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I just added a 1968 blues solo guitar song with lyrics by John Jackson called Bear Cat Blues and a cover performance that credited Jackson and he has a BMI registry. I then went searching for more covers and ran across a Dec 8 (or 14th), 1927 instrumental by Lonnie Johnson called Bearcat Blues (that he has a registry for) and they seem similar. So I would appreciate someone's listening to them and letting me know if Jackson copied Lonnie's tune or not. Frankly I'm hoping the answer is no because the recording for Lonnie is on a release that is very confusing. The video of his performance seems to be just him playing solo guitar with no accompaniment or singing. However it appears this was released on Gennett 6378 and credited to "Jimmy Blythe" (who isn't a guitarist and who Lonnie did record with on a number of songs that same day, but they all seem to be credited to Blythe - but I can't confirm that without the visuals). Since it's so confusing I'm hopeful the answer is John Jackson's song is his own (plus someone presumably other than Lonnie wrote the lyrics)
Lonnie's 1927 recording
John Jackson's 1968 song:
This is from Jimmy Blythe's Discography website:
Bearcat Blues with Lonnie Johnson (Blythe as Buddy Woods) 13300 Gennet 6378 Chicago, December 14, 1927
This is from 78 Discography Gennet 6000 series:
6378 JOHNSON HENRY DOWN HOME SPECIAL G12725 - - 4/20/27 -
6378 BLYTHE JIMMY BEARCAT BLUES G13300 - - 12/8/27 -
Last edit: 2020-09-23 17:56:04 UTC by mduval32323
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Mark