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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZBOGGS, Doc(b Moran Lee Boggs, 7 Feb. 1898, Norton VA; d '71) Singer, songwriter and banjo player. He was a miner for more than 40 years. He acquired his playing style (using two fingers and a thumb instead of normal one finger and thumb clawhammer method) from a local black musician. He recorded eight tracks for Brunswick '27, accompanied on some by Hub Mahaffy's guitar. He made four more sides '29 for Lonesome Ace, a label owned by W.E. Myer, a shopkeeper who wrote lyrics; on Lonesome Ace he was accompanied by Emry Arthur on guitar. He went back down the mine and stayed there during the Depression, returning to full-time music in the mid-'50s, popular at folk festivals. He recorded for Folkways in the 1960s, which also reissued the early sides, out of print again when Folkways went out of business. All the sides from the 1920s have been restored on Dock Boggs: Country Blues, a marvelous Revenant CD which includes five alternative takes of the Lonesome Ace recordings, plus two tracks each by Boggs's compatriates Hayes Shepherd, banjo and vocal, and Bill Shepherd, fiddle and vocal. One could describe Boggs as a white equivalent of somebody like Robert Johnson: the Revenant CD (with an excellent booklet) is a harrowing collection of southern mountain refrains from an 'old, weird America', echoes of which can still be heard today. |