Blood Ran Like Wine
1974 · Biography BLP-12048 · USA
- Artist
- Johnny Shines
- Title
- Blood Ran Like Wine
- Release
- Johnny Shines and Company
- Year
- 1974
- Label
- Biography # BLP-12048
- Format
- LP · Album
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Genre
- Blues · Blues
- Primary theme
- Post-War
Annotation
Johnny Shines, American Delta blues guitar player from Memphis, Tennessee, who specialised in slide guitar, toured with Robert Johnson in the 1930s and had the odd recording session in 1940s Chicago, although nothing was released at the time. But with the revival of folk and blues in the 1960s, Johnny Shines recorded some material. In 1966 he released the Vietnam War song "So Cold in Vietnam" (Testament Records # T-2212), narrated from the perspective of a soldier, who missed his sweetheart. In 1974 he released the track "Blood Ran Like Wine" (Biograph Records # BLP-12048), in which he sung about a man in a difficult position, in the first person: "standing in water...walking in the blood". It was then revealed that the narrator was fighting in a war: "no use in screaming and crying...in Vietnam".
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
About the artist
American blues singer-guitarist, born 26 April 1915 in Frayser (Memphis), Tennessee; died 20 April 1992 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. [Source: Wikipedia]