Song of the Day
Rory Block at recent performance
Terraplane Blues- Rory Block Terraplane Blues is an old Robert Johnson blues song from the Thirties. A Terraplane is the model of an automobile manufactured by the Hudson Motor Company between 1932 and 1939. Johnson's poetic use of the Terraplane is loaded with sexual innuendo.
The singer Rory Block is the finest interpreter of Robert Johnson's music which is no small feat considering that Johnson was a black male musician and Rory is a white female musician.
Rory Block was the daughter of Allan Block sometime folk musician who owned and operated the Block Sandal Shop on McDougal Street in Greenwich Village in the Sixties and Seventies. The shop became a hangout for folk musicians like Dave Van Ronk (
aka the Mayor of McDougal St.), Harlem street singer and master of the ragtime blues guitar Rev. Gary Davis, David Bromberg, Stephan Grossman and boatload of other aspiring musicians.
The main attraction (for the males) at the Block Sandal Shop was Allan's teenage daughter who red hot looking in addition to being a blues prodigy. Allan Block was a bit of a stage father and had been teaching Rory to play the blues since the cradle. I've seen her play several times and she is a better singer and guitar player than most of the old pros in Greenwich Village that schooled her to play the blues. She practically channels Robert Johnson on
Terraplane Blues.
Rory's first artistic muse was an elderly travelling companion of Robert Johnson's, Son House.
Rory Block was 15 years old when she met Son House. Two improbable people. A young teenaged Greenwich Village guitar prodigy and an older black man, 62, who had recorded nine of the most powerful blues pieces ever for the Paramount label in 1930. Rory said
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“After Son House's show at the Village Gate I had a chance to play for him. I will never forget his amazement as I played Willie Brown's ‘Future Blues. He was asking people: “Where did she learn to play like this?"
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Son was a close friend of Willie Brown's and was thunderstruck at Rory's performance. Son couldn't quite wrap his mind around the idea of this sweet looking adolescent girl playing gritty Mississippi delta blues.
Terraplane Blues was Robert Johnson's most challenging song to play on guitar because of the abrupt changes in tempo and the masterful right techniques required to play the song correctly. This video is shot nice and close, so you can see Rory's incredible right hand guitar technique where she strums, picks and pounds the guitar using all five fingers. She even slaps at the strings using the entire palm of her right hand.