Two Flat Caps is a blues and roots duo based in the Byron shire, Australia, consisting of Dan Reade and Matcham Caine.

Two Flat Caps

The Caine Cutters Blues Band - Help Me

As far as I know Sam Chatmon wrote this song, also known as Who Gonna Love You Tonight. Chatmon played in the Mississippi Sheiks who had a big hit with Sitting On Top Of The World. Chatmon is related to various Mississippi musicians including Charley Patton.

Who Loves You Tonight

If you've heard the blues, you've heard this song. It's a standard. Robert Johnson made it famous first, and then the Blues Brothers and Eric Clapton. Gotta love the line 'I'm going back to California, my sweet home Chicago'. Clearly California then as now is as much a state of mind as a place. Incidentally this version of the song is indebted more to Johnny Shines than RJ. Johnny toured with RJ and they often played together. They probably both put their twist on somebody else's version very much like it.

Sweet Home Chicago

Railroad Worksong aka Take This Hammer is closely related to Nine Pound Hammer and They Killed John Henry. It's a type of "hammer" song originally performed by African-Americans in the years following slavery when they were often forced to work in chain gangs. Gangs would perform songs like this as they drove railroad spikes into the ground, broke rocks etc. Often you hear a pause between the lines and that's where the hammer or axe would fall. Leadbelly demonstrates this in his version of Take This Hammer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=280ZECc773g).

Railroad Worksong

Death Don't Have No Mercy is a Piedmont style of blues, originally recorded by Reverend Gary Davis. The Piedmont style is all about fingerpicking with the thumb and fingers working independently. The song itself is a traditional spiritual.

Death Don't Have No Mercy

Peg Leg Howell is so named after his lost his right leg in a fight with his brother-in-law. As a result, he began working full-time as a musician, playing street corners and selling bootleg liquor on the side. Later he lost his left leg too, to diabetes. Low Down Rounder is unusually personal and hard hitting emotionally as a result.

Low Down Rounder

Tomorrow Night was a huge hit for Lonnie Johnson, a lesser known blues guitarist today but nevertheless one of the important pioneers in the transition from solo acoustic blues to electric blues soloing.

Tomorrow Night

This was first recorded by Blind Joe Reynolds. Yet another blues musician who really was blind - in Joe's case by a shotgun to the face. Credit for this song's popularity today must go to Eric Clapton who recorded it for Cream's Disraeli Gears album and who also later performed it acoustically.

Outside Woman Blues

One Kind Favour is probably better known as See That My Grave is Kept Clean, first recorded by Blind Lemon Jefferson. Many have recorded it since including Bob Dylan on his first album and Lightnin' Hopkins as One Kind Favor. For years Blind Lemon's gravesite was unmarked; finally a marble gravestone was erected and to this day a committee ensures that his grave is indeed kept clean.

Matcham Caine

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