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Great baritone sound

That's a pretty banjo and it sounds good with your voice.

Likewise it is unrepresentative to play Cannon's music on a banjo that represents an early gourd banjo, the type of instrument that was not widely played by Black people after the 1840s or 50s. Gus Cannon only ever played frame headed steel strung manufactured banjos who were at the height of their construction in the 1890s when he started playing banjos. The Banjo used to make "Going to German" was either the Washburn "Professional" banjo he used on his publicity picture that was probably made around 1912 or more probably a Van Eps Recording banjo, a very speicalized banjo designed by the top ragtime recording banjoist in the world for recording artists. Cannon probably never ever saw anyone play a gourd banjo. You could not play his music as he played it on such an instrument. Cannon focused on loud playing in large part because his performance location was either busking or playing dances, or performing in big medicine shows in the era before amplification. He said he once tried using finger picks, but he stopped doing so because he played so loud that he broke the picks.

This song was created sung and features the impassioned vocal of the great Noah Lewis who was born in 1890 who had lived his entire life in the country around Memphis and Mississippi until he sang this song in Memphis. His vocals with Cannon's Jug Stompers and his one recording after the Stompers with the "Noah Lewis Jug Band" offer some of the deepest Blues from a blusician who came up where the Blues was born when it was born, rather than a precursor to the Blues. The recording was hardly a precursor of the blues, but along with Lewis's other vocal and harmonica selections among Cannon's recordings, some of the deepet blues ever made, with his two recordings with Cannon of the immortal "Viola Lee" blues ranking as the best, music that no ears should be without.,

Black music was never the narrow progression from one form that folk music or blues music or jazz music revivalists in the late 20th century became entranced with to another, a narrow road to what the particular fancier thinks is meaningful, but a broad stream of multiple forms of music some folk, but for a money-making musician like Cannon who started making significant income from playing music at the age of 12 and was in his mid 40s when he recordinged "Going to German" There was a much broader stream of music played. Cannon got to record a much broader variety of tunes than other musicians because his repertoire in big time medicine shows was meant to be nostalgic. The commercial cycle that new music must be recorded only that record companies and radio stations and music publishing established since the 1940s did not exist in the 1920s.

Narrow minds tend to think Black people only made blues or later jazz, and Black music of some time is some kind of precursor of the blues, rather than understanding the broad variety of different musics that Black musicians including those who became known as blues musicians to blues and folk revivalists in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.Cannon's music was not a precursor to anything, except the recordings of a Black Southern entertainer of his age (born 1883) who had a popular following. Paramount recorded Cannon because the main person in Memphis who sold their records had asked Parmount if they could record him and he arrived at their studio accompanied by two band mates from the medicine shows who had successful blues recordings. A former Paramount A & R man told Cannon Paramount would probably record him when Cannon accompanied Furry Lewis and Jim Jackson to Jim Jackson's Vocalion recording of Kansas City Blues in 1927, after they all had ended up in Chicago at the end of a medicine show tour and toured the record companies asking to be recorded. The broadness of his repertoire that got recorded was probably equalled by other musicians seen today as primarily blues musicians of his age if they had been allowed. The significant additional component was a significant number of Black ragtime popular songs that had been "hits" among Black people from the 1890s to the 1910s. He he made only one recording "Feather Bed" that could be considered a folk song. He recorded at least one instrumental that reference "Jazz" in its title, and we know the band he performed in medicine shows called itself a "Jazz Band."

It is wildly inaccurate to claim that Gus Cannon's music was any kind of "precursor" of the Blues. Cannon was born in Mississippi in 1883, moved to the Mississippi Delta in 1895 when he was 12, spent most of the rest of his life living either in Memphis or the Mississippi Delta. His recording present a more accurate picture of the variety of music that blues musicians and musicians in the Mississippi Delta played in the era when the Blues was popular, than the view that Blues were the only or even the chief music plebian African Americans played in this period. He did record ragtime popular songs that were popular at the turn of the century, but most of the great blues masters like Charlie Patton or Robert Johnson could have recorded such music if they were asked. Cannon's profession was to work in big time medicine shows that toured the South and the Midwest carried by their private railroad cars. They focused on providing "old time" entertainment and were willing to promote a banjo player with an old-time repertoire, Gus Cannon himself did not think much of old time tunes, as opposed to blues, ragtime, and popular music and only recorded one old tme tune commercially. Most of the recordings he made between 1927 and 1930 that were not blues includng his famous "Walk Right In" were reworkings of published Black popular songs associated with Ragtime written by Black show business song writers.

This song which was probably by Noah Lewis, Cannon's Genius harmonica player who sang it. Ir was written about Germantown, Tennessee a small town South of Memphis At the time it had a few hundred people huddle around a whistle stop for the railroad. Germantown was named at the surveyor and real estate developer who founded it without much success in the late 19th century whose last name was "German," although in recent years since it has become an "upscale: suburb it has developed a false claim of a relationship with Germany or German immigrants. The way things worked, this recording was made in Memphis, and Ralph Peer would ship the master recordings back to the Victor Records operation in New Jersey, and someone who had no knowledge or access to the recording artist, her or his culture, or much of anything did all the final paperwork that ended up on the label. Wrong names for tunes, and even for the artists ' names were frequent and regular, .

This is so great. Your banjo is like an extension of our voice

I'm ready to die

super dope. beautiful instrument.

Well done friend, thanks for tickling my soul :)

noice

Sounds great!

It's so stubby and cute, it's a banchode.

Everything about this is great.

That's so cool

Stunning

Can I ask what tuning you are using here? This is such a lovely cover!

Wonderful voice. Gorgeous banjo. A great time all around.

awesome! do you know the exact tuning youre playing in?

Great sound! 👍👍👍. May I ask you to show your banjo?

Yeah man, a work of art! Double C tuning is my favorite tuning.

i think about this cover on an almost daily basis your voice and your playing are so beautiful

wow...that sounds great!

Fan. Tas. Tic!!!! Love it. Keep two-finger pluckin' and singing. That was great.

Such a sweet soft sound; I’ve been watching videos on banjo making recently for some reason, and this got rec’d. Never heard a gourd banjo before (I just learned about them a couple hours ago), that’s so totally unique and I love it

You're a beautiful soul. Please don't stop.

Мне нравится и инструмент и артист и песня❤️💛💚

That is one funky, fretless banjo. Looks like you are using steel strings, which is unusual for a fretless banjo. I’m going to learn that song on my fretless “Carver” banjo.

This is unbelievably good!!

Very cool!

Awesome version! Thanks for sharing it.

Man, you have got a wonderful voice.

I would love to hear you play the gospel plow

God bless

Please don’t stop keep on keep on going

This is so wonderful

Sounds great!

Dang, that was really lovely.

finally someone who actually sings in the same register as the instrument! absolutely great!

This sounds so beautiful! If you ever find yourself in Michigan I would love to collab. I'm over in Kalamazoo.

🔥 ❤

More like an "oud" (north african instrument) than a banjo

WOW. I can dig it.

Thanks youtube recommended- and thank you! This sounds like what waking up at sunrise after a good nights sleep feels like.

This is the shit right here. Love this arrangement.

Beautiful playing! Gourd banjos are so awesome

Beautiful Instrument! 😍❤️

I’m so incredibly grateful to have stumbled onto this.