Eddie One-String Jones

Musical Heritage Page

The Provenance Of The Songs

WARNING.

This might just be the most RAW music you have ever heard. If you are a musicologist you will “get” Eddie immediately. In these recordings, Eddie sings the blues for a small group of musicologists at the mansion of Fred Usher, a musicologist, in the Hollywood Hills. Eddie’s music is absolutely unique.

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Fred Usher heard that Eddie was hanging around downtown LA and grabbed his VERY expensive portable Nagra 2-track and immediately went to the LA “slums” to find Eddie. Not only did he find him, he was very agreeable to doing an in-home recording session. Eddie didn’t want to record in downtown LA, so Fred Usher drove him home to his mansion. Fred called several guests to be an audience for Eddie. Meanwhile, Eddie stripped the wire from a common broom because it was “three-quarter steel.” Then he emptied a half pint of bourbon and proceeded to use the empty bottle as a slide—the way slide guitar players use a small glass tube placed over one of their fingers. Next he pounded two nails into a two-by-four. He wrapped the steel wire around the nails and then drove two blocks of wood under the steel string to bring it up to “pitch.” Hitting the string with a branch while using the empty booze bottle as a slide, he proceeded to record what you hear. 

The instrumentation is Eddie’s voice, a broom wire, a two by four, two nails, an empty bourbon bottle and a stick Eddie found outside.

This music was recorded by Fred Usher. If there are any “rights,” they have long ago expired. Eddie was not paid, and there is no copyright. If your name is Fred Usher and you’re 125 years old, then these recordings could be said to be yours. If you’re not, these recordings do NOT belong to you.

The recordings of Eddie One-String Jones are VERY rare. I think that The Jefferson Starship had them. This resulted in the song they performed about a chauffeur.—Sherman

Come On And Be My Chauffeur

Come on and be my chau-fer
Come on and be my chau-fer
I want you to drive me
I want you to drive me downtown . . .

A very slightly “naughty” song about riding around with women. For part of the song Eddie sings the mans’s part, for part of the song he sings the women’s part. He’s careful to let us know.

Come Back Baby

Heart full of sorrows
eyes full of tears
we laid ‘round together
for so many years . . .

Goin’ Away

Well it’s rain-en here
and it’s stor-min’ on the sea
I wanna do my rider
She do ev-rey-thing for me

Rollin’ and Tumblin’ Blues

That’s when your baby ‘done’ left you
You can’t rest behind that . . .

Well my baby got teeth like the lighthouse on the sea
And every time she smiles, man, she throw down those lights on me
Well you start livin’ and you can’t keep with that one you love
You know that make life so mis-able you grieve like some turtle dove

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