfully. Those nights were a gamble, but the memories are priceless. Here's to the legends of those raw bawbag-strumming evenings! Cheers to keeping those stories alive!
There's no direct evidence to suggest that Wee Boaby and Paolo are related. Most of the rumours surfaced in 2006 following the Big Weekend in Dundee, but all have been strenuously denied.
A rare example of the now sadly all but extinct Bluebaws genre. This grew out of the influence of classic sack-style Missouri blues on the “bawboys” youth subculture prevalent in working-class Glasgow at the time. A lot of these “Bluebawers” wrote songs that combined rural themes from traditional songs like “(Baby Dont Want my) Chicken Skin Sack” with the industrialized urban experience (such as “Soot Stains on Me Bawbag”). Reminds me of “The Ol’ Hydrocele Blues” which I actually heard live in a shack years ago, performed by the great Duncan Creamer.
You've obviously read the sleeve notes on the "Bluebaws In The Snaw" compilation LP. I regard it as the definitive guide to the genre. Sad that the record company excluded Wee Boaby from the album (the official story was that his excessive and olid flatulence was offputting to the other artists forced to share a confined studio with him but, unsurprisingly, there are rumours of hostility and vengeful interference from "Fiddlin" Farquharson, whose dark story is well documented elsewhere. I'm totally jealous that you saw Creamer. Did he do the thing with the horse? Amazing balance, but probably neither healthy nor legal these days.
When I saw him he was getting on in years and no longer as balletic or elastic as he had been. Hard living took a toll on him, not to mention that regrettable bout of priapic fever. Fortunately the horse was experienced and made up for Creamer’s somewhat torpid performance.
Unfortunately, there is very little memorabilia remaining following the infamous "Great Balls of Fire" incident. What little is left has been hoarded and is now jealously guarded by the MacGillycuddy Estate. Indeed, the photo used above was only recently released after the new owners of the Stagger Inn (now The Liquid Library) in Fendoch suggested that certain other documents might be publicly released if some compromises were not made. The MacGillycuddy family quickly, but reluctantly agreed. We can only surmise what treasures remain to be uncovered.
@@Christopher_Rush One of the secrets of Jizzum's innovative guitar style was the extra digit on his left hand and the lack of an opposable thumb on his right. These physical abnormalities contributed to the uniqueness of his musical endeavours. His "multi-appendage" approach to piano playing earned him a fanatical local following, several jail sentences, and, legend has it, inspired Jerry Lee Lewis. It's a little known fact that Lewis's hit, "Great Balls of Fire" directly referenced a spectacularly drunken duet performance of "Biggy Baggy Bawbag" by Jizzum and an unknown accomplice in 1956 which almost ended in tragedy and a wheelbarrow run to the Alloway Cottage Burns unit.
@@yobkulcha The duet with Frank "Two Nose" Buggins was legendary. Buggins could blast out a four part harmony on the kazoo. It was too much of a reach to perform the five part harmony, and in the end that was what killed him. Undeterred, his son Johnny "Blow Blow" Buggins (similarly nasally blessed) performed the elusive five part harmony on the Ed Sullivan Show. He also mastered the six part harmony, but that was not suitable for television audiences.
There are stories of a set he did whilst doing time at Barlinnie Prison for assaulting the swans at Fendoch Loch, but unfortunately no recordings have ever surfaced. The Campsie Courier of Feb 1953 reported that his improvised song, "Bar-L Boogie-Woogie", literally caused a riot, resulting in the loss of the prison warder's organ. It remains unclear whether this refers to a musical instrument or a body part.
I couldn't agree more. It should also be mandatory at every Scottish kickball contest at Hampden Park and the other kick/touchball events at Murrayfield. And at the daily opening of the Scottish Parliament.
