Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

For today’s show we head to Memphis circa the 1920’s and 30’s. Memphis was was loaded with talent, many of which made records. Spotlighted today are artists such as Frank Stokes, Furry Lewis, Robert Wilkins, Memphis Jug Band , Gus Cannon and several others.

In the notes to Yazoo’s Memphis Masters, Don Kent writes: “Of all the Southern cities that flourished with traditional blues in the period between the world Wars, none offered more dazzling diversity and top-drawer quality musicians than Memphis. The city’s geographical and economic position in the 1920’s was as the center of cotton and agricultural transactions, insuring a flow of itinerant laborers, especially during the fall harvest. Following the jobs and money, musicians came from Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas countryside. …The size of Memphis, and the pool of talent on which it was able to draw, attracted record companies who sought salable talent to offer their customers. Beale Street, with it’s wide-open vice, gambling and barrelhouses, was an attraction in itself to the rural out-of-towner intent on a good time and, since the early 1900’s, a gathering place for musicians looking for work. There is a pronounced ragtime and country-dance flavor to Memphis blues, in addition to vaudeville, medicine show, jazz and pop influence as well as the different regional styles brought by musicians from other areas. Most of the musicians who established roots in Memphis knew each other, played together.”

The show kicks off with several tracks by Frank Stokes. As Don Kent notes: “If there was any one person who epitomized Memphis blues, it would have to be Frank Stokes, whose diversified repertoire seemed to embody black rural music up to the point of his recording.” Stokes was already playing the streets of Memphis by the turn of the century, about the same time the blues began to flourish. A medicine show and house party favorite, Stokes, either solo, with Dan Sane (as The Beale Street Sheiks) and sometimes fiddler Will Batts, Stokes recorded 38 sides for Paramount and Victor between 1927 and 1929.

Furry Lewis was another major Memphis figure. Lewis’s musical start took place on Beale Street in the late teens, where he began his career. Lewis’s recording career began in April 1927, with a trip to Chicago to record for the Vocalion label, which resulted in five songs. In October of 1927 Lewis was back in Chicago to cut six more songs. Lewis gave up music as a profession during the mid-’30s, when the Depression reduced the market for country blues. At the end of the 1950’s blues scholar Sam Charters discovered Lewis and persuaded him to resume his music career. Gradually, as the 1960s and the ensuing blues boom wore on, Lewis emerged as one of the favorite rediscovered stars of the 1930s, playing festivals, appearing on talk shows, and recording.

Robert Wilkins was another prominent Memphis bluesman who, like Lewis, was originally born in Mississippi but made his fame in Memphis. Wilkins’ early performing life included touring with small vaudeville and minstrel shows. In 1928, he met Ralph Peer of the Victor label and was invited to cut four songs. Vocalion recorded eight new songs the following year. In 1935 he cut four more sides for Vocalion and shortly afterwards joined the Church of God in Christ and became a minister. Wilkins was rediscovered in the 1960’s and performed and recorded gospel material along with the blues. In 1964 he recorded the wonderful Memphis Gospel Singer for the Piedmont label which unfortunately has not been issued on CD.

Born in Hernando, Mississippi in 1890, Jackson took an interest in music early on, learning the rudiments of guitar from his father. By the age of 15, he was already steadily employed in local medicine shows and by his 20’s was working the country frolic and juke joint circuit, usually in the company of Gus Cannon and Robert Wilkins. After joining up with the Silas Green Minstrel Show, he settled in Memphis, working clubs with Furry Lewis, Gus Cannon, and Will Shade. The 1920s found him regularly working with his Memphis cronies, finally recording his best-known tune, “Kansas City Blues” and a batch of other classics by the end of the decade. He also appeared in one of the early talkies, Hallelujah!, in 1929.

In addition to the above mentioned bluesman, Memphis had a jug band scene. Among those who recorded, and who we feature today, are the Memphis Jug Band, Cannon’s Jug Stompers and the South Memphis Jug Band. One of the definitive jug bands of the ’20s and early ’30s, the Memphis Jug Band was comprised of Will Shade, Will Weldon, Hattie Hart, Charlie Polk, Walter Horton, and others, in various configurations. Guitarist/harpist Will Shade formed the Memphis Jug Band in the Beale Street section of Memphis in the mid-’20s. A few years after their formation, Shade signed a contract with Victor Records in 1927. Over the next seven years, Shade and the Memphis Jug Band recorded nearly 60 songs for the record label. A remarkable musician, who could play five-string banjo and jug, Gus Cannon led the Cannon’s Jug Stompers in’20s and ’30s. The early 1900’s found him playing around Memphis with songster Jim Jackson and forming a partnership with Noah Lewis. He cut close to three dozen sides between 1927-1930. He continued to record into the ’30s as a soloist and with his incredible trio, which included Noah Lewis along with guitarists Hosea Wood or Ashley Thompson. He resumed his stalled recording efforts in 1956 with sessions for Folkways. Subsequent sessions paired him with other Memphis survivors like Furry Lewis. Singer/guitarist Jack Kelly was the front man of the South Memphis Jug Band. He led the group in tandem with fiddler Will Batts, and they made their first recordings in 1933, followed in 1939 by a second and final session. Although the South Memphis Jug Band’s lineup changed frequently, Kelly remained a constant, leading the group in various incarnations until as late as the mid-’50s.