From: searls@buphy.bu.edu (David Searls)
Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan
Subject: Re: Candy man
Date: 20 Nov 92 23:06:44 GMT
Organization: Boston University Physics Department

There has been much confusion here recently about "Candy Man".
Since this is a subject dear to my heart I thought I would clear
a few things up.

First:

In article <libfgr.722220163@gsusgi1.gsu.edu>, you write:
|> paul.fletcher@rose.com (paul fletcher) writes:
|> 
|> >    When I was in a store recently I heard a song I liked the sound 
|> >of.  It was an acoustic song with a Dylan like vocal with the words 
|> >"Candy Man" in it.  I asked the manager what the cassette was and he 
|> >said he thought it was Hot Tuna.  Can anyone help me out here as to 
|> >who it possible could have been.
|> 
Jorma Kaukonen, the one who sings and plays guitar in Hot Tuna
has recorded Candy Man several times.  The Candy Man he plays is
the version done originally by the Rev. Gary Davis.  Rev. Davis
claimed he first heard this song at a medicine show in 1905.
In the 60's he played mostly religious material, but would
occasionally do blues, especially with his students.  There
is an album of his that is mainly ragtime instrumentals where
he does a "two-step" Candy Man and a Waltz time Candy Man--it
says on the liner notes that when he was you he would play this
song at dances for several hours at a time.
Anyway, during the 60s he taught played in the New York folk clubs
and taught guitar lessons.  Most of the great blues players of the
era were students of his at one time or another: David Bromberg, 
Stefan Grossman, Bob Weir, Roy Bookbinder and many others.
Jorma was never actually a student of Gary Davis, but learned his
songs from another gary davis student.  Jorma will usually do
about 10 Gary Davis songs in a normal show; he is really worth
seeing if you get the chance.
Almost everyone in the "folk" scene of the 60s did some gary davis
songs.  Dylan did Candy Man, Baby Can I follow you down, Cocaine, and
probably a few others.  I really like the Dave Van Ronk interpretations
too, especially his "Samson and Delilah".
So, if you liked what you heard in this store I would highly recommend
Jorma(the album Quah is a good place to start).

|> 
|> Chances are it was Donovan -- he sounded a lot like Dylan when he
|> started out, and he did an accoustic song called "Candy Man."  I'm
probably not, but as I said, many people have done the gary davis Candy Man.

in Article: 6252 of rec.music.dylan
>>Subject: Dylan's Newport Years
>>Message-ID: <vuyk.95.721995073@let.rug.nl>
also touches on Candy Man:
>>Hans Bosch writes:
>>" You're gonna quit me - the song that provides the album's title - was 
>>recorded in the late 20's by "Blind" Arthur Blake (real name Arthur Phelps), 
>>who (presumably) died in 1933.

>>It is quite possible that Dylan is familiar with the song through Reverend "
>>Blind" Gary Davis. Davis appeared at the Newport Festivals in both 1963 and 
>>1965, so the two men might have met each other.
>>Davis also recorded Candy Man in 1957 (played of course by Dylan in his 
>>early days) and I can't be satisfiedin 1960. Does anybody know if the latter 
>>is the same song as the one written by Muddy Waters that Dylan recently 
>>opened a few shows with?

As Paul Searls(hey I know him) writes the dylan version sounds alot more
like the Mance Lipscomb version that is on "Mance Lipscomb, Folk
Songster and Texas Sharecropper"(Arhoolie I think).  


>>At the 1964 Newport Festival "Mississippi" John Hurt made an appearence, 
>>fragmentarily captured in the movie "Festival". He made his first recordings 
>>in february 1928, one of eight tracks being "Frankie", which could very well 
>>be "Frankie and Albert", since a version by Hurt is on one of his first 
>>albums. Incidentally John Hurt, who died in '66, also recorded "Candy Man" 
>>and another Dylan-familiar song "Worried Blues" in 1964."

The Candy Man that John Hurt did is a completely different song from the
Gary Davis one--but a great song as well with a very funny and obscene 
lyric.



-- 

david searls
searls@buphy.bu.edu
Boston University Physics Department