[Blues #1 3/21/83: Lafayette Leake, Queen Sylvia Embry]

Onstage discussion with blues musicians Lafayette Leake and Queen Sylvia Embry.

00:01Copy video clip URL Color bars. 

00:30Copy video clip URL Camera opens on a concert poster for Queen Sylvia Embry. Cut to a host, Barry Dolins, sitting onstage with Lafayette Leake sitting at a piano. Leake and Dolins talk about him moving to Chicago from Mississippi in 1940. Leake speaks a bit about his hometown and starting to play piano professionally once he got to Chicago. Dolins asks about music that inspired him, and he mentions blues, jazz, pop, and religious music. 

6:35Copy video clip URL Dolins asks him to play a song. He begins playing.

9:15Copy video clip URL After the song, he calls it an “old time boogie.” They talk about his time at DuSable high school. He talks about some songs that he composed or recorded.

16:33Copy video clip URL Leake plays another song. Song ends. Brief pause and he plays another song and sings.

25:00Copy video clip URL Song ends. He says that he wrote the song in 1958. He talks about a couple kinds of music that he played in that time period. They talk about the difference between some of the genres and sub-genres. Leake notes that personal style has as much of an effect as genre. Leake tells a story about watching gospel musicians perform and being inspired to learn to play in all 12 keys.

38:25Copy video clip URL Dolins asks him to explain what it means to play “in time,” or to “break time.” They talk about the concept, but Leake does not quite explain it. Dolins invites Queen Sylvia Embry to come onstage. She explains that she came to Chicago in 1961 from Tennessee. Embry talks a bit about what it was like to be a professional female musician. She says she played bass for Lefty Dizz for six years, but has been performing independently for two. She talks about meeting Leake on a tour through Europe.

44:45Copy video clip URL They perform a song together. Song ends. They talk about their roles as musicians in different contexts. 

51:40Copy video clip URL They start another song together. 

56:30Copy video clip URL Song ends. Fade to black. 

57:45Copy video clip URL Tape ends.

[Continued in Tape 19421].

 

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