In honour of Britt Freda's exhibit, Fowl Brood, we asked Vashon Island musicologist and writer Ed Leimbacher if he knew any songs about chickens. Without much rumination, Ed began to chirp. Here is what we heard:
Fowl of a feather brood together... and when they do, a soundtrack is a nice addition eggsactly. Chicks and roosters, hens a-scratchin', they all dig the old-time sound of the barnyard, whether Black, White, or Blues.
Take "Cluck Old Hen," for example, recorded by Taj Mahal on an early double album, and a splendid feature for his rolling, cackling banjo and sly talkalong, not to mention serious musicological learning. Or the Old Timey duo of Arthur McClain and Joe Evans recorded in 1931 (in the heart of New York City!), their syncopatin' mandolins rippling right on through "Old Hen Cackle." And anyone of a certain age likely remembers Chicago blues giant Howlin' Wolf (and then the Rolling Stones) dissing that "Little Red Rooster"--"too lazy to crow 'fore day," but still able to rise to the right occasion!
Well, this occasion definitely merits a pondering of the chickens of music. Oldtimers galore sang about "chickens crowin' on Sourwood Mountain" ("So many pretty girls you can't count 'em"), while Cannon's Jug Stompers honored the anti-distaff side back in 1929 or so with "The Rooster's Crowing Blues." (But hear this: unknown blues dude Walter Rhodes had waxed "The Crowing Rooster" before them in 1927, playing his accordion! Sea shanty blues, anyone?)
Still, some later "yardbird" connections could be even more esoteric: Charlie Parker stopping to claim a roadkill hen (to cook for dinner) and earning himself a permanent nickname thereafter; Amos Milburn eighty-eighting a "Chicken Shack Boogie" that may have been referenced years later when jazz organist Jimmy Smith recorded "Back at the Chicken Shack"; and New Orleans funkmasters The Meters doin' the "Chicken Strut," which became a NOLA standard and was maybe distantly echoed when Zydeco giant Clifton Chenier (yes, more accordion) declared that we should all "Keep On Scratching." And who can forget British blues bands Chicken Shack and Atomic Rooster, or slide-guitarist Ry Cooder teaming up with the Pahinui family for some Hawaiian slack-key "chickenskin music"?
Do chickens really "roost behind the moon"? Or are all these... well, tracks... strictly for the birds?
Who cares? Just ignore those cackling critics.
Dance, you funky chicken. Play, fowl. Cluck, old hen.
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Wanna purchase some swell chicken, old timey, and American roots music? Like Amos Milburn's Chicken Shack Boogies Nos. 1 & 2; Clifton Chenier's Keep on Scratching; or The Cannon's Jug Stompers The Rooster's Crowing Blues. Write Ed at mrebks.books@gmail.com, or visit: www.mistere.com.
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